iGeneration (pt.1).

I am on a very high emotional shelf as I write. An anecdote would be appropriate. Okay, I feel like like a Mason jar filled with something warm and comforting (maybe peaches from two years ago), teetering on the shelf, just out of reach. I had an altercation with my Grandparents two weeks ago that started with such good intentions on both of our parts, me trying to enlighten them, them trying to save me spiritually. It all went to hell in a handbasket, and I, offended over something blown far out of proportion, wielded my sharpest tool to inflict pain and to be made clear that offense was taken: silence. I went silent for one week until emails crept in and we managed to make nice (quite sincerely so) over cat-and-moose style letter writing. And yet. Still not satisfied and still quite stubborn over the entire situation (the same situation that ended up garnering far more attention than I thought necessary), I was quiet again for week two. They have tried to call and still I am not ready. In retrospect, I am not sure of my anger. Unstable anger is never a good thing. So I will be quiet another week until I have processed everything. I may look like my mother, but I am my father's daughter internally speaking, which is lovely now that I think of it. So. Quiet and processing, it is.

I am calm again, I had a moment after hanging up the phone with Aunty Daryl that I would be sick and so I ran in the direction of the bathroom but stopped short in the hall to burst into tears. I guess this month (although a happy one) has taken a toll on me emotionally. So I cried and smoked a joint. Shira gave me a beautiful glass bubbler last night and holding it in my hands feels like holding treasure. I should have been experimenting with things like this when I was fifteen, I would have made a great fifteen year old pothead. I could have really explored the whole 'Lonely and misunderstood art fag on the prairie' angle. Too bad I had eight hundred friends and was too busy lighting fires and shooting birds with these kids as as innocent as I in an abandoned old folks home. So my point being, I used the beautiful bubbler while experiencing stomach ache and it was not a good combination. High as a kite, heartburn, heavy-bottomed heart, tears, and a little bit of shit. No, make that a lot of shit. Thankfully, there were no dry bathtubs involved. Just a wonderful new Ikea bed. (It was my first cry on it since Christmas, not bad!).

As a side note, I made a creamy Tomato with fresh basil and parsley soup and at one point all of five of us women in the kitchen paused what we were doing to dip grilled cheese into my fresh soup. We dipped, our aprons were filthy, the kitchen was clean, Beyonce was in the background. I think it is important for us to eat together when we work. It always bothered me how one soup cook (now long fired from the bakery) never let people try his soup while still on the stove. Food should evoke opinions, it should be babied, it should be squabbled over in front of the stove, it should be loved, respected, inhaled to the tip and top and bottom of one's being, it should be purred and fawned over, talked about, cooed over. I always coo. I always purr. And I always smell. So anyway, we stood around the bread table with a giant of pot of soup and we dipped and we murmured to ourselves and we laughed. I ate too many damn dried apricots for my own damn good and got violently ill about one hour after swallowing. Damn that Kroeker metabolism straight to hell. I swear the innards of my body are like a food processor. It is almost as if doctors picked up my seven pound, twenty eight ounce newborn frame in the delivery room, took out all my inner organs with my parent's ultra secret consent and swapped them for all the various moving parts of a Robocoup. Food goes through me like wildfire.

Somehow my mind is still on the innocent childhood bit. I have been collecting evidence through multiple experiences this past week that proves how sheltered and closed my mind has been for about twenty years running. I am not saying this is at all a negative thing. In fact, the other night, Alfie and I lay on the floor of this darkroom on our backs smoking Cuban cigarillos into the red light bulb above us and we compared these stark dichotomies. Two childhoods, each in the opposite spectrum of the other, that somehow managed to mould two upstanding, well-rounded and like-minded people. We were raised one hundred percent differently and yet many of our values and truths and ideals are identical. We lay there with all of this new and open information about each other swirling above our heads in that perfect room and all we felt was wonderment. Identical wonderment. I felt very alive that night, very in tune with myself, very twenty two and a half. Who is counting? Ha.

But again, we fell into that conversation so easily and words came easily too when we asked each other what one foresaw for the future. His answer was quite impressive. I always see a family, I see art, I see music collections, I see steaming food and self-sufficient gardens, I see laughing babies and interesting almost-adults. It has only dawned on me this week that the very gift of parenthood is to choose a way of life for the miniature you's and them's. What a lovely concept. I want that. I also see a loving and loyal partner. I see someone with similar interests to my own, someone strong and respected. I see tenderness and playfulness in a warm space. Then I see greens of backyard forest floors so soft that walking barefoot over the bed of pine needles is not only an option, but the only option. I have said it before and I will say it again with even more understanding than the last time: my parents did great.

The last time my mind wandered to this land of parenthood was one year ago. It was early February, I was in Switzerland and very depressed. I was black inside, that is how depressed I was. And I always feel light and colorful, so that was new. I was living in an uninspiring space with no escape for the first time in my life and also in love with a man who manipulated his way into my life and did not adore me (that is put very kindly). So, it has been a year and in retrospect I have learned: live in a home that is inspiring and warm, and be with a man who adores adoring you. That was a pleasant thought, just then.

This is all very disjointed I know, but maybe it will resonate with someone. To be frank, I am tackling with the idea of where to raise a family and whether or not growing up exposed, or growing up sheltered really makes a difference. Look at Alfie and I. We are normal, even though I have zero music/literature knowledge and his English blows. And yet, we are normal. If anyone reads this and scoffs, I understand. I am too young to think about it, but then again, am I? We should be thinking about these things. My only motive right now (considering the big picture as opposed to my one year plan) is to better myself and ready myself through life experience and heart ache and food and openness in order to bring my own iGeneration (or internet generation) into this world. I am tired now thinking of all of this. Enough. I am off to eat Thai Basil something at my Tante's.