enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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doing penance

At about age 9 or 10, I think...

And at 35 :):

This might be a dark entry...

My box with the black dress arrived on the 24th, only I couldn't bring myself to open it. Finally, this morning, I decided that I would have to do it.

How could I have bought such a dress? I could almost have sponsored another World V!sion child for the money.

The dress came in the most elaborate packaging. It was the nicest, thickest box I've ever seen. There were layers and layers of packaging, even a bag in which the dress was contained, a paper wrapping inside the folds of the fabric.

It fits perfectly. It couldn't be better. Just above the knee, sleek but not tight, not too big on my too-small rib cage. It looks lovely - both turned with the v at the back and with the v at the front. I love the feel of a matte wool knit against my skin. Sophisticated yet flattering.

A long thread was dangling around my legs - the hem was loose. I thought about sewing it.

And when I was sewing the hem back together I was listening to a radio program about homeless youth on the streets of Calgary.

And I was thinking about Christmas. I had this sudden realization yesterday that I couldn't call back many memories of Christmas from my childhood. After I was about six I always wanted it to go away - too loud and yet too lonely.

If I'm perfectly honest I can say that I started to loathe Christmas because my mother used to say "We couldn't afford this but I got it for you anyway." She would do this every year. We can't afford this. Feel guilty. I can still feel the shame.

I used to beg her not to buy me anything. I don't need anything. I don't want anything.

Oh pshaw, we can't get nothing for Christmas.

And of course the truth was that we could afford gifts. Maybe not so many. But we weren't starving - my mother had a full-time job, managed to buy a house. And I later found out that her father never stopped giving her money, paid for her university degree.

And I remember the Christmas when I was 13, only tangentially. We had gone to live with my grandparents in the country, before my parents decided to divorce, with my dad in and out of the city. I believe that he was mostly at his parents' house in Toronto during that time. I do not know. I know that he wasn't there for Christmas, that he wasn't invited for Christmas. He doesn't care about you, anyway.

That year I used to spend all the time that I could *not* at home. I would wander the countryside looking for animals. I would jump the rocks on the edge of Georgian Bay, walk the length of the quay and just sit there for hours, hide between the shelves at the public library and have conversations about books with the friendly librarian. My friend Tomy and I - whose mom was missing; I later found out that she had left the family and returned to Japan - read Jane Eyre together, crying desperately when Jane's friend died in the bed beside her. I haven't ever read that book again since. I don't think I want to change that memory by replacing it with an adult one.

So that Christmas I remember in particular because Tomy and I were especially uninterested in it. What we were interested in was the group of Indian girls who lived in the trailer park on the side of town. There was one particular girl who fascinated me - she was brash and bold and garish, everything that Tomy and I were not. And yet she was still nice to us. She was particularly nice to me- the small, mousey girl who had landed there from the city and who was two grades ahead in math.

My mother didn't like me playing with the native kids. We were not supposed to go anywhere near their trailer park. I remember not being permitted to go to Michelle's grandparents' for dinner. Michelle Moreau. That was her name. I realize now that she was obviously a Metis. I had never thought of it before now.

I don't know exactly why, but Tomy and I decided that we were going to make something beautiful for Michelle that Christmas. Tomy was to make the scarf, and I was to make the mittens. I remember that I got my grandmother to give me both red yarn and scraps of silver lurex, as I'd decided to knit in a silver band in the cuffs. I can't recall if Tomy added it to the scarf, but her effort was grand. Tomy always did things well.

Aside: I lost touch with Tomy after we moved away again. I had heard that she had gone to Japan. I've searched for her online in the past and often hoped to find her. If I were to guess I would guess that she became a doctor. I imagine her in Africa working for Medicins sans Fronti3res, or working to bring nutrition to poor children. I was smart but she was smarter. She was a shining star. I adored her.

And anyhow all I remember is that Michelle liked the mittens and the scarf - or at least I believe she did. I remember that she gave me her blue mascara. Which was a new and unfathomable thing to me, since I'd never even considered wearing makeup. My mother had forbidden it, in any event, until I was sixteen. But even given this it was a moot point given my childish figure and shy temperament - boys were not even on the radar.

I haven't thought of that in a long time. If I could rewrite the story I would tell you that Michelle did not get pregnant and drop out of high school, disappear from my acquaintance.

I guess I ask myself this question: How much penance is enough? Can one ever do enough penance? Isn't a lack of it what keeps us rich people leaving kids out on the street?

And there's an even more important question that I don't like to ask and that is "Is it even possible to heal some wounds?" Is the ability or willingness to heal some wounds what differentiates the strong and successful from me? Who is supposed to pay, anyhow?

Would Michelle ever be able to heal the wounds of what was rumoured to be sexual abuse by her uncle, those inflicted by the father she openly with a wide, toothy grin declared a drunk? "My father sleeps all day with his face down on the sofa."

And maybe she doesn't even see these as wounds. Maybe she's a great mother and a happy woman. Who am I to write her history differently, founded on my interpretation of the sadness that experiences should deliver. Maybe she had more control than I ever could have. What do I know.

When you go through your life thinking of people as characters in some piece of theatre laid out for you as you pass by you end up in dangerous territory. Everything becomes perfectible or lost. Everyone becomes tragic or comic or only part of the drifting, forgettable mass. You obfuscate the thread of the story.

1:10 p.m. - 2007-12-27

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