Recently, I went kayaking through part of the Ozarks with my brother and some friends. I've kayaked before and fell in love with rush of manning a fragile one man craft through the waters. Outdoor activities like that have a way of speaking to my soul that goes unmatched. I'll be honest; I needed this. I've felt for awhile that I've reached a dry season in my pursuit of finishing this list. It was a great trip to quiet down, get away, and reflect on how I got to this point where the adventures have slowed to a crawl and the expectations and responsibilities of my day to day life have consumed me.
We got in the water just past the Table Rock Dam. The water was frigid enough to numb your hand if left in long enough. The water from the bottom of the dam was being systematically released causing a current to flow into Lake Taneycomo. The current was steady enough to take us on our way. And with that, we paddled our way through Taneycomo. The coolness of the water kept our brows dry from sweat as the heat that day was imposing. Along the way we witnessed the breathtaking views of the Ozark hill country, sights of fisherman, and incredible architecture that lined the river banks.
I decided early on to find my rhythm within the current and ride it out much like a good groove in song. With the paddle as my dance partner, I started a slow dance that gave way to some time of reflection. At one point I looked up, took in the view, and felt a peace I haven't felt in awhile. For some reason this phrase came to my head in that moment, "Let the river take you," and for the remainder of the trip the river, and my thoughts, took me.
Family relationships take on the life of water. There are times of calm stillness and then there are times of hectic swells. For a better part of my adolescence, my relationship with my brother could be described in that way. Brotherhood, much like the flow I was on, can run a course that ends in a different place than that in which it began. However, the chemical identity it started with remains largely unchanged; water remains water and brothers remain brothers.
Growing up with a house on a lake, we would spend countless hours swimming, jumping, diving, fishing, and boating. Our summers were spent in the backyard of our house as our mother would look on while sunbathing at the edge of the lake. On one occasion a trip to the emergency room arose and several stitches were required after Matt stepped on an old, broken glass bottle. Despite the hidden dangers, the lake was our playground. Our youthful energy was exhausted by the waters during the day, and by night we would let its calmness lull us to sleep through the windows.
Where we often butted heads, we found agreement in the splashes of carelessness the lake brought out in us.
For a majority of the float, I lagged behind my brother. In some ways, I've always let Matt run out and explore in front of me, looking on with worry as only a big brother can do. Growing up I didn't understand the boy who had a sense of wonder that couldn't be contained. He had a thirst for knowledge of the world and a penchant for attaining it that must have skipped me when being passed down from my parents.
As the first born, it must have been prescribed that I would become a people pleaser. Therefore, I mostly made safe decisions growing up. Because of that, Matt was always a step ahead of me in flirting with adventure. (His numerous broken bones to my unscathed marrows can alone testify to that.) And in that sense, my brother has largely remained a mystery to me. I have heard it said that middle children are more difficult to define because their identity growing up changed from last born to middle child. This affects their personality and environment in unpredictable ways. In what I was ignorant of, Matt was a lessoned trailblazer in the rough and tough things that make most boys men.
While Matt was off being wild at heart, I felt expectations of perfection that weighed heavily on me through my teens. I tried, often for not, to be an example, but it created a wedge that caused tension between us. Because of that, a large part of wanting to leave the nest of home was to leave behind the cautiousness that most first-born children have. And for awhile I was successful.
In the period of five years I had moved halfway across the country, played music in three bands in front of countless people, experienced my first drink and smoke and a number of other "firsts," met friends that would challenge me and shape me, went through heartbreak with women (both given and received), went through school after school (4 different schools in 4 consecutive semesters!), took chances with an internship away from family, left school in my last semester for the promise of a music showcase in NYC, traveled, at times drank to excess, partied and partied hard, and formed opinions that differentiated from what I was taught during my upbringing.
The funny part about all of this is that while I was off doing these things, my brother and I saw a role reversal in our personalities. It was almost as if we were guaranteed to be opposites of each other for eternity. He became more reformed and cautious. He looked after my younger sister and became the achiever that I always strove to be. He would give warnings to me when I would come home from school about the dangers of drinking and worried about me like a father.
Eventually, I learned to tame certain desires and settle back into a comfort zone that looks less dangerous, less wild, and more predictable. The regression back to the norm is partly what's driving me to see this list of mine through to completion.
After all our collective experiences, it took some settling for both of us to find the water again. The boy I didn't understand growing up, is now the man I admire. I can see us back in our youth running down the hill to the lake and splashing the other with our cannonball jumps. By necessity, those days we were each others only friend. We've since grown up, but today we're each others friend by choice. It's weird to think that the bond of brotherhood could go unknown to some. I look at my dad, and I wish he had a brother so that he could have the adventures I've had with mine.
Let the river take you. Enjoy the slow dance. Embrace the adventure. Entertain the mystery. Be aware of where you are heading, but look back from time to time and see where you've drifted from.
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters." -A River Runs Through It
