Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Brothers & Sisters

At the request of my sister, I am back to watching the television program “Brothers & Sisters”. The show pulled me in when it first aired, for my fondness of Sally Field and for the obvious title. I stopped watching after my mother passed away because it was serious "in your face family" at the time and I just could not deal. There are elements of the show’s heart and story lines that can speak a hard reality.

Being able to relate to some of the story lines, can be like reliving them. But now, being pulled by my sister, I’m again taken in by the warmth of Nora’s kitchen, sweet banter and fast paced hydro-drama. Through Kitty’s cancer and barrage of sibling eye rolls there are the tugs that yank on my own life strings.

I suppose it’s silly to compare my family to the Walkers, because in truth we are nothing alike. We are not running for senate or together running a family business or dating people from Paris. But we are survivors, my own siblings and I. We walk the planet in testimony to it. We all have our own warm kitchens and conference call rally every now and then. But we have no one person at the helm in control like Nora. We had our mother as a touch point of comfort when she was alive, but we are all ships with our own sails and I might add, without a neutral common port.

We are blessed with a great bond and are given to hysterical comedy and music between us. But we are not very good at the hard eye rolls or the rally. When something happens of course we are all there for one another. But we are not very good at listening to each other either. So when one of us is in trouble or has discovered an anomaly, we often run rapid in judgmental terror to try to fix it, or we sail off in the direction of a disconnect button. All of us are guilty of doing this to each other. We are also extremely charismatic and have a lot to share at once, whenever we get together. Everything is always important and cannot wait, which is something we do have in common with the Walkers. Vibrating with high emotion, we also can not help but run toward each other in deep sentiment.

Above all there is always the element of surprise and our random acts of kindnesses we give each other, even though we are infected with conversation "interruptUS". In truth, we never really learned how to work together except when it comes to the kitchen or our music. It fascinates me. When we cook, it is a poem of pleasure as we gather around the table by candlelight and toast mom. When we sing, all four of us are the loveliest blend of harmony anyone has ever heard.

Now personally, I have never been very competitive. As a matter of fact, the discovery of this took me a very long time to understand about myself, coming to the conclusion in loath, even for the word "competition". So when the green eyed monster of sibling rivalry rears its tenuous head, I have mostly recoiled. In doing so, permitting my siblings the limelight of conversation or song. This gave me a deep appreciation and value for observation. Of course I have my own frustrations with each of them. But I do get my point across and my turn. We are each mini powerhouses, not to be trifled with. Even stranger to me is we have so much in common, yet we spin in separate orbits. A curse and a blessing. But, whenever we do join forces, we are together a stronghold of intention unbreakable. It is all a perfect balance of contractions and perfect imperfection. My brother and sisters and I, are so very lucky to have each other. Maybe we don’t have Nora’s kitchen as a common port, but we have four of them at any given time.

I’m glad my sister changed my mind to watch the show again. Aside from dreamy Gilles Marini and tearful moments, the show gives me warm perspective about our own little family. Maybe we are not very good at the conference call rally, but we mostly hold each other close to our heart squeezed marshmallow centers, such as we are. I would not change us for the world. We just need patience, a lot more wine and a gentler eye roll. Oh, and the listening part.

I’ll be watching … thanks kid :) *kisses & grins*



"Speak kind words and you will hear kind echos" - unknown

"The National Mentoring Partnership" -a resource for mentors & mentoring initiatives - http://bit.ly/dN9bg


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