Being here in rural Kansas, America’s heartland, has stirred up a lot of emotions for me.
Childhood crap: 1) My mother’s home in the backwoods of New Brunswick. I was never close with her family, and did my best as I grew to distance myself from them. They shamed me, for reasons I still can’t make clear. The women shamed me the most – they were low and common. They had terrible taste in spouses. They made me feel dirty, just for being related to them. Yet, still I was drawn to the place. I’m sure that if the situation were different, family-wise, I would have spent a lot more time there. Perhaps I would even make my home there. I was drawn to the serenity, and to a calling from the soil itself – much like I was with my long lost Cottage. This farm, this expanse of nothing and no one, for mile upon mile, is what I sought in those backwoods. 2) As most of you know, I thought was American till I was 5 years old. My father burst that bubble on the day of Reagan’s inauguration, when he explained that Canada was not only not a State – it was a whole separate country! I have felt robbed of a birthright ever since.
The Heather Years: And the family that wasn’t really mine. I was treated like one of their own, right up until… I wasn’t. Some things can’t be forgiven I suppose. Nor forgotten, in my case. Grudges get held on all sides, and they create walls that can never be broken. Walls that will live on in history, like the one in China. Just a part of the landscape, visible on Google Earth. I see a lot of similarities here at Argghhh!, and I wonder if perhaps it’s a chance to do it right this time. Or maybe it’s just another broken heart on the distant horizon. I hope not. I’ve lost far too much family as it is. I’ve been orphaned on more than one occasion, as impossible as that may seem.
Path of Thorns: Once upon a time, some words were said. Some sentiments exchanged. And some promises got broken. Many of those promises revolved around this very place, here in the heartland. A great place to raise a family that will never exist. And as I pass the little roadside churches and see the families at the market, it strikes me once more how faith in another human being will always lead to disappointment – faith exists for God alone. Two days ago I sat in a restaurant, forcing myself to swallow the food that had become stuck in my throat as I watched a man in uniform escort his wife and daughter out of the establishment. Her curls – it hurt to look at them. It was all I could do not to cry in front of Beth, who insists I’ve already cried enough. I know she’s right. Instead the goats saw me cry! They probably won’t tell… I hope.
This place is bittersweet, as most things are that one puts one’s heart into. Life is an imperfect adventure. I am trying to live every joyful moment and every heartbreak to the very fullest. When my time here ends – both in Kansas and on earth – I will leave behind some great stories and many clever anecdotes. People will know I have been here. And maybe, they will remember that I cried a little, too.
I do love reading when you write from the heart, not so much that we get to know you better, but that (I suspect) you are getting to know yourself better.
I would love to offer you a hug, will a virtual one be acceptable?
Heh. He’s not worth a 10th of the tears you’ve shed.
But the land does draw, doesn’t it?
My Mom (and me too) was from the backwoods of new brunswick. She became an “orphan” at the age of 9 (her Mom died and her dad drank)and was shipped off to an orphanage in Saint John together with her 8 sisters and brother. Nothing like the woods of new brunswick though – wild blueberries,raspberries, blackberries. Fiddleheads. Snowshoeing in the deep winter snow. Homemade pickles and blackflies by the swarms in the summer. I miss it.