I keep coming back to this story in my life. I start to tell it here on the blog, but then give up every time. I want to describe this moment that seemed to change everything, but really changed nothing at all. It was just a moment...
When I was maybe eleven or twelve, my older brother played Senior League baseball. He loved sports and was very competitive. I was not a sports kid at all, and did not really like competition. In fact when my siblings got together to play a card game or a board game, I would always opt out, and they would sing to me: Every party has a pooper that's why we invited you, party pooper. Yup, that was their anthem for me. Ms Party Pooper. Maybe I've already told you all of this before, I can't remember. But this is about a story about a different memory, so I'll get back to it.
My older brother played baseball on long summer days in New Jersey. The whole family would go out to the field to watch him. He was a good ballplayer. We did a lot of things together as a family. We went bowling, or to Asbury Park, or out to dinner at Snuffy's. It was that era in the suburbs when we knew all of our neighbors, and we felt safe to be on the streets day or night. We played lots of different games, some that we made up, like treasure hunts or Baby Face Nelson and the gun moll (that would be me, of course). We put on plays, and played many games of pretend. I liked those the best.
Yet, as all siblings do, we each revolved in our own orbits. I wrote secret poems, and love songs to The Beatles. My twin brother had a paper route and wanted to be a drummer. My sweet little sister followed me around, hoping to catch up to be my age. My older brother played sports and went out on dates with girls. We lived under the same roof, four suburban kids in 1964.
I think it must be the August light that reminds me of this moment, but one August day in that long ago summer, I remember walking into our suburban home and seeing my older brother sitting in the white, curved family-room chair. He was wearing his baseball uniform and was talking animatedly about the game he'd just played. I stared at him for a long time, trying to understand what it was that made him my brother. How is it that this person and I are related as siblings? Who are we? Who would we have been if my mother had not married our father, or our father had married someone else? I found it exhilarating to consider the unique way we were connected. I stared at him, suddenly aware of our cells and how alike they must be. It made me feel closer to him than I ever had in my life. And strangely, at that moment, I felt a kinship with all humans. If my brother and I were this closely related, I wondered who else was I distantly related to; and wasn't I, if I could just trace back in time, related to everyone? How could it be otherwise, my 12-year old mind wanted to know.
That was the moment.
I wanted to break open all the rocks in the yard and look for fossils. I wanted to see the world through a microscope and telescope at same time. I suddenly wanted to understand everything all at once.
When I came back from that long stare, I saw that I was just looking at my older brother in his baseball uniform telling a story. I was just a girl who was giddy about the poetry of life.
Still am.
Do you have a moment that turned on the light switch to the world?
Photograph: Older brother behind the stroller, my twin brother and I being the Buddha twins, and cousin Donna hanging out with the family. Newark, New Jersey backyard of our apartment, circa 1954.
Pema Chodron talks of having a kinship with all living beings. You’ve put another twist or understanding to it. Fascinating.
ReplyDeleteLinda-- I think on some cellular level we're all one.
DeleteWhat a great story. It is mind-boggling when we first begin to consider our interrelationship with all beings! I don't know if I remember a specific moment like that -- but I had a neighbor down the street who was a biology professor, and he used to talk to his daughter and me about the universe and all the life it contained. He had some Time/Life books and he'd read them to us -- we called those periods of time our "science lessons," and I loved them! (Hmmmm...this might be a future blog post!)
ReplyDeleteSteve-- I love your story. How cool it must have been to have a biology professor neighbor who introduced you to the universe. That's the BEST! I hope you do a post about it.
DeleteI can't recall a moment like that in childhood though I clearly remember sitting in our apple tree and realising that it would never be that moment again. My mother had a twin brother and at times they felt very "connected" to each other even when miles separated them and it was not unusual for one to phone the other only to find the phone engaged and it later transpired that they'd both phoned each other at the same time.
ReplyDeleteJohn-- I love knowing that your mom had a twin brother. What a connection that is. Your apple tree experience is one of those revelatory moments, unforgettable.
DeleteWow, what deep thinker you were at an early age.
ReplyDeleteSharon-- I used to say that I was born old. It may be true!
DeleteI wonder how many people have the same thoughts as you about if" My mother hadn't married my Dad who or where would I be?" I can't remember one sunshiny moment as a turning point or turning on part of my life. Some moments were brighter than others. Great post.
ReplyDeleteRed-- It was quite moment for me. That cellular inter-connectedness surprised me.
DeleteWhen I was six, the black woman who had cared for us died. My mother took me with her when she went to the home to pay her respects. I played in the yard with the other children. It was the first time I had played with black children. As we were playing, it suddenly occurred to me that these children were just like me. That we were no different except for skin color. When I got home I excitedly told my older brother my revelation. His response? "You're crazy, stupid. They are not like us at all."
ReplyDeleteThis was pre-integration South but my mind was changed forever that day while playing with other children. I learned they were not different no matter what my brother said.
NCmountainwoman-- Such a beautiful openhearted revelatory moment. You had it right, my dear friend.
DeleteI totally agree that we are all really the same and only wish others could really feel it. It would end all the stupid wars and hate crimes we seem consumed with.
ReplyDeletePatti-- It would be such a moment on earth if we all realized it at once. Ah, the stuff of my dreams.
DeleteYour light in August story is beautiful and worth revisiting. There is something about the quality of light this time of year. Change is in the air in August.
ReplyDeleteEarlier this morning, I was thinking about the afternoon in August 28, 1963, when I walked into our living room in the suburbs of the San Francisco peninsula and heard a distinctive yet unfamiliar voice singing, accompanied by a guitar. My memory is that no one else was in the living room, but that could be due to my age at the time and my feelings of isolation. I was 13 years old and had never heard Bob Dylan's voice before but felt an immediate sense of inexplicable kinship. Our television was not usually on during the day. One or both of my parents had it turned on to witness the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Was it my mother? Was it my father? I don't remember any discussion about the events of that day. I don't remember being asked if I wanted to watch it with them. I was aware of the Civil Rights Movement but did not follow it closely In the moment I heard Bob Dylan's voice, I woke up me to the fact that I was not alone in the world. I sensed the presence of an older brother who was not afraid to speak out against injustice, who saw brothers and sisters where others didn't. With a little Googling, I see that the event that day was three hours long. I simply registered the sound of Bob Dylan's voice and went on with my day, failing to watch long enough to hear Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech. Thank goodness for YouTube which has allowed me to watch so much of what I missed on that day in August 1963.
am-- I love knowing that today is the anniversary of MLK's "I Have A Dream" speech. How beautiful in every way. Now I am going to go find Bob Dylan singing at the rally and be sent back in time 56 years. Oh the times we grew up in.
DeleteDo we ever stop wanting to know it all?
ReplyDeleteI hope not.
My light bulb moment was on a cold spring day when my father insisted I put my hand into a freezing cold stream to understand that everything flows or as he intoned: panta rei.
He thinks the Greek philosophers have an explanation for everything and would not even discuss the possibility that other thinkers found out that you cannot step into the same river twice.
Sabine-- I love your memory of putting your hand in the freezing cold stream. What a way to dip right into the flow of life and reality.
DeleteFor me, I think there was a sort of epiphany when I asked about the formations on the beach at our cottage -- many large, circular dome-shaped formations on the stony beach. The tops of them were sharp, but you could walk on the smooth areas that were about the width of your foot between each of these "bubbles". My dad told me they were stromatolites - a sort of fossil of a kind of organism that existed about 500 million years ago. I remember being amazed to think that my bare feet were touching something made by another living thing in what was almost an unimaginably long time ago. That and breaking open stones collected by my dad's friend -- that you broke open to see fossil fish inside -- were what got me started thinking about time as this very fluid thing in which we and the planet move through -- that things can be millions of years old, but still exist so that we might see them. There were other connected epiphanies -- like thinking that a piece of writing could speak for a writer who lived centuries ago -- I always thought that when reading poetry translations of Roman poets -- how the thoughts they expressed were the same thoughts we have now. I think about time quite a lot -- and it does go back at least as far as the day that my dad told me about the stromatolites.
ReplyDeletebev-- What a grand memory of such a moment. Knowing as a child that you could touch things that were millions of years old. It has a way of awakening in you a reality of the finite and the infinite. I hadn't thought about the persistence of words and writing. Such an interesting addition to the moments of awakenings.
DeleteRobin, you went to Snuffy's? and did you know that it's still there in Scotch Plains off Rte 22. i grew up in Plainfield, NJ, and so we were practically neighbors. I liked the Beatles so much that a friend and I wrote short stories featuring them when we were in H.S.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice-- Oh yes, we went to Snuffy's. I love knowing it's still there on Route 22. There was something about the Beatles and the times they ushered in. The best!
DeleteOh, this is so beautiful. You had a moment of revelation, when the oneness of everything was so crystal clear. I think you are a very advanced soul.
ReplyDelete37paddington-- It was a moment of revelation. It's good to remember it from such a long time ago.
DeleteI'm afraid I'm a slow learner. It seems like it took me forever to get where I am now. No moments of revelation, no epiphanies. Just plodding along, taking wrong turns and ending up on dead ends, finding myself along the way.
ReplyDeleteMark-- I like the way you describe your journey. I'm glad you got to where you are now.
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