(The
story of my life from my 2nd birthday to the day before
yesterday. An Abridged version)
1962,
Vancouver
Well I
don't actually know that I was told on precisely the 17th of
August 1962, but knowing my parents, they would have
believed that their news would be a gift.
Two years
previously, my parents had passed the rigorous Suitability Test
for Catholic Adopting Parents (more on that another
time) and I was adopted at 5 weeks old from a Catholic
institution for "unwed mothers" in Vancouver. I have a
sort of recovered memory that I spoke out in
Gestaltian Self-dialogue therapy using my little girl voice: "I don't like how, with their heads covered
(was I foreseeing Sally Fields as "the Flying Nun"?), I couldn't
smell their hair"...
In those
days, a Catholic girl "who got into trouble" would leave
her family home to go "visit" another city on whatever pretext suited
her particular circumstances. She would have her baby and then give it
away. My bio-mother left l'ile Perrot just west of Montreal as she had
before on one of her frequent trips: around North America or
to Europe; and came out west to Vancouver.
(The
documentary
The Forty Year Secret (2009)
Is an
exposé of some of the less savory aspects of that “solution”… )
1960,
Vancouver
Soon as
I was born my bio-mother was applying her lipstick and gushing to the nuns about how much in a hurry she was to get back to Her Exciting Life in Montreal. It
is documented in my file that she didn’t even look at me before
dashing off.
My bio-mother
was exceptionally free for a Catholic girl, young woman really, in
late 50s Québec, where the Church dominated
absolutely.
Much was
made of Megan Draper's libertine Zou Bisou Bisou dance at Don's birthday party. It was considered
an inaccurate portrayal of a young woman from Ultra Conservative Catholic Québec,
even in the early 60s. True, Mad Men got her
parents' French accents all wrong as well as Megan's perfect English,
but given the apparent liberté
d'esprit of my bio-mother in the late 50s I wonder if Megan was just
another exception to the rule. She did move to New York to be an actress
after all...
1962,
Vancouver
As a
baby, or so I am told, in learning to walk I didn’t try: I
just waited till I knew I wouldn’t fall down. I was 18 months old when I
finally started walking (without falling and with my spare diaper in
hand just in case).
And so
the "gift": I was to have a New Baby Sister. From declaration until
her arrival a couple of months later, my spare diaper was repurposed as a
weapon for whacking every smaller than I child who crossed my
path...
February 1985, California
As a
sort of Suitability Test for Travel Companions, AN (Mr Jeremiah from my post: Endurance: for the Glory or in the Gulag) invited me to hitchhike with him from
Vancouver to San Francisco. On our way back up north, while resting in the
parking lot of a supermarket in some very dusty, sun bleached corner of
California, a rough and rugged Ronald Reagan cowboy
type sauntered over and asked if we had any money. Did he
need money? Was he the sheriff who was going to harass us for our
lack of sufficient funds as had the American Customs Officers who'd Refused us
Entry to The USA on our way south, demanding we return with more cash? (Which
we did).
Some, I mumbled as ambiguously as possible hoping to
satisfy both plausible reasons for his question.
He then
pushed his large calloused hand into his pants pocket and pulled
out a handful of spare change...
We went
into the supermarket and bought a bag of tart green grapes; paying with
little piles of American nickels and dimes.
1987,
Seoul
Re-entering
the airport in Seoul Korea after a brief wander around a nearby working class
neighbourhood, we, CL and I, were stopped by a Security guard. In searching my
carry-on bag it became obvious he had never before seen an OBR
Tampon, a spare of which I had tucked discreetly in a small pocket. Without a
common spoken language, I was obliged to either toss it out or defend its
innocent purpose through mime. After
a few minutes of hilarity (mine) and embarrassment (his) I kept my spare.
1993, Montreal
During the
summer after my father died, I moved from Hipster Mile End to former working
class-turned welfare-class community St-Henri. In the summer my cake baking
business was limited and money was scarce. In paying for cake ingredients
with the spare change left in the closet by the previous tenant I would visit 3
separate supermarkets to avoid paying with more than 2 or 3 dollars of spare
change in any single store.
1997, Montreal
During
Global TV’s filming of one of Studio XX’s monthly women, art and tech salons, les Femmes Br@nchées, they kept the camera
on a punk girl presenter, at the expense of other costumed participants. (We
were big on playing thematic dress-up – it was the era of grrrl power and virtual world avatars). Photogenic punk girl came
up to me afterwards and asserted that I (in spite of my Jetson’s era Martian look) seemed the type
of woman to carry a spare tampon!
2015, Vancouver
So the day
before yesterday I was waiting as AK braved the freezing AC
of the No Frills grocery store on Denman St. Outside on the
sidewalk in the sun, I sat on my
wheelchair (which I bring just in case Parkinson’s decides I will no longer
be able to walk, until it decides that I will). I took off my fav
visored-cap - a gift from NZ a friend who loves hats - careful
to avoid placing it inside up...
As a man walked by, I noticed his backpack was unzipped, wide open.
Instinctively I raised my hand to get his attention. Before I
could explain why I was attracting his attention, he reached into his pants
pocket and pulled out a handful of spare change.
