Pretend

I often joke that I am simply a female version of my brother. Our tastes in music, humor, people, fashion (to an almost alarming point); even common phrases are seemingly identical. This is because, for better or for worse, my brother has been the single largest influence in my life. I have wonderful, loving parents, but I often think my brother has raised me. He shaped my early childhood, most profoundly through the game “pretend.”

Playing pretend with my brother was unlike any other thing I have ever experienced. What made these games so fantastic was our commitment. Although we both had strong imaginations, we relied heavily on the use of costume boxes hidden in our closets. There were Power Ranger masks, light sabers and old cotton bath robes, my favorite but threadbare Batman’s Robin pajamas, a pair of highly fought-over civil war uniforms sent by our Uncle Henry. As I re-call, we seemed to use pirate bits and pieces to an extreme; him as captain, me as first-mate, a rubber knife gripped unwaveringly between my teeth, despite the difficulty it put on dialogue. Kitted up, we would establish our storyline. These varied based on the characters involved and the influences of recent movies. The pirate games stayed more or less the same: someone/we was/were attacking our/their ship/fort. The civil war ones changed more as we got older; spies and double-agents played an increasingly important part in the goings-on. Those with a "Star Wars" theme were at once the most scripted and at the same time the most creative of the games played outside; these required much more pre-planning and dialoguing.

The backyard acted as a third and important man in our games; large and sprawling it was perfect fodder for our already over-active imaginations. There was a big play fort near the front that at one point had boasted a lovely sandbox situated beneath the main raised fort structure, rope ladder and swing, and a slide of a most shocking shade of orange. By the time I got old enough to fully appreciate the use of set pieces, the sandbox had become a damp, hard-packed, weedy sandlot, home to insects and litter box to Lord knows what. It worked perfectly as a dangerous sort of place in a story; a dungeon, an enemy camp. The fact that the rope-ladder had begun to rot in places simply added a new dimension to the game; same with the ever decreasing number of steps on the ladders. In addition to this was what seemed to be the largest hill in Florida. In actuality, it was tiny, but it had a slope perfect for rolling down and in spring it was covered in soft clover. A typical civil war excursion would begin at the fort where one would receive instructions or a plan of attack that somehow involved rolling down the hill, hopping the back fence, and running into the bit of woods and field behind my grandparents’ house where the ponies would graze in summer.

As all good things come to an end, so to did our games. As John Gray entered middle school, he no longer had the time to play with me due to school work and baseball. I was beginning to find new interests which did not involve running around dressed as a guy, second in command to a boy in a bathrobe. The end of these games was an inevitable thing; we got older. That is not to say we do not still spend time together. Although he is in his second year of college, we still try to see as much of each other as possible through “brother/sister dates” and other such excursions. I share everything with him, and he with me, as we continue to grow together and at the same time find our differences. He is my influence, my brother, a third parent, and my closest friend, no matter what age or game.