Chapter 1
Dawn breaks into the day like a thief in the night. The rooster next door is exceptionally loud and insistent that we all wake up. Typical of a male, making demands on the rest of us. WAKE UP! WAKE UP AND GIVE ME ATTENTION.
It’s 5 am, and I am on the sofa with the new kitten and the old dog while the husband snores blissfully unaware that we are watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Of the four men in this episode that aired in 2014. Two of the men in this episode are dead, one is on tour, and one should be enjoying his twilight years.
As with most notorious men, there are complications in their stories. And that’s true for humanity as well. We are a complicated species. Why are we so complicated? Probably because a lot of us should get some therapy. I could speak about the significance these two men had on my life with their art, but would it do any good considering the nefariousness of their hidden lives?
And honestly, do I want to centre my story around men?
Life is hard and gritty as random bits of beauty tear into the day-to-day to remind us that we are alone. And yet, we are not alone. There are billions of us. Some of us are lucky. Allegedly, lucky.
I wasn’t born in an area prone to being bombed, but bombs did go off. I didn’t grow up where people were starved and put into refugee camps, but we were hungry and dependent on social services to survive. My story is not unlike that of others born in North America. We are considered the lucky ones. Being born and thrust into life to what exactly? I still don’t know.
Let’s rewind to autumn 1976. A teenage girl is about to give birth. Somehow in her life, she became male-centred. Men would be the cause and source of this young woman’s problems for the majority of her life. Rippling and cascading down to her, yet born first daughter of a first daughter of a first daughter.
I am the first, just, and she is before me. We carry the weight of the mistakes made before we are born and yet are held responsible for fixing them like we are some sort of spiritual mechanic tasked with fixing the engine of a car that should have been sold to the wreckers a millennium ago.
How do you end a bloodline? Don’t have children. Pretty simple. Keep it simple, stupid.
She was born to a child, grew to care for children who were born to her mother. Her mother, by no fault of her own, experienced things she shouldn’t have. Got caught up in lives that took from her. That shaped her decisions, and even though these were not the best decisions, they were hers to make.
We often look at the past and believe that we could have shaped it differently because we have this odd ability to believe in our ability to do the right thing when presented with the wrong choices.
