Sister

Herfstbak

by Dennis••0•Posted inJournal

My sister has taken on the vibe of a wood witch the last couple of years. She would do well living in a secluded cottage just outside of town, and the villagers stay away from her until one of the village maidens needs to get rid of an unwanted pregnancy, or the village dairy cow is suffering from a malady. Then suddenly they come asking for help. She tends to her garden, and minds her own business.

Recently, she has started decorating her house in preparation for the fall. Candles, pumpkins, wreaths, all in appropriate autumnal colours. One of the things she’s created is a display of leaves, pumpkins, and pinecones, nicely lit up in a display case. My sister is very good at that, decorating things to fit a vibe, and she knocked it out of the park again. She proudly told us that it was just like the autumn boxes that we would create in elementary school.

The autumn box was an assignment we would get in elementary school, where we would be asked to go out and collect beautiful leaves, pinecones, and other assorted plant material that we would then display inside a box-like table, which we would display prominently in class for the remainder of the autumn months. It was all rather pagan, when I reflect on it.

I was very happy when my sister mentioned the autumn box, because I honestly think about that project an average of about once a month, and I thought I was the only one that remembered it so fondly. It’s basically my pumpkin spice.

Sibling Roles

by Dennis••2•Posted inJournal

I would like to think that my siblings and I are quite close. We talk every day, but still maintain a healthy separation and aren’t up in each other’s business (most of the time). We’re supportive and encouraging and we genuinely like each other. That is not to say that we don’t disappoint each other from time to time, or step on each other’s toes, of course. After all, the Meijer blood is strong.

What I like is that we have very different one-on-one relationships with each other; there is something that each combination of two of us share, that the third isn’t involved in. There are times where my siblings do stuff together that I am not that interested in, and likewise there are moments where I do something with one of them that the other isn’t involved in. There’s a fine line to walk that we don’t make one of us feel excluded, of course, but so far I think we’ve always been able to address it when it came up.

One of the things I was thinking of is that, when the three of us are together, we all have very different roles. I think those roles might be perceived differently depending on which one of us you ask, but from my perspective; my sister is our heart and soul, she embodies where we came from and represents our identity. My brother represents our untroubled nonchalance; everything is going to be okay, nothing is a problem and everything is possible.

I don’t quite know what my role is, necessarily. I’d like to believe that I’m our enabler!