History Alive and Well

History caught up with me this weekend. Or I it. I'm exhausted.

20 years ago, my brother died and I disappeared to some distant emotional planet. Among other things--like my grades and certain friends at the time--the church my family raised me in diminished to nearly nothing in my setlist of priorities. Actually, it ranked on a negative scale. You know how they say the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference? I was not indifferent to my spiritual upbringing. I was very much "over it," shall we say. For a host of reasons.

But this past weekend I went to Women's Retreat, at the church campground my brother and I attended several times a year for our whole lives till my brother died at 17. From the time we were babies, we grew up attending camp with friends in the church. The ladies at Retreat this weekend told me in turns about their memories of us as babies along with their babies who grew up together year by year. We all of us went up to those mountains and played and grew and fell in love with each other too. Many of the people who spent our summers and camp weekends in that setting are now married to each other. It's amazing to have such a close bond during those developing years, and I guess it was a normal extension to marry that person you had come to love.

That didn't happen in my case. Although there was half a minute, buried in an arc of, oh, 10 years, that I thought it might. But it didn't.

This weekend was my first time back to "camp" in 15 years. I was worried for all that it could bring up about my brother, my dissociation with the church (by practice), and my tidy habit of hiding any and all emotion from the church people since my brother died.

Love, death, tragedy, loss, I left my innocence in those mountains and trees and moonlight and steep rocks at 16, and never went back.

The upshot this weekend: I cried. Told deep dark secrets to a cherished family friend. And found out in my first hour there that my "one that got away" at the tender age of 20 is now in the middle of a divorce. (His mom told me.) All this while having a really great time. Every last place I turned was flooded by years' worth of memories that cover the course of my youth. And here I was, bringing my adulthood back to them. There was a crowd in my brain, crowd in my body, circus of all the ages playing in one center ring under the pines.

Now it's late, I'm back home, and it's a wonder my eyes are still open, with all there is left to digest. Alas, I think sleep is the best place to digest it.