Zeke and Claire's Geocache (Bethesda, MD):
A geocache that Zeke and Claire hid near their local public library, including an mp3 player. The player who found the geocache downloaded the files off of the mp3 player and into this file. They are also transcribed below.
A Note from your Past Self
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8/23/2008
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Change is terrifying. It rises up like a wind, and closes you in on all sides. I don’t know where we’ll be living a year from now. Who we’ll know. If we will know each other at all.
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I know it’s unlikely Zeke will ever (ever) look into the files on this iPod. That is, I suppose, for the best. But I wish to write down a few things about my brother, because I keep seeing myself twenty years from now, isolated, alone, finding this piece of us, and deciding to call him again. I wish to now, at 17, I hope, be part of what makes me call him again.
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When we were kids, he always let me choose who to be first when we’re playing pretend from a story. And now, if we’re writing together he’ll let me choose who I wish to write as before he even tells me what he wants. And even if I choose his favorite character, he’s happy all the way.
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Once I saw him teaching a girl in our community pool how to swim. She was too small to, she couldn’t get it, but he stayed there for hours while I ate Bomb popsicles on the sidelines, his hands just underneath so she wouldn’t drown. He loves to say, “Try again! You’ll get it this time!”
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In fifth grade he gave his girlfriend a box shaped like a heart full of earphones he had embroidered for her, wrapped in friendship bracelet string. She threw it away in homeroom. And he never fell in love again. I hope he outgrows this. But I think pushing it would be worse.
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Making music together is one of our favorite things to do. Even facing down not being in the same place, I’m sure we will be able to communicate digitally and continue to create songs. Sitting in the same room writing a lyric together, or playing the ukulele chords for the start of a new song, are some of my favorite memories with Zeke.
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We used to go on long evening walks down to Fleming Park and sit on the rock in the middle of the creek, just at the point where you can’t hear the highways over the crashing water, and say whatever we were thinking- narrate our thoughts to one another. We would do this until we said the same things at the same time. I sometimes felt like he was saying my thoughts before I thought them.
Having a brother is like having someone who is always there. No matter what. For better or for worst.
So wherever you are, iihhooppeehyeoiusrtehweerlel
Sincerely,
Claire
