Here is what Bram told me: the weather app said 77. Here is what Bram did not tell me: he had signed us both up for the Dane County Parks Earth Day Volunteer Extravaganza at 8 AM, which is, as any reasonable person could confirm, not 77 degrees. It is 53 degrees and there is a wind coming off the lake that has opinions about your life choices.
I found out the way I find out about most things with Bram, which is that he texted me a confirmation email at 11 PM the night before with the message "ok so fun thing tomorrow" and then fell asleep before I could respond.
The fun thing was trash pickup along the lakeshore path. The fun thing involved grabby-claws and bright orange vests and a volunteer coordinator named Patrice who was, genuinely, extraordinarily cheerful about all of it. Bram shook her hand like he was personally responsible for Earth Day existing.
He had dressed for the 77. He was wearing a t-shirt. A single, optimistic t-shirt, because he had looked at the high and decided that was the relevant number, which is the Bram approach to most quantitative information — identify the best figure and commit to it emotionally.
I was wearing a fleece. I had also brought a second fleece, because I know him, and I handed it to him without a word when we got out of the car on John Nolen and he did the full-body flinch that meant he had just made contact with actual April air. He put it on. He did not say thank you yet. He would say thank you later.
"This is good," he said, pulling the fleece sleeves over his hands. "We're outside. We're doing something."
"We're doing something you signed us up for without asking."
"You would have said no."
"I would have said bring a jacket."
He considered this. "Okay. That's fair. But you're here."
I was here. Patrice had given me an orange vest and a map of our assigned section and Bram had already found a guy named Doug who apparently went to the same high school as Bram's cousin, and they were now fifteen feet ahead of me having a full reunion while collecting cigarette butts, which is a very Bram way for a morning to go.
The thing is, by ten o'clock, he was right. The sun came up over the tree line and hit the path and it was suddenly, genuinely, infuriatingly beautiful. One of those Madison spring mornings that feels like the city is apologizing for winter and really means it this time. The lake was flat and silver. Someone had a dog in a little bandana. Bram was walking around in my fleece looking pleased with himself in the way he only gets when a plan he made entirely on vibes turns out okay.
He picked up an astonishing amount of trash. He was diligent about it. He kept saying "oh, come on" quietly whenever he found something particularly bad, personally offended on behalf of the lakeshore, and I kept thinking about how this is the same person who once left a coffee cup on top of the car and drove away.
At the end, Patrice took a group photo for the Parks Instagram and Bram stood in the back row with his orange vest on and his arm around Doug from his cousin's high school and grinned like he'd planned every detail of this moment six months in advance.
On the way back to the car he said, "We should do the city one on Saturday too."
"The Madison Parks Earth Day Challenge?"
"Yeah. I think it'd be fun."
"Bram."
"I'll check the weather."
"You'll check the high and decide that's all that matters."
He pulled out his phone and looked at it very seriously. "It says 61. That's fine. That's a fleece situation."
"It's my fleece."
"I'll give it back before Saturday."
He did not give it back before Saturday. He is wearing it right now. It fits him better than it fits me at this point, which feels like a form of losing.
We went to the Saturday cleanup. It was fine. It was a little cold. He had borrowed the fleece and I had moved on to a jacket, which is a metaphor for something about us that I am choosing not to examine.
He did bring coffee this time, which I'm counting as growth.