My Sister
On a bad, sad day with I am out of sync with the world, when I have feelings but no words - one of those days that simply comes, must be lived, and then passes - I go to the video store and get Breakfast at Tiffany's. I sit by myself under a quilt older than I am and let the movie play. As the first notes of "Moon River" wash over me and Audrey Hepburn stands there on the sidewalk eating her bagel, there is a change inside me and the sun comes out a little.
I got a letter from my sister today, three pages on yellow notebook paper. It is the first I have heard from her in several months. For a time we communicated over e-mail, but that is such a fickle medium, it tends to taper off without anybody really knowing why. She writes me this letter not only to tell me how she is doing, but so that I will have something tangible with which to remember her. The letter smells of her - perfume I bought for her but cannot remember the name of.
"I went to Tygre's Heart Theater on Thursday and got lost on Burnside. I missed you. Not because I though that you could get me unlost. Because I get lost in Portland with my brother, that's the way it goes. It felt weird being lost without you there to keep me calm and laughing. I guess I'm getting used to doing things without you because I found the theater?"
I'm not going to tell you about all the times my sister and I adventured across the neighborhood, the times we promised to marry each other when we were old enough; the secrets we shared, the jokes we told, clubs we started and quit when we were little. Brother and sister stories like that are a dime a dozen, and you've heard them. Mine aren't all that different. But most brothers and sisters, at some point, become boys and girls. They lose that camaraderie as he gets guy friends to play army with, she girl friends to play dolls with. They drift apart, they play at being enemies. Sometimes they really are enemies. And while my sister and I went through these motions, we never truly drifted apart, like most do. She has been my best friends, my first and closest friend, since the days of clubhouses and books with more pictures than words. She is 20 and I am old and our closeness has not changed.
Audrey Hepburn, or Holly Go-Lightly, leads a crazy, flighty life. Her telephone is in the suitcase (because it makes such an awful noise) and the cat (Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name!) is in the refrigerator. She takes secret messages (aka weather reports) to Sallie Tomato in Sing Sing. Paul Varjak is the writer who lives downstairs, her friend, confidante, surrogate little brother (you remind me of my brother Fred. Do you mind if I call you Fred?). He listens to her without making fun of her or asking too many questions. He understands her and lets her be herself, and she tells him all sorts of things. It is a good friendship; they work well together.
All (but one) of my best friends have been girls, but I have never dated. For a long time, this worried me - I was terrible at being one of the guys. Plenty of people in high school thought I was gay, telling me so with a snide remark and a sneer, and while I knew that wasn't true (I had my share of crushes on girls) I still was worried that perhaps there was something wrong with me. Only recently, as I have become closer friends with men, have I gained insight into those painful days. I have learned that generally, part of being one of the guys is considering all women "potential dating material", grading that potential, and relating to them based on that. My guess is that this is because for most guys, the first significant, emotional, intimate relationship they ever have with a girl is with a first girlfriend as an adolescent. It is a confusing, scary, exciting pseudo-sexual relationship that almost always ends up bad. The First Love, it is unlike any other - it breaks new ground as guys discover that the mysteries of girls aren't all cooties and sissy stuff, but that there is something wonderful, fulfilling, and incomprehensible about the opposite sex. Those relationships almost always fail, simply because we are too young and unprepared to handle the shock to our systems.
What I have learned recently is that, for a lot of guys, this first terrifying, exalting experience with women sets the pattern for the ways they relate to women. I sat on the sloped grass of Pioneer Park with a friend who recently broke up with his girlfriend. "It's hard being around girls now," he says. "When we were together, I was "taken" and I was actually learning a lot about being friends with girls. Now that I'm single?I'm looking for my friends to be girlfriends again."
Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
Paul: Sure.
Holly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away.
My first real relationship with a girl, with a woman, was not a bizarre pseudo-sexual adolescent dating escapade. It was a real, honest, intimate and deep friendship with my sister. Instead of growing apart, we grew together, and forced each other to be upfront about things. I learned about women from her, by being her friend, and by relying on her to be mine. I asked her a lot of silly questions, I told her my dreams, my frustrations, my fears and secrets, and she did the same. And while there were rough spots, times when she was just a mystery to me, we made it through them. And when I did go through the fascinations and misery of my first love, I spilled my guts nightly to my sister, who listened, offered insight, and consoled my bruised ego.
"I love you Willie. I love who God has made you to be and who he is growing you up to be. I love the place that you have given me in your life. It is like no other relationship I have and I want to always treasure it. I love talking to God about you (we both have a special place for you in our hearts) and I love knowing about what is going on in your life. Keep loving God, Willie, nothing else really matters. Just keep loving him and you will be happy and fulfilled."
So when I relate to other girls, I am not looking for a new first love. I am looking for another sister, another soulmate, understander, and confider. It is a lot different than looking for another girlfriend. The downside of this is that when I do fall in love, I have no idea what to do with myself or how to relate to the amazing SHE. But the upside is that I have many deep, lasting, and intimate friendships with girls, with women, and they started with my sister.
I watch Breakfast at Tiffany's when I'm depressed because it reminds me of my sister. Sometimes she is Holly, flighty and exciting, full of impressions and ideas or off on the mean reds, and I am Paul - standing back listening, supporting her, ready to catch her if she falls and willing to go along with any scheme. Then without a word we switch roles and I am the hare-brained one, foolish and poetic, while she listens, understands, and tells me I am not that crazy. It is a good friendship; we work well together.
