Silliness

As children, Yael and Amir and I had our share of fun times and adventures, memorable family trips and lazy summer weekends in our backyard. Being so close in age, we had similar shared experiences within the span of only a few years, along with shared tastes in music and many friends in common. Like most siblings, we also had the occasional disagreement or throwdown (three of us sharing one bathroom, particularly as teenagers, led to some epic shouting matches and disgruntled compromises). But, for the most part, I recall us getting along as though we were close friends in addition to being siblings.

May 1996

Once we became adults, our relationships deepened in wonderful new ways. Along with turning to each other for guidance and advice and exploring new avenues together, we constantly cracked each other up with our steadily maturing humor and sarcasm. We bitched and laughed with each other about our parents. We were equally entertained by the cultural differences, malapropisms and various foreign accents of our parents, grandparents and other family members constantly floating around us. We ditched family gatherings early to go to the movies together or for a post-event cocktail or dessert--just the three of us. We took a memorable road trip from L.A. to San Francisco, during which we laughed off the rain that pelted my little Nissan and forced us to change our route, turning a 6-hour drive into a 12-hour adventure along muddy, deserted backroads. That's a story for another time.

This photo was taken at my grandparents' L.A. apartment after a particularly lively dinner when we were in our 20s. By this time, Amir had already moved to northern CA and it was the last year Yael and I would both live in L.A. I remember the three of us banding together at one end of the dining room table. Wine was flowing. Amir was cracking us up, as usual. Someone (maybe Dad?) captured this silly moment in a photo that embodies so well the dynamic between the three of us as adults--probably making fun of our elders but, more than anything, competing for the ultimate prize: making each other laugh.