What it means to go home...

A friend of mine, a new friend named Jeff, told me recently that he enjoyed reading my blog. He said it was interesting to read about the development of my trip and that there was a real story here. I doubt that, somehow, because to me it seems like the life of my family and this move would not be important to a wider audience. That, however, is beside the point.

What Jeff really liked is the crux of this story -- the basic premise: boy leaves home, boy returns home, home leaves boy... When Jeff wrote that it made me smile and laugh inside. Then I asked myself the question, "How do you get to a point where your home leaves you, and you feel abandoned by a part of your life?" Answering that may really take an entire novel, which I cannot do here.

I have discovered though what it means to return home. When I was leaving Malaysia I had a lot of preconceived notions of what it would be like to come back after such a long time and help close a chapter in our family history. I imagined that there would be a lot of stuff that would be familiar and I would spend time getting reacquainted with life in Canada, life in Ontario, and life on the farm with my parents. I imagined I would come back to find all the stuff I had left behind and I would need to deal with these things. And I couldn't have been more wrong...

Coming home is about renegotiating your relationship with it. It is about updating your memories, finding out what has changed and comparing what it is NOW to the way you remember it, and taking a good hard look at what hasn't changed -- because you've got to be realistic about what you left behind and more importantly, what you THOUGHT you left behind!

You see when you leave home and spend time away, you change. But what we forget is that home changes, too! You come back and there is a Pizza Hut where your bank used to be, your parents' hair has gotten a lot whiter, the things that you liked aren't nearly so good, and the things you hated aren't nearly so bad. And maybe this is all because of you. Having grown and changed, you see home with different eyes. But when you come home after being away maybe you are seeing it for what it actually is -- it's just a place. It's just buildings and grass and some roads and stoplights. Home was never really there, it was always where you made it.

When I write to people back in Malaysia, I feel confused. Part of me wants to write "I really miss home" referring to that country, not Canada. I never do write it though, it doesn't seem right. But at the same time, I know it wouldn't feel wrong.

Time for bed.

This one is for you ANWAR!

I would like to dedicate this one to a good friend Anwar -- a sad little class 1 mutant who has the power to call me at any time and convince me to go and see the latest movie with him! ;-P Anwar is a movie critic for the NEW STRAITS TIMES and we have been film buddies and fanatical X-MEN fans for a while now. He emailed me today to say how much he liked my blog and tell me he missed me.

He also asked me to make a list of things that warm my heart. This is for you Anwar:

THINGS THAT WARMED MY HEART RECENTLY:
1. Getting an email from Anwar
2. Reading Anwar say he missed me and wanted to call me to see a movie before he realised I was in Canada
3. Getting an email from Terri who said that she couldn't wait to read my new entries
4. Something that Devon said to me last weekend (Can't really write it here)
5. Finding an old mask I had made a few years ago (and if you want to see it someone will have to ask me to post it ....because, ah!,...I am lazy to do, ah! So TIRED honh!)

Today was a fun day, mostly dealing with my student loans and getting that sorted out. I am looking at getting them paid off in totality within a few months -- Yippee!

I did my interview today with BC Morocco for the two month contract in January and February. It went well I think and they will let all applicants know who will be offered the positions by next Wednesday.

I washed a lot of machinery to get it ready for the auction sale and completely cleaned up a boat that my grandfather built from scratch back in 1954. Grandpa was amazing in that he could do and build anything. He was really an engineering genius. He built tractors and vehicles from scratch, including the boat, he taught himself to play the violin by ear, and he could do the most complex algebra equations with ease.



Just for Terri, here is a picture of the farm -- the WHOLE farm: house, barn, sheds, silo, etc.

Perhaps to spice up this entry, I'll have to share a little something special, a piece of family history that will leave with me (if no one else). Years ago, after both my grandparents died, we found a love letter, a valentine actually. My grandmother had written it to my grandfather...

It reads as though the poem itself is talking to him telling him that it will be a reminder of her love throughout the coming year. It is really quite cute and also very romantic--not at all what we thought of them (on a good day they fought like two tasmanian devils who hadn't slept -- the WB kind). But what is miraculous is that I can't find this poem online and I wonder if my grandmother didn't come up with this on her own. Not sure when it was written but it was at a time when a stamp was 3 canadian cents!

So here's the deal, I'll post the first line of the poem here and if anyone can find the rest of it and the author I will send them a bottle of real canadian maple syrup -- don't worry, it's halal! The payoff for me in all this is to learn whether or not this is an original work by my grandmother!

Here's the first line:

"Your talisman and guiding star I'll prove thoughout the coming year"



hope to hear from people soon:

email me at markallanaugustine@yahoo.ca

Hometowns are like blackholes for some people

When I was 10 I used to ride my bike to school everyday. Along the way I had to cross the road at an intersection near the school. Of course they had a crossing guard there, a woman with big puffy hair and glasses who smoked like a chimney and never smiled. She hated me I think because I never paid attention to traffic regulations. When I was a kid, I also used to go swimming at the local indoor pool. There was a woman there named Mary who worked the front counter and who also taught swimming lessons. I think she taught me swimming when I was 7.

This morning I went down to the local pool at about 8am to go for an hour's swim and to get a bit of exercise. When I got there, (lo and behold) Mary was working the front desk with the same sour face. On the walk home down the street, puffy-haired crossing guard lady was there too but with decidedly bleached hair. However, this time she smiled. Then again, I wasn't the same annoying 10-year-old with a bike who didn't like to obey traffic regulations.

All this proves that though some things change, a hell of a lot stays the same. And basically there are two kind of people in small towns --
those who leave
and those who stay.

My sister and I were both the former. Maybe that is why we have turned into the stellar people that we are!

This is a picture of my gorgeous sister.
I love Rebekka immensely.

People say that we look alike. You decide...

This Is Why I Came Home!

Everyone asked in the days when I was leaving Malaysia what I would do when I got home. Here's where I answer the question...


Today I dug a small ditch. This ditch was six inches deep, across a driveway. It was for a line of electical wire going from the barn (background) to the implement shed so that we could put up an outlet to plug floodlights into. This will be important for the auction sale because people may need to see the tractors and implements (stuff that tractors pull) during the auction sale. It gets dark here at 4:30 in the afternoon so people seeing what they are buying is important.

This task took me an hour and a half with a pickaxe and a shovel. It sounds tedious but I am the youngest person on the farm right now, the second youngest is 59 -- it would have taken anyone else about twice as long. Therefore you can imagine why having an extra person here is important!

Next is a picture of me standing on a tree stump. This is a walnut tree in the front yardthat my dad and uncle recently cut down. The little black dot in front of my left foot is the tree's centre.


This doesn't really seem interesting except that my great-grandfather planted that tree from a walnut a hundred and ten years ago. Basically, Dad and Uncle Frank thought the tree should stay in the family. They're planning to do something with the wood i.e. make a cabinet, etc.

I am missing Malaysia and all the people there now a lot. I keep trying to hold onto it. I constantly wear the ring that my friends Louise and Etienne gave me before I left, and I often go back and look at the pictures of the party at Pete and Hannah's place where we did tequila shots, arm in arm. Me and tequila don't have a good relationship but sometimes you gotta do it! (especially when the other option is getting put in a headlock by Pete!)

For those of you who didn't believe me when I said that our house was larger than it looked, below is a pic of our home today.



Things that I miss/are better about Asia....
1. Really good rice
2. Pete & Hannah
3. Eating cheap yet very good food on the street everyday
4. Gossip at BC from Janet in EdUK
5. Hearing Susana talk about Rodolfo (her cousin/lover!!!!)

Finally, a picture of me -- proof that Tequila is not my friend. If you look carefully you can see Pete, Hannah, Andy, and Ayumi around me laughing!



later!

and the disaster begins

Being at home--there is nothing like it. One of the problems though is that our family has been here for a long time (since 1808) and we have got a lot of stuff, memories being the biggest of big stuff. The hardest thing we fight with is our own reluctance to let go of what we need to let go.

This picture was taken in the early part of the twentieth century with my grandfather sitting on a wheelbarrow while someone else paints the house (lazy bugger!) The house looks slightly different now, but when this picture was taken it was already more than a hundred years old. Luckily we do not have so much to take out of the house. When my grandfather (ahem) 'passed on' in '97 we cleaned out 2 rubbish tips full of stuff that had been packed away in the house. AND BELIEVE ME, this picture is deceiving. The house was originally built for two families, so it has:
four bedrooms,
two kitchens,
three living rooms,
a dining room,
a toilet,
an indoor cellar,
an outdoor cellar,
and an outhouse.

There is a lot of stuff to be cleaned out this time around too.

Things I (am not sure I) have missed:
1. our one true local soft drink : CANADA DRY (see pic below)
2. conversations with family friends about why I have no girlfriend (MOM! Stop looking at me with that face!)
3. seeing small town people who have never left their immediate area wearing shirts that say "Canada kicks ass!"

HOME FREE!

On the left is a picture of me warming my shorts before I put them on because--YES, IT IS THAT COLD!!!



On the right is a picture of me waiting at the airport, having got in before my parents arrived to pick me up. Local coffee and too many bags....

I walked in the old house and it all looked the same. This time, 2 cats instead of 5 --- and no dogs.
My folks are at times strange but at the same time they are very entertaining. In a recent city election for mayor, they took the trouble to vote even though they didn't want to accept either of the two candidates running for office. So, in a protest vote, they added a third name on their ballots. Sadly, their chosen candidate did not win. If rest of the town had written the name 'Tom Black' on their ballots as my parents did, then OUR CAT would have been the next mayor of the city.

Things that I love about Canada:
1. being able to drink water straight from the tap.
2. my cat, Tom
3. waking my dad up when he falls asleep on the couch

pics of the farm tomorrow, JUST FOR YOU TERRI!!!!

Mark