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Monthly Archives: December 2013

About not shrugging

27 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by Alice Salles in Living, True story?

≈ 2 Comments

sitting

An uncle of mine whose life was cut short due to that beast we are all well acquainted with, cancer, taught me a couple of things about living life. Not because we spent that much time together, but because we were probably the only two introverts in a whole family of musicians, highly intelligent doctors, men of law, teachers and somewhat well-connected politicians.

He was a surgeon, freemason and sweet father of two children who… didn’t turn out much like him. He used to sit for hours in silence, staring at nothing, paying attention to nothing and everything. Once he learned he had the same type of cancer his father had had, he didn’t rush to do all the things he wanted to do or asked his loved ones to cry him a river, he carried on with life like nothing had happened. He chose not to get treatment. He chose to live as if he had no idea he had cancer at all.

He chose to shrug.

When he visited us in São Paulo, I gave him a little bronze medal with the “Ôm” symbol. When he touched the medal, he smiled and paused for some time. He then looked up and said “listen to me little Alice, you must remember to never do something the same way you’ve done it before for the second, third time or even fourth time in a row.”

I was a bit confused. “What do you mean, uncle?”

“Well, when walking home from school, take a different path; when catching the bus to the theater, take a different line; when saying good morning to your neighbor, say it with different words.”

“Why is that?”

“Do what I didn’t do. I’m a man of habit. Let your brain create new connections, let your routine allow your brain to discover new ways of seeing things.”

He smiled. Sweetly, the way he always did. He was lovely and lovable and he never asked for attention. He lived at a slow pace and left early but didn’t forget to ask me to do just the opposite, as if he was meant to show me that not all that runs smooth on the outside is also running just as smooth on the inside.

When We Didn’t Have A Car

17 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Aubrey Anne Dickinson in Brother, Family & Friends, Living

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

car, childhood, growing up, life, mother

When we didn’t have a car

We walked a lot (which goes without saying)

The air was crisp and cleaned our lungs and made us smile

And we went to the library often

So we read and filled our little hearts with wild adventures.

We stayed home and baked pies with the apples that fell into our yard

And stained our mouths purple from blackberries.

And of course, we felt really grateful when a friend invited us to the movies, the mall—hell, the grocery store—if it bought us a ride in their car.

 

When we didn’t have a car

We dreamed of road trips we would take

When we looked at the clouds we’d see Cadillacs and Buicks and Fords

And close our eyes and breathe in the sweet scent of exhaust

And leather interior.

 

When we didn’t have a car

I still felt so lucky with life

My mom loved us ferociously

We played. We created great things. Filled our young brains with knowledge.

We curled around the fire together and read and sang and slept

And were lucky to be (always) the closest family I have ever known.

We laughed. We dreamed. We loved madly.

 

When we didn’t have a car

It didn’t really matter

Because we had eachother.

US

My Irish Twin

12 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Alisha Dickinson in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

brothers

IMG_1041  My brother Drew has always been my opposite.  He’s loud, boisterous and at times, truly wild.  I am quiet & calm and my wildness comes in measured spurts, few and far between.  Born the day before I turned one, he drained my parents bank account and usurped my babyhood in one fell swoop.  He was breech and no amount of conjoling or pushing on the doctor’s part could turn him around, so Caesarean he was.  He was stubborn from the beginning I suppose, a fact which I think he is secretly proud of to this day.  As kids, we were a devilish pair of Aries wild ones~from scissor stabbings to kitchen floor cookouts, we challenged both our parents & our natural survival.  We grew and grew apart, as boys & girls will do, and his shy, timid nature was glossed over by his new class clown persona and my first born bravado was tucked away admist books and worldly dreams.

Now though, I see that we really have not changed, not permanently anyway.  Underneath his party boy swagger he is still the timid little brother that I first knew, my partner in crime, my built in playmate, my Irish twin.  And though he is now bigger than me and has been in his fair share of manly fights, I worry that he does not demand enough for himself, that he does not grab, by the fistfuls, that which he so richly deserves.  I often want to shake him for the choices he makes and chastize him for those that he doesn’t.  I see the romantic in him fall in love over & over again with all the wrong women and my heart aches for him in his loneliness.

Yet, he is an unbridled dreamer with an epic imagination, never ceasing to amaze me in his constant barrage of inventions and ideas.  He can make friends in an instant, a skill which I have long envied, and there isn’t much in this world he wouldn’t try just once.  He’s far more capable than most men I know and there’s not a lazy bone in his body.  And yet he settles far more than he should.

So maybe we must go back to the beginning of things, where he and I began, and pretend that I am once again his fearless leader and that he is my willing accomplice.  I will lead him out to the other side, through the ugly breakup and over the bump of self esteem, because I have been there and I know those waters well.  And then, I will  show him that yes, there is something better, there is something more, and that he should run towards it with all that he is.

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  • Alice Salles
  • Aubrey Anne Dickinson
  • Alisha Dickinson
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