Last of geodes

Infinitely more interesting to me than American House poop-show.

I'm curious how my brother's household changed from bachelor-serene, pure lines, Spartan simplicity, to controlled chaos of layered materialism. The yard gobbled up with play things. The storage areas stacked with old toys. The whole house devoted to two boys. Their boy-implements everywhere. Coloring book pages filling walls as art. He needs to cycle that stuff out, and he needs a much larger house.

He needs a construction crew that uses rebar in their concrete.

I really like these two boys.

I like all my nephews and nieces, actually.

These two boys are quite different from all of the rest. My older brother's boys came with them to visit me at my property. They ran straight to the back yard and straight up a tree. Like proper monkeys. But they were not so generally physical as these two boys are.

I saw much more of my sister's two boys and they were both generally anti-explorative. They had no interest in going out into the open fields behind my parent's house. They preferred staying indoors playing video games, drawing pictures, electronics, and sticking to family activities.

These two boys are all over the place. Yet they had to be coaxed up a tree.

I have photos of all these boys climbing trees. It's important to monkeydom.

When my sister's boys were this age I took them to Toys Я us. The older boy picked out an action figure and the younger boy went straight to the stuffed toys and picked out the whitest brightest largest fluffiest Teddy bear. 

I thought that was odd.

And now Nathaniel did the same thing. James told me he's sleeping with the bear to keep it warm for me until they send it. Now I feel bad for him giving it away. He obviously likes it. I would not have thought of that. He is an extremely physical little kid. It's not so noticeable in real time but the still photographs I took of these boys, Nathan is pure athletic form in each photograph. They do train these kids movement. Indoor parkour. He pretends he's a Ninja. When I told him to clean up his jumping jacks he sharpened right up. He's used to having his form corrected. Both these boys are 100% movement. 

They'd wear me out. 

Just keeping their interest engaged will keep my brother alive. These videos show me that his duty is his family. He is in boy-world. And he'll be kept there as they grow up. Seeing my baby brother as father is truly amazing.

I noticed he was talking about the boy's arrangement of the geodes on a board, and about keeping the board. Then later he mentioned keeping them in separate bags. So I bought this shadow box frame where he can have the boy arrange the best of them. The boy has an eye for arrangement. He should let the boy do it. 

The bottles convinced me it's deep enough. The larger size should be enough room. This should work to keep them in one place. Then this frame get thrown on the pile of unused crap in storage throughout the whole house. Who knows? Maybe they'll even put it up on a wall along with the pages  from coloring books.

Notice how when we put something up on walls they tend to stay there? 

We're opposed to switching things around. 

Our own early household was not like that because we moved so frequently. Nothing had a chance to last very long. Things were constantly switched out. Even my eleven aquariums were whittled down to four down to one down to none in three simple moves. Everything was like that. Even so, I was impressed how much crap endured through a dozen moves to end up in boxes in my parent's basement. We all marveled at our own antiques. Sorting through them at the end they caused memories to flood in each of us delaying the sorting considerably. 

I arrived at my parents house with my siblings all gathered in my parent's bedroom. Things were piled on the king-size bed. An aunt was there with her daughter from Pennsylvania. My dad's little sister and her daughter, my cousin. One was reading a letter to the rest.

It was me!

They were reading a letter that I sent to another aunt on my mother's side. 

That second aunt sent me something for graduation and this letter I wrote to thank her. Why was the letter in my parents possession? Why had my aunt sent the letter to them that I sent to her thirty years previously? 

My aunt was so impressed with the letter that she felt compelled to give it to my mother.

!

I could not get my mind around that. 

Now my whole family remaining, my brothers and sisters were reading it to each other as they were sorting through my parents things. This is the moment that I walked in on them. 

They were all stunned. They were all impressed with the letter. In the letter I thanked my aunt for the interest she showed throughout all our moves. Distance was no barrier for her. I acknowledged that she followed our family and kept up with our growth as children. I acknowledged all her previous gifts and what they all meant to me. I acknowledged her enduring attention, her affection and her love. Hearing the letter read back to me over thirty years later caused me to be impressed with my teenaged self. This letter writer was an unusual teen. I didn't know that I had it in me back then. I saw my previous self differently. I saw myself as my family sees me. They were  interested with this letter. They were there working and this interruption of reading this letter set them back. They all looked at me like, "holy shit, this is how you wrote to people back then as a boy?" They had no idea. While my aunt present realized what she had missed.