Archive for January, 2010
I don’t know why it was like that, but in my youth, I had very little credibility with my parents. They didn’t seem to have any confidence in my abilities. They never believed things I told them. I always listened to my mother, and for the most part, I behaved responsibly. I remember one incident that happened when I was seventeen.
During one of her stints as a traveling nurse, my sister was assigned to a little cabin in the woods in New Hampshire. She was so enchanted with the setting that she called to tell me all about it. She said that it was the kind of place that made you want to get up in the morning and have waffles and bacon for breakfast. Her description gave me a clear mental image of it. You cannot imagine how excited I was when she invited me to spend a week there with her.
Many people dream of visiting some far away place. My dream, since I was a child was to visit India. I had a great aunt from there and I loved to listen to the stories my mother told me about India. One day, my dream came true. Although my husband was not from India, he was of Indian origin. After we were married, we went to visit some of his family who still lived in India. They were scattered form Maharashtra Province to Andhra Pradesh Province. It was a thrill of a lifetime to realize my dream.
When we were teenagers, we spent a summer up north in Quebec. Other than swimming, there was little else for us to do. Almost every day, two of my sisters and one of my brothers would go for a long walk along the country roadside to see what there was to discover
There were times in our adult lives that we kids thought that our mother was a bit peculiar. The others thought it was because our mother was a closet drinker. That was a fact that I chose to overlook. My summation of events in our lives, and in our mother’s life led me to understand that if indeed our mother was peculiar, we probably pushed her over the edge.
Here I am. I have arrived at the senior stage in my life. I am barely able to make ends meet. I have no savings, no investments. I do not own any property, nor do I own a car or a bicycle. Still, I am happier now than I have ever been at any other point in my life, thus far.
Over the years, I have had many visitors from the ‘other side’. I did not know any of the spirits who had allowed me to see them. In a recent home I had rented, there were so many spirits that visited me on a daily basis that it became just another day in my life and for the most part, I saw no need to mention them to anyone. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was day or night although most of the visitations took place at night. I seemed to be living in a vortex that was on their path. One thing I did do though was to go outside one day and tell the spirits that they were welcome to visit me any time they wanted. I told them they could peek in the windows, but they were not allowed inside the house. Inside was my domain. Strangely enough, for as active as that area was, I never saw any spirits inside my home.
When I was growing up, I thought that whatever happened in our home was normal. I had four natural siblings and five adopted siblings. To us, this was normal. My dad went to work and my mom stayed home to raise the ten children.
All I ever wanted for breakfast was a bowl of corn flakes. During the summer months when I was a child, we ate cornflakes, but come September and the start of another school year, we were given oatmeal with brown sugar and cream on it. I hated oatmeal. Every day, it was a battle to see if I could keep it down. It was a battle that I never seemed to be able to win. Every day, I would gag on it and my esophagus would close and refuse to let the stuff go down. By the time I was twelve, I knew I had to find a creative way to dispose of it.
I developed a passion for writing from an early age. My interest is mainly in story-telling, but I did work for a brief period for The Montreal Tribune for their Dining out in Montreal and their Entertainment column. Though it was a brief stint, I loved the opportunity to show my professionalism. I have written poetry that caught the eye of a high school teacher who used my work in her literature class.