10.06.06, 3:39 AM

Tonight it is raining, and I love the rain, so I went down to the bottom of my stairs and opened the door to watch the rainfall. As I watched and listened to the water fall, I felt compelled to go out and stand in the rain... to enjoy the rain like I did when I was a child... I didn't think about having to wash my clothes, or having to warm up... there was no fear of catching cold... I enjoed it for what it was.

So I walked out in the rain and enjoyed it... but I could still feel a resistance, a tension I could not explain. So I did the only thing I could... I walked out into the biggest mudpuddle in the dirt lot in front of my apartment. The water was cold but soothing ,and the rain had the same calming effect on me it did as a child.

Something was missing, and so I let go of my belt-loops and let my pantlegs fall down into the muddy water. I let go of that adult need for control... I let the water seep into me, my feet grew cold and the mud settled under my toenails.

Something was still missing and as the water ran through my hair I meditated on what it was... I asked myself: "What is your secret desire, right here and now?" ... ... ...

And I realised something...

Something that has always been there, ever since I as a child...

+++ +++ +++

I was five years old, and an only child...
Sleeping was a nightmare. My parents struggled ever night to get me to go to bed. It was late at night as I recall, probably close to 11pm, when my mother came in to see why I was still awake. She asked me what was wrong, and in my childish innocence, I told her what had been weighing on my heart...

"What's bothering you, that you can't ever get to sleep?" She asked.
"I don't want to be alone." I said.
"I'm hear for you, and so is Daddy." She answered. "We're right there in the next room." She responded.
"I don't want to be alone." I said.
"Well, you;ve got your teddy bear here, and your Daddy and I in the next room." She said with a hint of exasperation in her voice. "I can't stay here with you all night..."
"I wish I had a brother." I told her.
There was silence... That damning silence we all know so terribly well.
Ten months later my sister was born... fourteen months later my brother was born.

+++ +++ +++

Someone once asked my how close my brother an I are... I responded the only way I could... "In the Bible, it speaks of a freind that is closer than a brother... well I've been blessed with a brother that is closer than that friend."

I have been in fist-fights with Jim. He has had me on my knees, in tears for fear of my very life while he laughed at me and called me a pussy. I have spit on his shoe and told him to grow the fuck up.

If ever there is a train, we will fight over who pushed whom out of the way.

+++ +++ +++

As I stared at the mudpuddles, I realised that all I've ever wanted was someone who would jump in them with me. I don't want to do it alone. Not because it isn't fun alone, or because I am afraid to do it alone... but because I want to share the human experience with someone. I want a lover who will sit in a sleeping bag with me, waiting for the sun to come over the rim of the Grand Canyon. I want someone who will risk it all for a moment of brilliance laced with the pure rush of extravogent danger.

I could land flat on my back in the midst of the rain water and laugh... oh, I could go do it now... but we all know laughter is best shared,

+++ +++ +++

My brother and I grew up strangers, but there came a point when we reconnected, then grew apart, then reconnected. He is invaluable to me. He is a pillar in the midst of my raging storms.

He is my BROTHER.

...

What he is not, is a lover...

...

He has set the standard high... I expect no less than what Jim offers me from anyone in my life. He is the man by which I measure all others.

I am still waiting for a woman to come my way that will jump in the mud with me, that will stand hip deep in ice with me, that will laugh when the mortgage fails, that will call the back seat of a VW microbus comfortable, that will read Heinlein and Sheldrake and sit until dawn talking about the utterly mind-blowing ramifications of their work, who will cry when I play Savatage's "If I Go Away", who will embrace life the way she embraces me...

+++ +++ +++

"You can't just wish for people and have them appear." She said.
"..But sometimes if you pray, God will give you what you need."

+++ +++ +++

My brother was not planned...
...by my parents...

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