Birthdays

The small boy. The big one is hiding behind the cherry tree.

Today my brother Josip and his son Stipe celebrate their birthdays. Good timing - a father and son born on the same date. Josip is 38 and Stipe 7. Just over a week ago my older brother celebrated his 41st birthday. When I talked to him, he complained about unusual aches and pains, a sure sign of having entered the middle age. As I am soon to join him on the journey through the 5th decade (ohmigod!!!), I know his pain all too well.

I adore my nephew. He's the sweetest most beautiful boy. When he was a toddler, asleep, he looked like an angel. I would just sit beside him staring at his golden hair, rosy cheeks and long eyelashes... To touch his face and take in his sweet smell - heaven! - he was like a peach left in the sun.

My brother... We've always had our differences, horrible fights (sorry, bro, you know it's true!), harsh words were exchanged. But, at the same time, we've been incredibly close and we understand each other without words. When mom died, the whole family was falling apart, but he was like a rock, strong for all of us. I love him for who he is and for too many things to mention, but I love him most for keeping the family together, for the continuation that he provides... Josipe, ako ovo citas, istina je. Neke stvari se trebaju reci prije no sto je prekasno. Sretan Rodjendan! I da mi pozivis jos milion godina.

Today - because I know what big family celebration they'll have - is one of those days when I seriously questions the wisdom of having lived away from my family for most of my life. The inevitable and sad truth is that friends, as much as they love one another, come and go, but family remains. The older I get the more I see how mistaken I was in deciding to adopt the nomadic lifestyle that I've been living, hopping from country to country, from continent to continent. . . Now, the idea of going back to 'normal life' scares me. I don't know if I could go back and be 'normal' again, and I don't know where that 'back' is anymore.
Yesterday was J's birthday. Not J who died, but my friend J who lives in N.Y.C. She finally wrote to me enquiring about J's death. She's busy working part-time and writing papers for her second M.A. A friend will throw a party for her with sangria, cake and all that jazz, as she puts it.

I'm glad that she's doing fine in the friends department. Soon it'll be the anniversary of her dad's passing away, and she'll be very vulnerable and quite possibly needy. My god. It seems like it was yesterday when I had her at my place, a hot ball of raw pain, rolling back and forth on my sofa, lips and teeth stained purple from too much wine, eyes bloodshot from weeping.


Tonight D1, D2 and I went out for beer and chicken. I felt so bad for D2 (the one who'll not be be working with me soon). He's been having lots of interviews, but none of them seem to have secured him a job. As we were bitching about this and that, a crazy ajoshi came over to us and placeed his hand in the middle of our table, mumbling something. I looked up and - lo and behold - it was Chang-dae. He was in the same establishment to enjoy tasty chicken and cheap beer, with a friend, 'a gag-man who's not so famous.'
*****As I expected, when I called Josip, they had a full house. Dad and Marija were also there. According to Josip, dad was the best-looking and best- dressed man of them all. I never thought about my dad as a dandy, but he really is. When he was younger, he often travelled for business and almost always came back home with a nice new shirt, sweater or tie that he claimed to have found 'on sale.' Oddly, he never found anything on sale for the rest of us. Now we tease him about it, and he just laughs.