Cards

My family played cards, a lot. Euchre, Rummy, 500, Pedro, the quartet games, bidding and dealing, suits, partners and trumps, no betting. Rummy was played with a big old Oatmeal box filled with rubber washers, parceled out and collected back in at the end of the evening. As soon as I was old enough to play adequately, I was expected to join in.
Mostly, I actually enjoyed getting good at these games of strategy and luck, judgement and cooperation. I knew the rules. Stories of amazing hands, daring wins or ridiculous failures, were de rigeur. And if I kept my ears open, I heard hints of family secrets.

I was compared to my older brothers a lot. Not in the sense of "Why aren't you more like Dave?" More in the sense of "You have that same silly laugh, like when Dave is really touched." Or, "You sounded just like Bill when you said that." At home, this came from my mother. In the card evenings, aunts, uncles and granny would play this on me as well. How much I looked like one or the other, or was smart or funny like them. I took this all in with intense curiosity, and a bit of pride, because I adored those two boys, even as they baffled and frustrated me. I clamored for their attention, and sometimes got it. After they moved out and away, while I was still very young, I fantasized about them coming back to take me out of that house, out of school, out of my increasingly oppressive life, and enforced card games.When I was tired and didn't feel like dealing with adults, I had a habit of throwing games, although it would be thrown back at me if I was caught - and the excoriation would start in the car on the way home. That's when I heard from my father about how I was selfish like them, thoughtless and ungrateful. How he knew I would hate him, too, and treat him like crap, like they did.

The comparisons continued, and both compliments and condemnations were phrased in the form of a genetics proof. My mother would make a point of telling me how much I really was like my father, which was both why we should, and why we didn't get along. My father would fail to insult me by comparing me to my beloved aunt. The game became a bad habit, joyless and pointless, but hard to stop playing. I reacted against being like the father I so hated, but I could also see the faults of the family members I loved. I was fascinated with and repelled by the genetics I was dealt, and pondered what I got from whom and how.

I have come to accept that I am a lot of my father. I scrounge, nothing makes me happier than finding a perfectly good lamp/tv stand/chair in the recycle room. He loved to walk the alley and find bits of board that might be useful someday. I have his temper, although I train mine like a strong dog, to be safe around children. I have his black going grey hair, and I dye mine like he did. But I do not hide that I dye it, nor am I embarrassed to admit as much. I can lie straight faced, but only when necessary, to protect. Not just for the hell of it, as he would say he had a cold if he needed to skip something because he had a headache - puzzling lies that covered perfectly good excuses. I get his migraines, and his tendency to depression and despair.

My cousin, who I have recently gotten to know because I live near her for the first time, is an unexpected connection. I feel a similarity, a resonance, in her. I do look like my brothers. But I am also very like my friends, who share stunning similarities with me. D in particular. So much so that one of his friends asked, after first meeting me, him how he'd "Found a Female D****?" I remind new cow-orkers of other people that they know. So?

I am myself. I am all of the DNA gathered in my cells, the people who taught me and tested me, the hand I was dealt. And I am the unique game that I play out with those around me. I pour myself out and make my wager every day, and gather myself back in, to try again tomorrow. I avoid cheaters, but when I have no choice, I play as well as I can.

I still have a soft spot for Jokers.