Sibling Awakening

Notes from a week away with my kid brother

Final look at the mountain before we head to the airport.

Last week, I was in Tecate, Mexico, a border town south of San Diego, and home to Rancho la Puerta, the oldest destination spa in North America. Since 2011, I’ve been teaching cooking classes at the Ranch’s cooking school, La Cocina Que Canta, once (and sometimes twice) a year. It’s not a paid gig, but the adjoining six-acre organic farm and the gorgeous teaching kitchen with a view of the sacred mountain Mount Kuchumaa are among the reasons it’s a plum one.

When I’m not on the clock, which is more than half of my time, I get to enjoy all the riches of this four thousand-acre property — the sunrise hikes and the yoga and the hot tubs and the sound healing and the stretch classes and the art studio with Jennifer and and and …

I also can bring a guest.

On this trip, that guest was my brother Tim.

The last time we shared living quarters just the two of us was in 1990. I was twenty-three, working my first reporting job, and he was nineteen and in need of a safe place to crash, away from the jerk living with our mother. For a few months, we shared a futon.

By then, our father had been dead seven years. Tim, John, and I thrown from the tree. Soon, drugs would become their language and the wedge between me and them, a chasm for which there was no bridge, no peace, no understanding. Years piled in between family gatherings. We shared the same brow ridge but were strangers on the bus.

Now, thirty-some years hence, my nearly fifty-eight to his almost fifty-three. Roomies for the week, sharing a toilet. A front row seat to how the other rustles at dawn to get dressed for a hike. The personal grooming routines — he’s got a gnome-sized beard that traps crumbs like a tablecloth and I have a carrot dye job in need of a do-over. I think about how handsome he is, the facial cloak eclipsing the magnetism of his bluejay eyes, his ruddy cheeks, his beaming smile when his lips part.

At first, I think of this week as a gift solely for him. The luxury accommodations and all the trimmings. But with each passing day, I see that it’s a gift for me, too. The together time in our casita at our respective sinks and out in nature drinking the mountain air. For him to see his big sister in the kitchen spreading her gospel of home cooking. To introduce him to Ranch staffers and to our gaggle of new pals. “Kim and Tim.”

An extension of me. My flesh and blood. My heart.

Before heading to dinner on our last night, I ask him what he remembers about growing up. I was propped up on my bed and he was sitting in a chair about ten feet away. As he spoke, I saw our father in his visage. The shape and color of his eyes. The thick, caterpillar mustache. The quiet, thoughtful introspection that I remember. It was like a hologram.

I told him so. And he twinkled. Just like our dad.

Back at the airport, we both tuck into turkey and bacon sandwiches with a side of fries. Not exactly spa fare. His flight takes off a few hours after mine. We’ve got some time to kill in this open-air area with tables and lots of natural light. He tells me he’s still processing his experiences of the past week. I get that. And I also hope that he will be able to articulate his impressions, that he won’t keep it to himself and keep his sister in the dark.

And then he saves the best for last.

“Over the years, I’ve come to learn to trust your judgement and listen to the things you’ve shared from all of your travels and being in the world,” he said, those kid brother eyes looking right at me.

I might have cried running to my gate. Everything is gonna be alright.