Sure does not seem like just yesterday and there are no misty tears to swab away but holy guacamole the nephew becomes thirteen today. There is an infamous Polaroid of me holding brand new him in my leather jacket and we're studying each other, really looking. My Sharpied caption reads Jacob's first sniff of black leather.
I talked to him when he was in his mother so I believe he knew my voice right off. Helloooo, this is your Auntie speaking, I'd pronounce as if I were speaking down into the Grandest Canyon. His mother/sole sistah did not mind but my father sure did when he witnessed the pronouncing once, claiming I'd deafen his forthcoming grandchild.
The nephew was born (the night he came out my friend TMO and I showed up drunk as can be about 2AM after spendiing the evening at nearby Icon, a concert I shot, I believe it may have been Pigface... or KMFDM. But we unsuccessfully tried to convince the near-asleep security man at the side door that we should be allowed to meander up to the maternity level for a quick hello.) with a keen sense of awareness and humour and I always have loved him more than just about anyone I know or have met or am sure to meet.
Since the age of six I dragged his nephew ass off to concerts so that he could experience music (and Yours Truly) firsthand and to see the underbelly, the workings of something and understand it, have a place in it. I felt as a kid that we family members toodled off and attended things, many cultural things, but we were skimming along as spectators - there was no sense of Knowing. So the nephew knows rock shows - the bands he's met, the security guys, the promoters, the merch girlies, the other backstage stragglers.
He is not a jock but a PlayStation addict, a karate kicker, a musician who plays piano, guitar and trombone. These past few years I've been pushing the rock concept at him. What a horrible rock stage auntie I would be.
Thirteen, the precipice and very start of what is exciting, heavy, transformative about It.
To that beloved kid, to You, I say rock on - faster, stronger, with more humourous abandon.

More More Love.