10. Different Sides of the Track
My mother’s experience was a rather convoluted metaphor for how I felt. I was never quite sure which side of the tracks I came from. My family was on the tracks as far as I was concerned, for it didn’t seem that we inhabited any particular world completely, no matter how I tried to slice life. Most children I knew had a mother, a father and at least one sibling, whereas my home included my mother, grandmother, aunt and uncle (my mother’s mother and siblings) and once in awhile my father. I had no brothers or sisters.
[Photo #1: "Mummy", little ol' edited me and turtle]Although my parents did try to work out their differences (almost as many times as they separated), their marriage was probably doomed from the start; but I could understand how my kind-hearted, Anglophone mother, effervescent and movie-star-beautiful was probably swept off her feet by my handsome, adventure-loving, French-accented father. I never had any doubt that I was conceived in love—but alas, it was not a very practical love. Not only were they culturally different, my mother and
father wanted different things at that time in their lives that neither could provide the other.[ Photo #2: Daddy and me (wearing trademark eye black-out) at Wasaga Beach]
While I definitely discovered many of the down sides of being an only child, one of the benefits of my circumstances was that I was raised in a houseful of adults who never failed to praise my every success, and who usually brushed off errors and failures with “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
I witnessed compassion in my mother who couldn't bear anyone or anything to suffer, optimism in my grandmother who could find a rainbow in a mud puddle, independence in my aunt who, when a friend opted out of a planned trip to
From my uncle, I learned about the stars, the vastness of the universe, and the potential destructiveness of brilliance, morality and sensitivity turned inwards. And from those who looked upon my uncle and imagined themselves superior to him, I learned that such divisive judgments are made when we are furthest from our wisdom.
Bio XI
posted by Winter Child @ 1:44 a.m.
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