February: Rocking out with my big sister

Dancing to Hole’s album with the sea coming to our feet, I became friends with my sister again. With the night stars pinning the sky up above us, we danced off the sharp tequila that had shaken us. We shared headphones and one cassette tape in a cheap walkman. We were still kids then, sort of. We were old enough to drink tequila, but young enough that we didn’t have anyone counting on us. It makes you selfish, being young. It makes you be inside yourself as the centre of your world. It makes looking back from an older age have this filter of wonder, of the strangeness of yourself, of your younger self.

My big sister’s been a totem, an immovable object, substantial, magisterial, in my life. My big sister was the one who won at games. She has a fixed attention that she can give to things. My mind wanders around. I wanted to win at games, but you know. There is so much to think about.

My big sister was the one who would fist fight with me, making me so angry I had to leave home, but only for an afternoon. I just wanted to calm down. And it is still quite nice to walk alone without a destination in mind, and to sit on brick walls and to think about how there are different types of green in each leaf on each branch, or notice that there is another shopping trolley in the canal.

My big sister was the ferocious one of the two of us, although my little sister can give good brawl as well.

My big sister stuck up for me. I think she was like She Hulk, I mean, strong and sexy and clever.

I used to tell her stories when we shared bunkbeds.

When she went away to university I was happy. I thought I’d finally get some breathing space. No-one was going to hit me for being annoying anymore. When I went to visit her I got so drunk I fell backwards on a bridge over the Ouse. I got so drunk I tried to sleep in her garden while it was being used as a toilet by party goers. I held my head out of taxi windows and felt cold air in my face. I was still the little one, green gilled and knock kneed.

She gets to go first. She tries things out for me and my little sister. She’s good at everything. She is the light that we turn towards like sunflowers when she crosses a room. She’s a cartographer, mapping out being a grown up so that I can see where there be dragons, and where there’s solid land. I wonder if it’s lonely out there, surging forward over uncharted waves. I stand back from my telescope on the moon to rub my hands across my eyes before refocusing on her.

She’s still standing at the helm of a ship, a sword strapped across her chest her children in the riggings and a flaming torch in her hand, baying at the darkness.

1 Comment

  1. A friend on facebook, one Tunde Oyelakun, shared this and I think it’s also indictive of love/responsibility

    “A cruise ship met with an
    accident at sea. On the ship was
    a couple who, after having
    made their way to the lifeboat,
    they realized that there was only
    space for one person left.
    At this moment, the man pushed
    the woman behind him and
    jumped onto the lifeboat
    himself.
    The lady stood on the sinking
    ship and shouted one sentence
    to her husband.
    The teacher stopped and asked,
    “What do you think she
    shouted?”
    Most of the students excitedly
    answered, “I hate you! I was
    blind!”
    Now, the teacher noticed a boy
    who was silent throughout, she
    got him to answer and he
    replied, “Teacher, I believe she
    would have shouted – Take care
    of our child!”
    The teacher was surprised,
    asking “Have you heard this
    story before?”
    The boy shook his head, “Nope,
    but that was what my mum told
    my dad before she died to
    disease”.
    The teacher lamented, “The
    answer is right”.
    The cruise sunk, the man went
    home and brought up their
    daughter single-handedly .
    Many years later after the death
    of the man, their daughter
    found his diary while tidying his
    belongings.
    It turns out that when parents
    went onto the cruise ship, the
    mother was already diagnosed
    with a terminal illness. At the
    critical moment, the father
    rushed to the only chance of
    survival.
    He wrote in his diary, “How I
    wished to sink to the bottom of
    the ocean with you, but for the
    sake of our daughter, I can only
    let you lie forever below the sea
    alone”.
    The story is finished, the class
    was silent.
    The teacher knows that the
    student has understood the
    moral of the story, that of the
    good and the evil in the world,
    there are many complications
    behind them which are hard to
    understand.
    Which is why we should never
    only focus on the surface and
    judge others without
    understanding them first.
    Those who like to pay the bill,
    do so not because they are
    loaded but because they value
    friendship above money.
    Those who take the initiative at
    work, do so not because they
    are stupid but because they
    understand the concept of
    responsibility.
    Those who apologize first after
    a fight, do so not because they
    are wrong but because they
    value the people around them.
    Those who are willing to help
    you, do so not because they
    owe you any thing but because
    they see you as a true friend.
    Those who often text you, do so
    not because they have nothing
    better to do but because you
    are in their heart.
    One day, all of us will get
    separated from each other; we
    will miss our conversations of
    everything & nothing; the
    dreams that we had. Days will
    pass by, months, years, until this
    contact becomes rare… One day
    our children will see our
    pictures and ask ‘Who are these
    people?’ And we will smile with
    invisible tears because a heart is
    touched with a strong word. . .”

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