This is me with my brother and sister-in-law on New Year’s Eve. I’ve adopted my bro’s group of friends, because I was rubbish about keeping in touch with people from high school, and now if I know anyone on the Island, it’s probably from my days of working in the theatre here.
Of course, Ian and Ellen’s gang are all married and have children, and two of them are even ministers, so we don’t have that much in common, yet they’re all fun, open-minded people, as well as having each become successful in their chosen careers. The geeks, as they say, shall inherit the earth.
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We started with dinner at Barry and Shannon’s. Barry shared an expression of his twin brother’s related to getting married: “Pulling the ring”. When I asked him what that meant, he illustrated by tugging at his ring finger then miming inflating like a life raft and the hair popping off the top of his head. I had a good laugh at that one. I don’t know if it’s my decade of attempted vegetarianism or my singledom, but I’m happy I’ve managed to dodge that one.
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After dinner, we went to “The Guild”, the bank where I opened my first account, which has now been converted into an arts and performance space. The crowd wasn’t quite who I expected — more like the parents of who I expected. These were not people accustomed to dancing more than once a year, either, so there were four styles on display that night:
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— The Straight-Guy Two-Step
— The Class-Takers. They danced well, but you could practically see their lips moving as they counted out their steps.
— The Zombie. He shuffled back and forth and from time to time stretched his arms out.
— The Electrocuted Chicken in Slow Motion. I loved this guy, with his hinged arms swinging from his shoulders. He was awful, but, dammit, he was expressive.
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The band was great. And I enjoyed being out with my bro’ and sis’. I don’t get to see that much of them, and whenever I hang out with my brother, I’m struck by how much I like him. Our ways of thinking, our sense of humour — it’s like we’re genetically predisposed to getting along.
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“¦Well, now. A few hours ago, as Mom, Dad, and I struggled to shove the tree away under the stairs, Mom found a photo from a Christmas ages ago. In the picture, I was about five, and I’d just opened a present. I looked overjoyed, and my mum pointed out that, from the edge of my brother’s face, it seemed like he was smiling. “See,” she said. I conceded that, okay, there must have been a few rare moments when we weren’t being nasty to each other. (Except on our camping trips, when suddenly we became each other’s best friend.)
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From the photo, my mum remembered a box, which she pointed out to me. “Could you take a look through that,” she asked, “and see if you want to keep it?”
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So for the past two hours (with a break from some excellent corn chowder Dad made), I’ve been on an archaeological dig through my past. Most of the bulk was tax receipts I was obliged to keep, but now they’re so old I could chuck them. Same with the zillion headshots from my acting days (even then I was cursed with the awkward rictus of an expression I still get whenever a camera is aimed at me). I chucked those, too.
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The other material, though, slowed me down: a hundred birthday and Christmas cards, stacks of letters from Mom with newspaper clippings inside, reviews from my last theatre gig, stray bits of creative writing, and material from the play I wrote and acted in with Cosgrove — promotions, reviews, posters, handbills, photos, and the working script. Then I found receipts and orders and notes of congratulations from the release of doubleZero.
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Pay stubs reminded me of jobs I’d forgotten, and letters and cards brought people back to mind who I’d forgotten about, some friends, some of them romances. I’ve fancied so many people through the years. Seeing some of those names, my mind immediately did what I call “black-booking”: going back through an old list of ‘possibles’, trying to find someone I could look up. But those people are so far away, and likely on to other things in their lives. Oh, and I live on another continent now.
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That stack of paper reminded me of some really difficult, low times, and it also made me acknowledge this life that I’ve built bit by bit. Something I wrote years ago on the corner of one of these pages feels apt: “The longest distance between two points is life.”
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Some family friends are here to say goodbye, so I’m going to go.
