jonathan

today, the baron is thinking about the brother, her brother, he who is currently flying over an ocean or maybe some land mass, toward new jersey. he has spent the last few months in india, calling infrequently, emailing now and then, and no doubt having an excellent time. he was there studying yoga, taking and teaching yoga classes in a mountain town called dharamsala. the baron and the husband have long wanted to visit india, and are both impressed by and jealous of the brother's experience.

there's something else, though, some other feeling the baron is having in regards to the brother's trip. she is feeling envious, to be sure, but also happy and content. these last two puzzle her, and she has been thinking hard about why she should feel happy and content at the brother's travels.

she has decided that it has to do with her relationship to the brother, how it has changed. it has to do with her memory of their teenaged years, when they could scarcely stand to be in each other's company. their views on everything (including life and music and family and friendship and even tedious things like haircuts) were VASTLY different. in her recollection, the only thing they could agree on was the mutually exclusive nature of their futures - as in, 'you won't be in mine and i won't be in yours, and thank god for it.'

those were dark days. so dark, in fact, that she did not even know they could get better, but then, something funny happened. the baron moved to silver spring, maryland, to go to school, and left her mother and brother behind with nary a backward glance. she mostly stayed away too, coming home for holidays and occasionally in the summer, but by and large she was gone. her life and attentions were elsewhere.

it seems now that her absence was the thing that allowed the brother to become his own person - though she recognizes the arrogance in taking credit for the brother's growth. but, arrogant though it may be, she thinks it's the truth: that she left, and the brother - unfettered and alone and no longer limned out against the background of his older sister - was able to come into his own.

and he has.

he has become an intelligent and caring man, 27 years old now, with a natural curiousity and a fresh way of looking at the world. indeed, his perspective frequently impresses and surprises the baron. he is patient and foul mouthed and sometimes smelly, and also kind and capable of making a delicious cheese sandwich - which he often did for his sister, unasked, when she was lately in town for a visit. he's remarkably open-minded and accepting of the baron's choices (even when she has been vocally opposed to his), welcoming the husband and the dogs into his life. he's a well-rounded person, see? and all of this, the baron knows, has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER. she had no influence on him, other than to leave him alone. she claims no credit towards making him the good, good person he is today. in her memory, she left for school and when she came back 5 years later, he was changed.

she cannot even fashion a pithy sentence or two to tell him how she feels, though she so badly wants him to know that she admires and respects him. instead, the baron can only wait for his plane to land in new jersey, where he'll catch a train to union station, and will be collected there by the husband. the three of them will have lunch together, and dinner too, at one of their favorite restaurants, and all the while the baron will hope that in her casual conversation ('how was the flight? and the food? and the locals?') he can hear how proud of him she is, how delighted she is to call him brother, how she just can't get over the fantastic man he's become.