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(I serendipitously discovered something I wrote in 2001 for a kinesiology class (of all things). It's something of a bio, and I hope you find it interesting. It covers a lot of eclectic ground. Some of the stories I've talked about here before, but you'll probably also find new material.)
Prologue
I sit in a state of limbo between youth and middle age. Okay, so maybe I’m not really sitting, but the limbo part still counts. With pelvis tucked under, head tipped way back, and snakelike undulations, I dance from one age group to the next. I used to believe time is a linear thing, but over the years have come to realize that’s not quite the truth. Time is not linear. Neither is it circular. For me, time encapsulates both shapes and is a sine wave or a moving spiral. My life has been a journey from one bizarre or memorable physical experience to another. Upon first glance, many of the events don’t seem to have much in common, but upon closer examination, recurring themes make themselves evident: hair, animals, pain, trances, and those ubiquitous spirals. These themes intersect from time to time, as travelling circles are wont to do.
Growing up, I suspected I was in no way a typical kid. Nevertheless, I was reading novels which told me all children believed that of themselves, so I thought maybe my oddness was all in my head. Looking back, however, I can see my original suspicions were bang-on. I was not a typical kid with a typical family. No, just about every aspect of my life and upbringing was peculiar. How many kids do you know who were raised in a fundamentalist Christian background, moved thousands of kilometres, read voraciously, were dependant upon horses for travel, sled dogs for firewood, and themselves for gathering food in the wilderness? And how many of these kids turned out as secular humanist, agnostic, belly dancers with penchants for writing and the martial arts? Not too many, I would guess. It’s been a weird and wonderful thirty years, and this is a cross-selection of my life, in no particular order.
The Life of an Amish Gypsy Wannabe
My family veritably lived the lives of Gypsies during the 1980s, travelling across Canada in an elusive search for employment. I was a latchkey kid when my parents worked, and a hard-working child when they were unemployed.
I started off living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the early 1970s, then moved to a little place way out in the boonies called Dorn Ridge. For a brief time, I lived in Saint John in a campground and in a Moncton apartment when I was about four or five. In 1980, we began our peregrination in earnest by relocating to a small coastal town in Newfoundland called Musgrave Harbour.
We had no running water, and local wells were contaminated with naturally-occurring carcinogenic minerals. This made food preparation very time-consuming, since we had to travel several miles to find a clean well. Sometimes wells believed to be clean were fouled by the actions of ignorant people. Once, while hauling buckets of water out of a well, my father found a used sanitary napkin and some bloodied panties. As a result, we had to travel even further to find a clean well. We also had to haul extra water for our livestock (geese, chickens, dog, cat, goat, and horses). We relied on our animals for food, labour, transportation, and protection.
For a few months, our only electricity was supplied by a gas-operated generator. This made things even more difficult. All our food was prepared on a wood stove, so I had to help gather firewood after school. Because we had to conserve our gasoline for electricity, we seldom drove anywhere in our truck. Instead, we went to our three weekly religious meetings with a horse and carriage. Luckily, our Kingdom Hall (a church for Jehovah's Witnesses) wasn't too far away, so the trip didn't take too long. It's a wonder people didn't think we were Amish instead of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Much of our time was spent picking berries or working the fields at an isolated garden patch. I picked blueberries, cranberries, partridge berries, and bakeapples. At the garden, I planted and harvested potatoes. The potato site always seemed dreadfully cold, and a windbreak and campfire were always set up to give us a modicum of shelter. We’d put the billy on to boil for breaks, and sat in the lee of the wind while sipping too-hot cups of tea and munching on raw potatoes. During the caplin spawning season, we’d go down to the beach and fill buckets with tiny, silver, glistening fish and take them home to dry. Sometimes, we’d walk out amongst giant soggy rocks during low tide and pick the purple mussels which hung in succulent clusters.
Shortly after moving to Newfoundland, we packed up just a few belongings, sold our livestock, and took off to British Columbia in our big orange truck with not much more than a camper, a dog, a cat, and the clothes on our back. We hoped there would be work for my father in British Columbia. The search for employment was why we’d moved to Newfoundland in the first place, but it just hadn’t worked out.
In times of near destitution, we lived off the land. When my family lived in the Rockies and the north coast of Newfoundland, I was sorely punished if I didn't pick rose hips/berries/mushrooms after school, gather/stack firewood, gut and pluck chickens, or help my mother with canning venison or rabbit meat. I was responsible for gathering wood for the stove with the dog sled. I also stacked wood and cut kindling.
These chores were a matter of survival. Several other Jehovah's Witness families in the mountain areas were in the same predicament. Paid work was scarce. Our families pooled resources and did the hunter/gatherer bit together. My father and another Jehovah's Witness in the area couldn't afford individual moose licenses, so they had to split one. Fortunately, my father bagged a huge bull--enough to feed both our families for the winter. He also had a snare line, and wanted me to accompany him on his patrols. I always demurred, though. Although I would help butcher, I didn’t want to do any actual killing or collecting. I didn’t want to watch my father twist the necks of bunnies. Neither could I bear the thought of finding them suffocated with bulging eyes or gnawed-off paws. In the meantime, another family raised domesticated rabbits for meat and fur. We traded moose meat for rabbit meat, rose hip jam for mushrooms, and fresh baked bread for pies. The women sewed slippers and bottled jam to sell at craft and farmers’ markets.
One way the families coped with the meal problem was by taking turns with the kids. One family had eight children, and gladly took on more. We just gave them food, and it was distributed to all.
Similarly, none of us wore new clothes, but operated a hand-me-down network. This was very unfortunate for the youngest children, who ended up with ancient, worn-out clothing.
Oddly enough, the most difficult bit wasn’t when we were living off the land in British Columbia or Newfoundland, but when we spiralled back to rural New Brunswick when I was thirteen or fourteen. My school bus arrived at my door at 7:10 am, and I didn't get back home until roughly 6:00 pm. The buses were extremely overcrowded, with three or more high school students per seat. On more than one occasion, I arrived at school with fierce cramping in my legs and buttocks from perching thirty kilometres on a scant ten centimetres of seat.
My family was still very religious, and we attended meetings three times each week. I sometimes had sandwiches on the hour-long truck ride to religious meetings, but molasses sandwiches are a poor substitute for a proper meal, especially for growing children and hardworking blue collar workers like my Dad. At this point, both of my parents worked in the city, so they had just enough time to feed/water the livestock, wash up and change, and return to town for the meetings.
By the time we got back home, it was well after 10 pm and far too late for a real meal, especially when I had to get up so early in the morning. I had to suffice with a bowl of cereal or a couple slices of toast. Obviously, there was no time for any homework or studying on meeting nights, but I somehow managed to maintain excellent marks and do very well in regional science fairs. I unexpectedly received a bursary to attend university.
In my early twenties, I continued the spiral pattern by moving back to Fredericton, and then to Moncton. Although I wouldn’t mind living in British Columbia once more, I do hope I don’t end up living in Newfoundland again. The cold, windswept, Eastern beaches don’t call to me in the same way as the mountains, rain forests, deserts, and tundra of the West.
My travels have given me the opportunity to meet countless people. They have also given me ample opportunity for self-reflection. I am an agnostic. This is not a decision I came to lightly, but upon years of reflection (and probably countless hours spent commuting to religious meetings). I don't begrudge religious people their beliefs, as long as they have applied honest thought to them. I have no respect for blind faith, but for examination, reasoning, and understanding. It was only when I began to apply these principles to my own life that I realized my life is what I make of it. Gone are the days of passive acceptance of life, lack of interest in my surroundings, and dreadful fear of annihilation in some literal, fiery Armageddon. In their stead, I have a voracious hunger for new knowledge and self-improvement. In this way, I am both a classic existentialist, dependent upon myself for just about everything, and an experiential junkie.
Prologue
I sit in a state of limbo between youth and middle age. Okay, so maybe I’m not really sitting, but the limbo part still counts. With pelvis tucked under, head tipped way back, and snakelike undulations, I dance from one age group to the next. I used to believe time is a linear thing, but over the years have come to realize that’s not quite the truth. Time is not linear. Neither is it circular. For me, time encapsulates both shapes and is a sine wave or a moving spiral. My life has been a journey from one bizarre or memorable physical experience to another. Upon first glance, many of the events don’t seem to have much in common, but upon closer examination, recurring themes make themselves evident: hair, animals, pain, trances, and those ubiquitous spirals. These themes intersect from time to time, as travelling circles are wont to do.
Growing up, I suspected I was in no way a typical kid. Nevertheless, I was reading novels which told me all children believed that of themselves, so I thought maybe my oddness was all in my head. Looking back, however, I can see my original suspicions were bang-on. I was not a typical kid with a typical family. No, just about every aspect of my life and upbringing was peculiar. How many kids do you know who were raised in a fundamentalist Christian background, moved thousands of kilometres, read voraciously, were dependant upon horses for travel, sled dogs for firewood, and themselves for gathering food in the wilderness? And how many of these kids turned out as secular humanist, agnostic, belly dancers with penchants for writing and the martial arts? Not too many, I would guess. It’s been a weird and wonderful thirty years, and this is a cross-selection of my life, in no particular order.
The Life of an Amish Gypsy Wannabe
My family veritably lived the lives of Gypsies during the 1980s, travelling across Canada in an elusive search for employment. I was a latchkey kid when my parents worked, and a hard-working child when they were unemployed.
I started off living in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the early 1970s, then moved to a little place way out in the boonies called Dorn Ridge. For a brief time, I lived in Saint John in a campground and in a Moncton apartment when I was about four or five. In 1980, we began our peregrination in earnest by relocating to a small coastal town in Newfoundland called Musgrave Harbour.
We had no running water, and local wells were contaminated with naturally-occurring carcinogenic minerals. This made food preparation very time-consuming, since we had to travel several miles to find a clean well. Sometimes wells believed to be clean were fouled by the actions of ignorant people. Once, while hauling buckets of water out of a well, my father found a used sanitary napkin and some bloodied panties. As a result, we had to travel even further to find a clean well. We also had to haul extra water for our livestock (geese, chickens, dog, cat, goat, and horses). We relied on our animals for food, labour, transportation, and protection.
For a few months, our only electricity was supplied by a gas-operated generator. This made things even more difficult. All our food was prepared on a wood stove, so I had to help gather firewood after school. Because we had to conserve our gasoline for electricity, we seldom drove anywhere in our truck. Instead, we went to our three weekly religious meetings with a horse and carriage. Luckily, our Kingdom Hall (a church for Jehovah's Witnesses) wasn't too far away, so the trip didn't take too long. It's a wonder people didn't think we were Amish instead of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Much of our time was spent picking berries or working the fields at an isolated garden patch. I picked blueberries, cranberries, partridge berries, and bakeapples. At the garden, I planted and harvested potatoes. The potato site always seemed dreadfully cold, and a windbreak and campfire were always set up to give us a modicum of shelter. We’d put the billy on to boil for breaks, and sat in the lee of the wind while sipping too-hot cups of tea and munching on raw potatoes. During the caplin spawning season, we’d go down to the beach and fill buckets with tiny, silver, glistening fish and take them home to dry. Sometimes, we’d walk out amongst giant soggy rocks during low tide and pick the purple mussels which hung in succulent clusters.
Shortly after moving to Newfoundland, we packed up just a few belongings, sold our livestock, and took off to British Columbia in our big orange truck with not much more than a camper, a dog, a cat, and the clothes on our back. We hoped there would be work for my father in British Columbia. The search for employment was why we’d moved to Newfoundland in the first place, but it just hadn’t worked out.
In times of near destitution, we lived off the land. When my family lived in the Rockies and the north coast of Newfoundland, I was sorely punished if I didn't pick rose hips/berries/mushrooms after school, gather/stack firewood, gut and pluck chickens, or help my mother with canning venison or rabbit meat. I was responsible for gathering wood for the stove with the dog sled. I also stacked wood and cut kindling.
These chores were a matter of survival. Several other Jehovah's Witness families in the mountain areas were in the same predicament. Paid work was scarce. Our families pooled resources and did the hunter/gatherer bit together. My father and another Jehovah's Witness in the area couldn't afford individual moose licenses, so they had to split one. Fortunately, my father bagged a huge bull--enough to feed both our families for the winter. He also had a snare line, and wanted me to accompany him on his patrols. I always demurred, though. Although I would help butcher, I didn’t want to do any actual killing or collecting. I didn’t want to watch my father twist the necks of bunnies. Neither could I bear the thought of finding them suffocated with bulging eyes or gnawed-off paws. In the meantime, another family raised domesticated rabbits for meat and fur. We traded moose meat for rabbit meat, rose hip jam for mushrooms, and fresh baked bread for pies. The women sewed slippers and bottled jam to sell at craft and farmers’ markets.
One way the families coped with the meal problem was by taking turns with the kids. One family had eight children, and gladly took on more. We just gave them food, and it was distributed to all.
Similarly, none of us wore new clothes, but operated a hand-me-down network. This was very unfortunate for the youngest children, who ended up with ancient, worn-out clothing.
Oddly enough, the most difficult bit wasn’t when we were living off the land in British Columbia or Newfoundland, but when we spiralled back to rural New Brunswick when I was thirteen or fourteen. My school bus arrived at my door at 7:10 am, and I didn't get back home until roughly 6:00 pm. The buses were extremely overcrowded, with three or more high school students per seat. On more than one occasion, I arrived at school with fierce cramping in my legs and buttocks from perching thirty kilometres on a scant ten centimetres of seat.
My family was still very religious, and we attended meetings three times each week. I sometimes had sandwiches on the hour-long truck ride to religious meetings, but molasses sandwiches are a poor substitute for a proper meal, especially for growing children and hardworking blue collar workers like my Dad. At this point, both of my parents worked in the city, so they had just enough time to feed/water the livestock, wash up and change, and return to town for the meetings.
By the time we got back home, it was well after 10 pm and far too late for a real meal, especially when I had to get up so early in the morning. I had to suffice with a bowl of cereal or a couple slices of toast. Obviously, there was no time for any homework or studying on meeting nights, but I somehow managed to maintain excellent marks and do very well in regional science fairs. I unexpectedly received a bursary to attend university.
In my early twenties, I continued the spiral pattern by moving back to Fredericton, and then to Moncton. Although I wouldn’t mind living in British Columbia once more, I do hope I don’t end up living in Newfoundland again. The cold, windswept, Eastern beaches don’t call to me in the same way as the mountains, rain forests, deserts, and tundra of the West.
My travels have given me the opportunity to meet countless people. They have also given me ample opportunity for self-reflection. I am an agnostic. This is not a decision I came to lightly, but upon years of reflection (and probably countless hours spent commuting to religious meetings). I don't begrudge religious people their beliefs, as long as they have applied honest thought to them. I have no respect for blind faith, but for examination, reasoning, and understanding. It was only when I began to apply these principles to my own life that I realized my life is what I make of it. Gone are the days of passive acceptance of life, lack of interest in my surroundings, and dreadful fear of annihilation in some literal, fiery Armageddon. In their stead, I have a voracious hunger for new knowledge and self-improvement. In this way, I am both a classic existentialist, dependent upon myself for just about everything, and an experiential junkie.
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Date: 2013-02-02 01:11 am (UTC)From: