Last week, before we left for my brother's graduation in North Carolina, my dad and I sat in the living room (my parents' living room) silently. We are a lot alike, my father and I. Observers--patient--always thinking. So I knew he was contemplating my brother's latest milestone in his usual quiet manner before he even said "When Ryan was packing the other day, I thought 'So this is really it..." implying that now that he and I have both left, our parents' role in our lives has evolved into something different than "Daddy, I fell down the stairs-I need a band-aid" and the games we created during thousands of backseat car rides. My dad's nostalgia always gets me because, like mine, his memory is vast and he is able to capture the details and describe them in a way that I can truly remember. Not many people I know can do this...people have a tendency to forget. Oh did that really happen? I'm glad you remember that, because I certainly don't. I don't know how people forget the moments in their lives when in the end, they make up everything you are.

As we were sitting there, we fell back into silence after I reassured him that Ryan would be back, and may even eventually find a position in New York City or somewhere closer...but Dad was adamant. "Yeah, but...it's still not here." And don't get me wrong, he is not wishing for my brother to stay at home and find a local job at all. But there's a part of him, as there's always a part of me, that wistfully wishes that some things could stay the same even as our lives take different paths. After a few more moments, I began thinking of all the events that had happened even in that very room that defined me. We moved there in August 1993, before my freshman year at Masuk. I recall the living room being bare, the French doors shiny, and our neighbors bringing banana bread into the chaos that was our new home. I can fastforward a few years and see myself sitting cross-legged at my 16th birthday party, surrounded by my friends, laughing and watching "A Miracle on 34th Street" in the background. I can visually see Rachel, Kim and I making up a dance on my back deck.

As I quietly played these images through my mind, I turned to my dad and said, "Did you ever think about how many people have been through this space, this living room, over the years?" I explained how I can sometimes see events play out in a sort of time lapse...people coming in, sitting on the couch, going to the refrigerator for a drink, coming back, leaving, watching movies, going outside, flirting, laughing, hugging, crying. I said, "It kind of reminds me of Koyaanisqatsi."

This film was fascinating to me, even as a child. My dad played it for my brother and I sometime in the mid-80's, and the haunting, melancholy score stayed with me for years. It basically shows the juxtaposition of people and technology and what humans have done to the Earth by merely developing as we have. In certain scenes, the time lapse speeds up to show hundreds of people flying through the grocery store, up the escalator, through the streets of big cities. Anyway, I thought of my old house like that...capturing the moments from chorus concerts to high school graduation to new boyfriends and break-ups to college and another graduation. How would my life look if I were able to capture it in the style of Koyaanisqatsi?

The trip to North Carolina was great. I proudly watched my brother's face at the hooding ceremony last Sunday night, right before he received his MBA. I saw the person he has become, and not just the little brother that he always has been to me. He has come a long way from sniffing packs of Carefree bubble gum when he was 3...from making forts with his stuffed animals, playing Contra and Ninja Gaiden, and saying "NO! Duh, duh, duuhhhhh!" in that manic, shrill voice as he cocked his head.

We have both succeeded.