Family Dream in Las Vegas
Sailor had stayed home all week
to give me time with my brother
and was eager to have me home
but when I got off the plane
I was but a musky husk
running on dramamine for the flight
and a ringing sort of Empty.
Sailor spooned slippery soft boiled eggs into my ramen bowl
and I slorped them into my mouth hole
while mumbling jumbled nonsense
about dazzling giant spheres with rumble seats,
and tolerating John Mayer now,
and OmegaMart's dirty Secret of the Source,
and asking why the dancing clowns
didn't spin in the air
like the pretty women do.
Once we got home I fell into bed with my clothes on
and just
STAYED THERE
till I had to go to work in 14 hours.
When I got back home from work,
I did it again.
I have vague memories of Sailor
waking me up to offer sun-warmed raspberries
from the garden rolling around on his open palm
and climbing into bed to rub my feet.
I remember trying to moan positive acknowledgement
and go back to sleep at the same time.
The spectacles,
the shows,
the bright lights and dice
crab cakes and wine
drink after drink after drink
between fast-car car-rides
and surrealist artistic confusions
and so much time speeding across the desert
from one fever dream filled with fatigues and oversized ordinance
and another filled with cagey croupiers.
I will remember the bespangled bachelorette parties walking like
majestic herds of golden hinds
Saturday Night strutting through glamorous casinos at 7pm;
crawling back down the same strip 5 hours later
maimed and bedraggled like panting deer ready to be put out of their misery
and hung over some duchy's saddle
after a royal dog hunt.
There was that aspect.
The sensory
and sensual parts
of drinks and gambling and shows
and goggling at IMAX-sized LED screens on the street corners
and monumental rock formations painted with cleanly drawn racing stripes
glaring down at us in the 115 degree Utah sun.
But the real core of the tiredness
and dazzle was
hearing what my brother is going through.
What he's been going through.
I came away
SO FUCKING IMPRESSED
with him
as a person.
That's the big thing.
We hardly know each other,
if I'm being honest
but he invited me into one of the roughest times of his life.
The sole intimate company
to a rebirth he is performing.
This moment was not
The Hardest Time.
He did that almost completely alone -
as far as I can tell.
It was more like
The Reckoning of... The Hardest Time.
This wasn't a new chapter.
This was a NEW BOOK he's starting
and he invited me into the prologue
to explain all that had happened BEFORE
so the new story can start.
I'm over 40,
and he's over 50,
and in a whirlwind of context he confirms
he might like it to start with us - being closer.
When I talk about the glitz and excitement
of the trip,
it is really just a bunch of fashionable clothing
our relationship was wearing at the time.
The meat and bones
of this last past week was all the talking we did.
He invited me
his measly weasely little sister
on his new journey forward/out/over.
We traveled through a portal together while we talked.
We traveled through time,
and we traveled through space,
and we traveled through each other's lives
for the first time, ever ...really.
And I have been changed by the honor of it all.
I am amazed.
I am so over the moon impressed by his resiliency,
his thoughtful nature,
his staid attitude,
his ambition, dedication, and intelligence,
his incredible heart...
I am doubly-lucky to truly find my brother,
and be accepted as his sister.
As a child with siblings
who always felt like
[and was raised as if I were]
an only child
it feels incredible
to have my brother again.
to give me time with my brother
and was eager to have me home
but when I got off the plane
I was but a musky husk
running on dramamine for the flight
and a ringing sort of Empty.
Sailor spooned slippery soft boiled eggs into my ramen bowl
and I slorped them into my mouth hole
while mumbling jumbled nonsense
about dazzling giant spheres with rumble seats,
and tolerating John Mayer now,
and OmegaMart's dirty Secret of the Source,
and asking why the dancing clowns
didn't spin in the air
like the pretty women do.
Once we got home I fell into bed with my clothes on
and just
STAYED THERE
till I had to go to work in 14 hours.
When I got back home from work,
I did it again.
I have vague memories of Sailor
waking me up to offer sun-warmed raspberries
from the garden rolling around on his open palm
and climbing into bed to rub my feet.
I remember trying to moan positive acknowledgement
and go back to sleep at the same time.
The spectacles,
the shows,
the bright lights and dice
crab cakes and wine
drink after drink after drink
between fast-car car-rides
and surrealist artistic confusions
and so much time speeding across the desert
from one fever dream filled with fatigues and oversized ordinance
and another filled with cagey croupiers.
I will remember the bespangled bachelorette parties walking like
majestic herds of golden hinds
Saturday Night strutting through glamorous casinos at 7pm;
crawling back down the same strip 5 hours later
maimed and bedraggled like panting deer ready to be put out of their misery
and hung over some duchy's saddle
after a royal dog hunt.
There was that aspect.
The sensory
and sensual parts
of drinks and gambling and shows
and goggling at IMAX-sized LED screens on the street corners
and monumental rock formations painted with cleanly drawn racing stripes
glaring down at us in the 115 degree Utah sun.
But the real core of the tiredness
and dazzle was
hearing what my brother is going through.
What he's been going through.
I came away
SO FUCKING IMPRESSED
with him
as a person.
That's the big thing.
We hardly know each other,
if I'm being honest
but he invited me into one of the roughest times of his life.
The sole intimate company
to a rebirth he is performing.
This moment was not
The Hardest Time.
He did that almost completely alone -
as far as I can tell.
It was more like
The Reckoning of... The Hardest Time.
This wasn't a new chapter.
This was a NEW BOOK he's starting
and he invited me into the prologue
to explain all that had happened BEFORE
so the new story can start.
I'm over 40,
and he's over 50,
and in a whirlwind of context he confirms
he might like it to start with us - being closer.
When I talk about the glitz and excitement
of the trip,
it is really just a bunch of fashionable clothing
our relationship was wearing at the time.
The meat and bones
of this last past week was all the talking we did.
He invited me
his measly weasely little sister
on his new journey forward/out/over.
We traveled through a portal together while we talked.
We traveled through time,
and we traveled through space,
and we traveled through each other's lives
for the first time, ever ...really.
And I have been changed by the honor of it all.
I am amazed.
I am so over the moon impressed by his resiliency,
his thoughtful nature,
his staid attitude,
his ambition, dedication, and intelligence,
his incredible heart...
I am doubly-lucky to truly find my brother,
and be accepted as his sister.
As a child with siblings
who always felt like
[and was raised as if I were]
an only child
it feels incredible
to have my brother again.