For Tracey

When I was a young girl, all I wanted to be was my sister.

She was bold and beautiful (I know, I know…that’s the name of a soap opera, but she truly was….and IS. Actually, I don’t think she has ever been more beautiful than she is right now.)

Her room was the sanctum of secrets. It was a privilege, an honor, to be invited in. Without an invite, no one trespassed.

I would enter, and stare at her elaborately decorated walls, wondering “How does she do that?” Every inch of wall space truly reflected who she was. She captured herself so well. Everything from poetry, to newspaper clippings, to the enlarged chop-topped hairdo close- ups of the Bay City Rollers was artfully arranged. Just so.

I would just “hang out” in there. Looking all around me, show tunes or Bruce Springsteen filling the space in between the walls. I would lie on my tummy with the liner notes and lyrics, listening to the music and at the same time trying to catch bits and bobs of her conversation she was having on the phone with one of her friends, most likely Kim or Billy.

When I wasn’t allowed in her room, I would beg for her to play with me.

Tree Tots Family Tree House.

She named the dog “Barfy.” One of the siblings in the family got a stomach ache and moaned, “Oh da shtomach….Oh da pain!!!” (I think it was the little boy.)

Barbie Town House.

She created elaborate plot lines. We spent more time setting the stage, creating the scenario and dressing up the dolls than actually playing with them. A particular favorite was, “American Bandstand.”

Barbie’s best friend, the Barbie with brown hair, wasn’t very popular. She wasn’t allowed to go on American Bandstand with her gorgeous, popular, blonde, sister-Barbie. Well, that very night when she was supposed to be cleaning her room, she created the coolest outfit ever, completely transformed herself, and went on the goddamn show! The most amazingly gorgeous boy there could not keep his eyes off of her. Of course they danced all night. Of course she had to leave when she noticed it was closing in on midnight….

Playing Barbies was boring without Tracey.

She taught me how to put on makeup.

She dressed me up in a wide array of clothes and curtains from the “dress up box”, a huge, white, wooden monstrosity in the basement.

She taught me how to slow dance to “Stairway to Heaven.” Slow dancing through the fast part…very important.

She made my wedding dress.

She did my makeup for me that day.

She hand-embroidered my daughter’s wedding dress. At her blessing way, Tracey told my daughter, “This dress literally has my blood, sweat, spit, and tears sewn into it.”

Fabric is her canvas. You know that book and film, “Like Water for Chocolate”? That’s what my sister does with fabric and repurposed clothes, curtains, bits and bobs. She weaves magic into her creations.

I was approaching Chicago on my road trip, and had to quickly find another album to play. Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” made itself clear. My husband said I needed to have a Bruce Springsteen album, and Tracey said, “Clearly it’s Born to Run.”

Clearly it was.

I have never owned the album.

Yet, as I drove through the first city I had come to in hundreds of miles, I knew every lyric to every song. I sang loud and proud and danced in my seat. Images of me hearing Bruce’s voice and Clarence’s saxophone blasting through my bedroom wall from my sister’s room even though both of our doors were closed, and lying on my tummy reading along with the lyrics when I was allowed into her sacred space, came rushing at me.

Damn. That album is great!

Damn. My sister is amazing….that’s Tracey, with an “E-Y.”