When The Levee Goes Nowhere

I saw my brother on Friday for the first time in four years. We can't remember exactly how long it was. His girlfriend and our mother ate out with us. There was an awkward half hour when we thought mum was drunk. But then she said her new medication made her feel like she wasn't really at the table talking to us and we felt like crooks for our earlier suspicions.

Terrorism came up in conversation, as did the current hot-button topic of Muslim women wearing veils. Not everyone in my family is as liberal as I am! Last month someone told a racist joke at my uncle's birthday party. Don't get me started on the guests at my aunt's funeral.



I gave my brother a disc of Led Zeppelin covers that was in my glove box. Some tracks are silly re-interpretations (one song to the tune of another, banjo time, etc.) but Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You does the business. Tea For One needs no new twist: it's the melody from Since I've Been Loving You played backwards with new lyrics anyway!

Today I saw that my brother had left his gift on the back seat of my car. I'd been driving along, thinking how odd it would be if he was driving and listening to the music at the exact moment that I was driving and thinking about him listening to it, and it was two feet away from me the whole time.