to the rock.

i am returning to the place of my birth. my formative years, a time warp, with images of faded british boy-school movies blended in with a rural fishing-based culture and idllyic family happiness, my father's typewriter present in every memory, my mother calling across the community for me to come in to supper, and occassionally my father's british accent booming across the hills while we played with eels and crabs and flatfish.

every time i return, i question the role of place in the creation of identity. no matter where i go, who i become, i will always be influenced by the place. each region has its own effect on its people. newfoundland is cold and hard and isolated, and it creates community, trust, and support. for some reason, it also created happiness, zest for life, a desire to live well, to smile through the troubles that life throws our way. community. a shared understanding that we are in this together.

i was talking to a friend. her husband sells real estate. he is in the upper echelon, million dollar + listings. when he brings a client in to look at a place, he has to guard that client, because the other real estate agent who will be there will try to steal the client away, in order to reap both commissions (the lister, and the seller). at high level sales, the other agent is always there. both agents smile at each other. then they go about manipulating everyone involved, in order to make money.

to me, a newfoundlander, this would never work. i could never play at this game. i don't understand it. it's sickening. i have a community based ethos, gleaned from a place where we all had to work together.

no, my father was not a fisherman, he was a writer, another community based form of survival. but i was raised by fisherman, i played with their children, i ate at their tables. my mother's side of the family, all from newfoundland, came from fishermen. the mentality is, you help those who need it. you give food if someone has none, you go out in a rough sea to feed your family and you go out in a rough sea and risk your life if someone else's is in trouble.

i am going to teacher's college because i realize that, if i can't support a family with my writing, i never want to put myself in a situation where i would have to play this game. this "fuck everyone" game. it would be a slap in the face to the place i'm from. the place i call home. the people i love there. it goes against every grain in my being.

to those who play this game, they would consider me stupid, or weak. because i moved from place to place, city to city, country to country, i encountered many examples of "how humans play when there is a new person without a social network to rely on", ie - preying on the weak.

i was put into so many situations as the new kid where a group of kids would target me because i was new. they knew i had no 'cool friends' yet, or 'tough' friends, so i would be easy pickings.

these people would back off entirely, in some cases plead to be my friend, once i had established myself with friends at the new school. these people, these "feed off the weak", came from all classes, rich and poor.

i developed empathy at a young age. i saw the injustice, because i felt it. i was pushed, mobbed, stolen from, punched, called names... and every time, within a couple of months, i'd have my group of friends and the bullies would have backed off. they couldn't touch me because i had social power and could expect some retaliation.

i can't quite put my finger on it yet, but i feel there is a correlation between these bully type kids i dealt with, and the real estate agent who would steal your client and your earnings for your work. and i hate them for it.

i saw a lot of bad in people when i was a kid. i saw a lot of shallow when i moved to ontario and learned about labels. i saw a whole lot of bad and shallow when my brother's star ascended and the people who flocked about because of it.

and tomorrow morning (at 7am, natch!), i fly out of this wonderful, evil, beautiful, glorious, turbulent, violent, peaceful, chorus of a city and return to the world that showed me how to deal with awful people, how to deal with the inconsistencies of a life well lived, well experienced. One way is to talk about it, or write about it, or sing about it. i will do all those. i will also raise a glass to it.

i return home for my nan's 80th birthday party. she is a whirlwind of life. dancing until 2 in the morning, ski dooing, drinking occassionally, stealing a cigarette when no one is looking. she's lived long enough to do whatever the hell she wants. and she inspires every one of her children to never ever say they're too old, they're too tired.

it is also her oldest son's funeral. he wanted his funeral to coincide with a huge party/music festival that takes place on fogo island (EXTREMELY remote) every year, so, although he died two months ago, we're going back to celebrate him, his mother, and newfoundland, in one big lurching heaving hugging crying battallion of life.

to the rock