connecting*the*dots

I’m the “big brother” in my family and growing up, well, I played the role like a champ with my “little brother” Andy.

When we wrestled, I’d pin him after giving him false hope of a tap out. When we played Intellivision, I’d beat him as soundly as humanly possible. When my 12 year-old friends came over, I’d embarrass his 8 year-old ass in front of them. Why’d I keep him toiling, frustrated and fuming in "little brother" mode? I don’t know, I was a kid… maybe I watched too much TV?

In retrospect, I’m willing to get deeper. I probably needed the power in the relationship to make me feel whole and stroke my ego on some level. Just coming home from the hospital, he took away the focus on me. With our mom working three jobs, being latch-key kids, I probably craved even more attention. Eh… that’s all bullshit psychobabble crap; I was a kid—I thought being a big brother meant that it was my job to be a dick on some level.

But for every time I played the classic big brother in a negative way, there were at least five times that I watched his back and made sure all was good.

When Andy had a problem with a kid on the bus coming home, I marched my eleven year-old ass over to the kid’s house to make sure the there wouldn’t be a problem the next day. When my dad had a few too many Martini’s and threatened to get rid of him because he didn’t finish his vegetables fast enough, I packed my bag with him and forced my dad to decide to get rid of both of us. As much as I teased him, I looked out for him more so. Somewhere in between we teamed up and became tight and the big and little signifiers dropped.

We were brothers.

And then life happened; we grew up.

We’ve been living in different states for the past 12 years. Andy’s been in Greensboro since his freshman year at UNCG, focusing on his documentary work and video editing, while I spent my time moving all around the northeast as a designer for hire. We’ve always stayed in touch via the phone and holiday visits, so when I moved down to Greensboro in September, I fully expected to pick up our tight-knit relationship where it left off as post-adolescents.

I’m coming to understand that life isn’t that simple.

It’s not that we’re not still tight, we are, but for some strange reason we don’t quite see and react to the world in the exact same same way. Somehow, different life experiences over the past 12 years have shaped our individual goals, perspectives and perception of the world we interact with.

Crazy, eh?

We hit The Scene on South Elm the last two nights, catching both the Wal-Mart and Outfoxed documentaries. On the way home last night, while discussing the possibility of shooting a documentary together in the near future (I’ll keep you posted on where that conversation goes), we ended up bumping heads on a variety of subjects and a few stinging perception issues that we had about each other—issues that must have built-up between us over the years in our separate lives—came to the surface.

Quite honestly, if this conversation were over the phone sometime over the past 12 years, these pent up perceptions probably wouldn’t have made it to the surface. Looking back, we both became proficient at not pressing our conversations when anything became close to uncomfortable, as (I think) we both wanted to ensure that our tight relationship as kids remained just as tight as adults. I’m thinking that we both must have felt that challenging each other too much might have snapped that carefully crafted ecosystem of "safe" interactions.

I’m also thinking that it would be stupid for us to continue along these lines; thankfully, Andy feels the same way.

Us Coon brothers are creative souls and creative souls often have problems communicating and taking feedback. But if we want to work together professionally, allowing ourselves to evolve to understand each other as artists, adults and brothers, we’re going to have to lock in and listen to each others perspectives by trusting in our common, positive intent.

On that note, come on bro’… try to pin me.