A Few Days in Austin

Our clan descended on Austin, Texas this last weekend for four days of wonderful, relaxing fun with our family. During that time, in addition to the assortment of nephews and cousins, I got a chance to spend a lot of time with my brothers.

Bartolo (my older younger brother) is familiar to many readers of Coffeespoons. He and Bonita hold down the fort in Houston while he completes his dissertation and works for a university in another universe of prestige from my own (He works at the Boardwalk of higher education institutions while I spend my time on Baltic Ave.). Like his older brother (four years separate us) he’s following Dad into higher education (much to the regret of Dad by the way). Bartolo and Bonita raise the elegance level of any gathering they attend and are, as their pastor once said “two beautiful people.” I loved hearing on this trip how much Bonita is interested in evangelism—pretty much par for the course for Baptists, but they are both Presbyterian.

My other brother Miguelito is preparing for his third year of high school. His name has been oddly missing from this blog, due to his older brother’s oversight and the fact that we don’t spend as much time together as we should. I really want to work more on our relationship. He moved into the house (as a newborn) about the same time I moved out, an unusual dynamic that has worked against our relationship for awhile. But I suspect that will be changing.

We gathered at the home of my cousin Tommy. Tommy is four (or three, depending on who is counting) days older than I am, a fact he’s been reminding me of for the last thirty-eight years. We grew up twenty minutes away from one another and have shared birthdays and holidays for decades. We’ve (or at least I’ve) spilled blood with one another while hunting for scrap iron, been shot at while looking for rocks with my aunt, and have squished thousands of bagworms for homeowners (at 2 cents a piece) while in junior high. Tommy is the most giving person I’ve ever known, even sharing a kidney a few years back with his brother-in-law.

Tommy and his bride have been blessed with a tremendous gift of hospitality. We enjoyed the stay tremendously and left feeling extraordinarily relaxed. Much of our time in Austin was spent lazing around in their new pool, with gentle restfulness interspersed with frenetic moments of challenging, double-crossing, wrasslin’ as we battled to dunk one another in the pool. As I was struggling to "baptize" the recently turned 16 year old Miguelito, the thought crossed my mind for the first time: “My little brother is almost stronger then I am." Almost.

A wonderful time with family, the kind of setting where you can act more like yourself than anywhere else. Family can be a tremendous reflection of ourselves.