My brother picked up the CD sitting on my nightstand, it was Oracular Spectacular by MGMT, a favorite of mine to walk to.
"What's this sister?" he asks me.
"MGMT." I respond with simplicity.
"They suck. dah dah dah dah dah electric feel dah dah dah", he sings mocking the group all together, and sitting down to play the electric guitar he bought me which i'd stopped using in my own discouragement.
"Kai Kai, play your 'Mahkeea'", at order his oldest but still young son went into the room they were staying in in our house and grabbed his little Harmonica, blowing away senselessly into it and excaliming his desires to "play the guitar like his daddy".
It made me feel like a disappointment to no longer be playing his guitar--or any guitar and to even have abandoned the harmonica, and on top of it all began listening to a more recent MGMT, in addition to the classics him and I shared.
Brother was a lover of the Beatles, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Bob Dylan, the Doors and all the older undying legends of music.
Now, don't get me wrong--i loved them with all my heart but came to believe i'd grown tired of them in my hurried growing yet always understand their songs were my home when i felt i'd had none.
I go to my drawer and dust off the old Harmonica bringing it out and explaining how I once did my damndest to replicate the sounds of Mr. Dylan with no success but passion.
He asks if i could "bend a note"--which I couldn't.
He explains what it is by making the sound on his Harmonica--and i could have, would have, should even swear he was a young Bob Dylan in the making with his undying passion and dedication, his simple ability to learn with patience, and teach with more.
If i could blow and draw from holes 4,5,6, and 7 i too could begin to bend notes by simply moving my tongue in and out in my mouth.
My perverted mind thought I would have been able to achieve this feat better if i was a lesbian or perhaps a man but continued making constant attempts throughout the night.
My Grandfather got shitfaced that night,
him and my father finishing a bottle of Jack Daniels together at the neighbor's place--cracked open specifically for them.
As a result of these events i began a long slightly drug-fueled conversation with my brother's wife in which she surfaced her feelings of love for my brother, and the fates that had brought them together.
I'd never heard of love so pure and unbroken, between this bond two beautiful children.
What more could anyone want in life?
I was happy for him, he grew so well into father, into husband, small-kine pothead, guitarist, and who knows what else. And in his growing, managed not to grow out of his original self.
There comes a point when a family member decidedly accepts that they know nothing of one another's true soul and mind when they don't speak to them enough.
My brother didn't know how similar we were, that i was a pothead, that i was growing too;
he didn't know that truly, I hoped that I could find someone to love me like his wife did,
that I was always in some strange, pathetic, perpetual pain
and that i didn't care about this pain anymore, it was selfish and immature but stuck to me like a honey to a bee.
And before this conversation, I knew nothing about him at all than an outside observer.
Between a prime in my pain and attempts at bending notes on my Hohner Special 20 in the key of C--I turned on Mr. Bob Dylan once again.
I did what i'd done many times, but couldn't connect with in years;
I drowned in Bob Dylan, heard his words, let them pour into my veins, let them weld into my muscles, let them dance upon my heart, let them make love to my ears, let them correspond with my brainwaves and stuck there for what felt like hours while he healed me.
Then turned my head to the CD my brother tossed aside--Oracular Spectacular, in some strange curiosity, a daring moment, which felt like betrayal I turned on the CD and heard emptiness compared to that of Dylan.
Words so hollow they hurt my intelligence and did no justice to the mind.
And my brother brought me alive again. His purpose for opinion was simple: that quality is based on passion and when an artist lacks passion; no matter what the medium, will make every work and so-called "masterpiece" be mediocre to every artist whose works are derived from passion.
I don't know the moral of the story, i don't know the purpose; but have come to understand that a home is in the heart and in the heart is the family, is the music, is the desire, is the temptation, is the purity, is the essence of an individual.
