Sunday, December 31, 2006

Do-over!!!

In a few hours, the new year will begin, and as the prospect of new beginnings suddenly seem possible, last year's bad vibes will get packed up along with the Christmas leftovers, never to be seen again, thank God.

This past year has been very difficult for me; 2006 was a year of abandonment, heartache, anger (oh how anger is energy-consuming....)solitude, major disapointments and tiredness (well, from all that anger!!!) It seems all my energy was used up to get over my broken heart, still very fragile and sore. But as I look back on the year that is just about to end, I also see that it's a year where I truly learned about coping with solitude and not dying from it, at the same time realising that doing everything on your own is a hell of a lot of work; caring for my children and making a comfortable and fun life for them; it's also the year where I met M. and K., two kindred spirits who washed up on the shores of Ottawa, a bit in a daze after living in London, Paris and St-Martin's. Their presence in this way too conservative town made me feel less alone and their friendship means a lot to me; my friend S. who cheers me up every chance she gets, hopefully this year I will be able to do the same for her; plus 2006 was the year my career as a translator really started to take off, if I play this right 2007 could be even better; I started to work on my novel again, and will be done sometime in 2007...I also saw Paris for the first time, and had the chance to meet Blue, a fellow translator and blogger who was kind enough to show me around her Paris and to be a friend, and reading her blog Eurostar Blues (you can find the link in my blogroll) cheered me up all year long; and for that I am thankful!

I think the trick is to look at the things that went right and not at the things that went wrong in 2006. This way we can all focus on positive instead of negative. Like Blue told me this past August : "Y'a toujours du positif dans le négatif!" (There's always positive in negative!)

So cheers to you, my friends, wherever you are tonight, I will raise my glass to you.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Shopping for Christmas scraps

Well I have managed to do it again.

It is December 24th, somewhat early morning, and I will be leaving soon for a trip into the Christmas jungle, otherwise known as last-minute shopping. I traveled yesterday from Ottawa to Montreal, left the kids with their father, and knocked on my parent's door. I will be spending the next few days with them (and not my extended family, because for some reason this year my mother was shunned from her sisters; here's a Christmas Carol for you...Won't spoil your Holiday spirits be telling this one. I'll wait till the 26 if you don't mind. Plus, there's a chance things might turn around until then.) So tonight, it's just my mum, my dad, and me. We haven't decided yet what we're going to do. We're all just, how shall I say, a little bit bah-humbug-y.

But wait! Maybe something interesting will developp through the course of the day... Like I said, I haven't started my shopping yet, I have yet to get presents for my kids, my parents and my sister. Maybe I'll even splurge and get her new man a little something. Wish me luck. I will be hitting the shopping mall parking lot in 0040 minutes and counting. The best Christmas present I could get is a juicy story to tell you; I'll do my best.

Merry Christmas eve to everyone. Remember the golden rule : in case of yuletide blues, get out the booze.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Hitting the big three-O, Part I

Reading Caroline à Londres's blog these past few days made me think about my own experience in hitting the big three-O. Of course mine is not as GLAMOUROUS as celebrating a birthday in bloody BARCELONA (I have absolutely no pity whatsoever for you dearest Caroline :) Plus, you look happy! You should be ashamed of yourself! ) And I thought I would make all of you feel better about being 30 by telling the story of my own misery. There's nothing better than to read about somebody else's angst to make you forget about yours. So, Caroline, this one's for you :)

Well, it's been over four years now, and enough water has passed under the Bridges for me to tell it without feeling too much pain. Again, like any story I recall from memory, bear with me, because even though it's not been THAT long (stop smirking! I saw that!) I might be tempted to dramatize a little, for entertainment purposes but mostly to soften your soft spot and gain your empathy so you can feel sorry for me, but you won't know that. (So just ignore me) Here goes.

Hitting the big three-O is very difficult for a woman. It's that symbolic age where you think you should be wiser, but realize you're more clueless than ever. Even if today, people say that thirty is the new twenty (making forty the new thirty, but I'll tell you about this experience when I get there, I'm in no rush; I suspect it's even worse than 30 but then again what do I know) Turning thirty is quite the existential experience. For instance, if you're married or in a long-term relationship at that time, you look back on your twenties and ask yourself if you did the right thing, if you should still go on with your life as it is, if it was worth it, really.... You revisit the good, the bad and the ugly of the things you accomplished up to that pinpoint moment in your life. If you have kids you realise that's it's sooooo much more difficult than you thought it would be, curse your own mother for not telling you about it when there was still time to bail (Or maybe you should have taken a clue from all those half-empty frozen vodka bottles in the freezer, hidden behind the chocolate ice cream that you snatched while nobody was looking as you were growing up) you wonder if becoming a mother was a wise choice for you, or if that choice was sort of forced upon you (sometimes the unconscious makes you do the most irresponsible things, like forget your pill, forget the condom, forget the name of who you're having sex with; you know, the things a twenty-something might do) then you start cursing that drunken night out with the father of your children, that ended up in careless unprotected but oh-so-naughty sex in the restaurant bathroom, and nine months later you were a mummy...(Please note that is a STORY and any resemblance with real or fictional characters is purely coincidental) if you don't have any children then you wonder what you're missing out on and your clock starts ticking...In other words, hitting thirty means asking yourself lots of useless questions without getting any satisfying answers. Come to think of it, my mum must have started to hide vodka bottles in the freezer when she was thirty. Good going Mum. Now I understand.

For me, my thirtieth birthday would become the ultimate symbol of the mayhem and confusion to come. I mean, at that moment, I was still married to Lee, mind you, I had my two beautiful children, I was still in school and I spent most of my days in the house, writing like a mad woman, cooking, cleaning, doing the mummy thing while Justin was running around in his diapers, Rose was tormenting her baby brother, and I was seriously thinking about going on antidepressants. I embodied the perfect little desperate housewife. Lee was not home very often. I remember, at that time, He was working on one of his biggest projects, a huge overpass to be built over highway 15 in Laval. He was working overtime everyday, and we had only one car, his, which meant I was alone, transportation-less, with the kids in the house. My 30th birthday was coming up, and I was not a happy mummy. I never liked celebrating my birthday; for some reason, it always made me feel like people pitied me, it felt fake; they just HAD to act nice to me without feeling it, just because it was my birthday. It never felt genuine to me. Maybe it's just me, but I always, always felt like at my birthday, people wanted to be somewhere else, had other people to see, other more important things to do, and pretending to be oh-so-happy so I wouldn't feel bad. What they didn't know was that I felt bad already. My friends' birthday gifts were always hits & misses: For example, one year I got really excited with gardening and prepared for spring all year, and when my birthday came all I got was light cooking recipe books (unfortunately hunky Jamie Oliver was not around at that time); another year, after I just gave birth to Justin and had gained a bit of weight (I was HUGE and so depressed that year I almost killed myself, but not to worry) my concerned friends all chipped in to buy me, OH WOW... an exercise bike; another year my husband organized a surprise dinner party for me and forgot where he had made the reservations, so we ended up in a shopping mall parking lot with friends I hadn't seen in ages taking turns to yell SURPRISE! at confused and disappointed me from their cars, then driving off into the sunset; Lee finally told everyone to meet at a Chinese buffet on picturesque boulevard des Laurentides for unlimited birthday egg rolls (yum) I cracked open a fortune cookie that said "Don't be hasty, tragedy will knock on your door soon" and later on that evening I had an allergic reaction to MSG. It was greeeeaaat. So when the time for my 30th birthday came, let's just say I wasn't looking forward to it.

I had been feeling very depressed that year, and things were not good between Lee and me. We had grown more distant and I was making an effort to give us another chance, but didn't really believe it. I was weary and bored out of my mind. But things were looking up: Lee had planned to take me out for a surprise evening that Saturday, along with our friends C. and P. Now let me put you into context so you can share the existential angst I was experiencing at that memorable moment of my life. P. was my husband's co-worker, and we had known him for years; C. was his wife-girlfriend, a very sexy blond bimbo-type girl, not that there's anything wrong with that. She was still very nice. To me, anyway. She and P. had a few rough times; she had hooked up with an old lover a few weeks ago, got caught, and, well, made P. a modern-day cocu. but they seemed to have worked it out, and it looked like they patched things up. Let's just say there was still a bit of tension in the air, but hopefully a night out to celebrate a depressed housewife's 30th birthday would cheer everybody and bring everyone closer together, no? Have I mentionned earlier that my birthdays were always awkward? Do you think my 30th would be different?

Now, without going into details, (if you want some you will have to ask for them) P. has carried a bit of a torch for me over the years, and I never discouraged him; it was all very innocent and nothing ever happened between us, until, you guessed it, my 30th birthday. I swear to you, it's NOT what you think! It is so not what you think. In the spirit of 30th birthdays, I shall tell you this story, for it is THE pinpoint in my life. But first, I need a drink. A stiff one.

Caroline, your 30th birthday in Barcelona sounded so lovely. :)

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Recovering from heartbreak

Did you ever feel like you had accomplished everything you had planned for, and that you just didn't know what do to next? The number of possibilities that arise either in your head or bouncing off your friend's minds all seem like good ideas, but nothing really suits your fancy... Nothing grabs your attention...know what I mean? Lost, lost, you are lost...what to do next? Where to go? and most of with WHOM????

As you already know, I have been living here in Ottawa for a little over 18 months now, and I was happy for about ....hum...let me think...close to 3 months. Before my stupid English boyfriend bailed out on me & the kids to go back to his precious England without even asking me to go with him. But don't get me started on his case, I really don't feel like getting angry right about now. He's been gone over a year, and even though we still had limited contact through the phone and mostly email, over a year has passed (WOW where did the bloody time go) and that chapter should be closed, terminated, over and done with by now.

NEXT!!!! right?

It's pointless to get stuck in a moment you can't get out of...Agree? But then again, easier said than done. Stories of heartbreak...I'm sure everybody has at least one...Love is the most craved feeling and the most dreaded. Just thinking about icky dangerous beautiful LOOOOVE freaks me out...Actually, I think I'm still so sad and angry that my last relationship didn't work out the way I had hoped (Emotionally scorned women unite, please) that getting myself in the same situation AGAIN scares me half to death. But then again, I walk around life scared half to death most of the time anyway, it's just that...nobody can tell. I give out this image of a strongminded powerful able woman, which I am, don't get me wrong, I am a single mother, I raise two kids...I study, I'm a translator, a writer, a bitch-a lover-a sinner and a saint (Thank you Meredith Brooks but I could really get that lover and sinner thing going on if you know what I mean...Ottawa males are not very cooperative) but....Inside, I'm really just an insecure little girl who's waiting for her prince charming. Although at my age I'm hoping more for king charming. There. I said it. Trouble is, there seems to be a whole lot of creepy frogs out there. Please, somebody, shoot me now!!! I'm sick! I just had an attack of the cinderella syndrome!!! AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHH. But I'm so tired of having to do everything all by myself!!! WHERE is he??? Girls ! Please! Help me out!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A single mother's life is like....a box of Kleenex

My plans have been a bit disturbed. I was planning to send off the kids to school, then to go to work, as usual, in beautiful sunny depressing Nepean, where I could translate until about 3, then take part in the office Christmas party. Being a single mother is being able to change your plans in an instant...

My son was crying and pulling his ear when he woke up, and my daughter was having a fit because she couldn't breathe, stuffy nose and all....So instead of going to work and getting paid to drink champagne and eat fancy canapés, I will be spending most of the day waiting in a clinic. Plus, the winter boots I bought for the kids 3 weeks ago are already good for the bin man, the kids had their feet wet yesterday and the boots were completely soaked....What good is it to manufacture winter boots that last 3 weeks, ready to be thrashed even before the REAL winter starts!!! Crappy rubbish thrashy boots.... Never buy Kangaroo boots, they are USELESS !!! I threw them in the bin! I feel a useless mother; can't even get decent boots for my children...now they both have a cold and I'm stuck home...Oh well.... After the clinic I'm stopping at the shoe store and getting the best boots for my babies and some really strong booze for mummy at the SAQ....along with some vitamin C....

I've said it many times and I'll say it again : This single mother gig is not easy when you do it alone!!!

Monday, December 11, 2006

A little more on this blog....

People have started to read me!

Although I wanted to, now I feel very self-conscious! I apologize for the texts that are not completely "ready".... but I will be posting them again after I have rewritten a few, in between these little "personal" tidbits....I am working on my French texts at the moment, and at the request of my teacher, I have to set them up in a more "formal" manner, so that's what I'm up to lately.

I have started to meet with some writers in Ottawa, to keep me busy, and motivated. It's always nice to chat with some writers...to know you're not the only fucked-up individual who writes to fill the void and emptiness of existence.... the poetess in me suffers... :) I presented the text "Tumbling down the family tree", that you can read below, and the comments I got were pretty positive, although I do agree with Y. who said some of the genealogy was a bit confusing, and I had to correct some of my mistakes...Yes, I do make mistakes... Feel free to leave a comment on my stories anytime by the way....

Office Christmas party tomorrow.... Surely I can make a story out of that!

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Tumbling down the family tree



My name is Bridges. I was born and raised in Montreal, and grew up in a bilingual family, settled in a bilingual town situated in a unilingual province which is part of a bilingual country. This, my friend, makes me somewhat of a schizoid person. Hopefully you won’t hold it against me if I start not making sense; I never know which side of my divided identity will manifest itself first. I have spent my life immersed in language, reading, writing, translating back and forth to and fro French to English, and vice-versa. I am a professional translator and a writer; although I translate mostly financial documents for international companies and do not overly stimulate creativity in people who read me in my mother tongue, my stories about Sophie in “Le Passeur” are quite popular in French-speaking Quebec. I am thirty-four years old and a single mother of two wonderfully bright children: my daughter Rose who is 10 years old and my son Justin who is 5. I have been separated from their father for 4 years now, leaving me plenty of time to settle in single mode, single-motherhood mode and independent single woman-of-the-world mode. Not bad for a woman who spends all of her time bi-thinking all the time, wouldn’t you say? But let me start over and introduce myself properly by telling you the story behind my name. Quite an unusual name, I’m afraid. Oh, and bear with me, please. I'm reminiscing from what both my parents told me over the years intertwined with my own fantasies about my origins, and you know how that can become confusing as time passes on.
When I was born in may of 1972, my mother, a tough cookie French-Canadian woman if there ever was one, after pushing me out of her uterus for 3 hours following twenty hours of painful, very painful labour (I will always, always remember my mother favourite saying about giving birth : Bridges! Accoucher c’est comme se faire sortir une dinde par les narines! Souviens-toi de ça avant de penser à te transformer en mère![1]) which took place in St-Michel hospital's nursery, took one look at me and said “UN BEAU GARÇON!!!!!!” and smiled contented as she semi-passed out on the table. “Madeleine! Look closer!” dad responded. Mum opened one eye and said to a proud father “Aaaahhh…C’t’une….une….grrrrlll…” and passed out for good that time. She would wake up fifteen hours later asking her husband how her son was. Needless to say my father had to set her straight once again, holding me naked in her face until she faced the truth: her son was in fact a daughter, she finally got into her head she had given birth to a girl, and not a boy. Mum later told me that the drugs they gave her at the time were pretty strong (Well, OBVIOUSLY mother), plus, she was exhausted from all that pain and emotional stress. During the time she was pregnant with me, she was convinced she was carrying a boy, and spoke to the life inside her (the life was ME! I should have kicked her in the ribs o set her straight) as if she knew what she was doing and whom she was carrying. So from her point of view, she had a good excuse of gender-confusing my unconscious. I’m guessing it must have been quite a shock to her, but my dad was ecstatic; while mum wanted to produce a son, my dad had secretly hoped for a daughter. At least one of them was happy! Thirty-four years later, I would tell my therapist that my inner confusion was due to my mother imposing a symbolic phallus on me from the moment she first laid her eyes on me. After a good night’s sleep and slowly coming to terms with the reality of my sex, my mother decided to name me Brigitte. Brigitte Lafleur, Montreal-born daughter of a Quebecois homemaker and a British insurance salesman, that sounds pretty respectable, right? Well my mum thought so, but my father had to mess it up in his own little way. He didn’t agree on my mother’s suggestion; he thought it was too French-Canadian for his daughter. All of a sudden, he was having patriotic Union-Jack flashbacks! My mother, being the stubborn Quebecois woman that she still is, was ready for a fight, now that she had gained her senses back. Their dispute was about whether to name me in accordance to my haul-ass French-Canadian heritage from my mother's side, God bless her sweet matriarchal house-wife soul, or to revive my British origins from my snobby father by giving me a proper English name. WHAT?? Yes, I hear you, I know. A British father? How can your surname be French, then? Well, join me as I tumble down my family tree so you can better understand the messed-up cultural identity crisis I was going to go through again, thirty-plus years later.
My grandfather, on my father's side, was French. I mean, French, from France, as in beret-baguette-Eiffel tower French. Now apparently, granddad had stopped speaking French after he had immigrated to England at the tender age of 19. But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, while he travelled from France to England in 1947, apparently to help one of his cousins rebuild a farm that had been half destroyed during the war, (I think he was desperately looking for an excuse to leave France; as my dad told me about his father, he had lost his brothers during the war and his parents were now just ghosts of themselves, and he just couldn't bear to see his mother cry anymore, making England and the farm salvaging seem very appealing) Granddad fell in love with a sweet and innocent-looking thirty something pub waitress who, as the story goes, still according to my dad's own memories of his parents, was still a virgin at her age. (Why on earth would granddad tell such information to his son I don't have the slightest idea. Why he passed it on to me is even weirder-but do go on) Now, the war had pretty much wiped out a whole generation of Englishmen at that time, and being the shy English girl that she was in her little village, she almost never spoke to the clients, who were mostly grumpy old married men anyway. Until she met my grandfather, that is - don't forget we're going on recollections of an old man down two generations here - she had spent most of her life pouring pints of lager and serving bangers, mash and fish& chips in silence until her eyes met those of a young and sweet-looking French man who had come through the door of her little village pub, where she had been tending the same expanding beer guts for so many years. Violins were playing, the earth stood still and everyone disappeared but them, and all that romantic nonsense. You know the drill. Love was in the lager-scented air, or so it seemed.
Now as my father told me, it was love at first inability to communicate verbally sight, because granddad had just got there and spoke dodgy English at the time, and of course, grand mum knew nothing about the French, except that she never thought they could be so cute. Apparently, in between granddad putting up fences and milking cows for his cousin and grand mum serving pints to old geysers, they had time to get acquainted and prance around in the fields surrounding Surrey village, I think it was called, and managed to lovingly conceive a bastard child somewhere in the tall grass one summer day. That child would later become my beloved bastard father, but don't tell him I said that. Still with me? Now my grandfather, being the romantic idealist that he was at nineteen, still according to my dad who had made a hero figure of his father, married his mum out of true love, or so the story goes, and tried to take her back with him to France to his family, hoping to give them something to smile about. Much to his unexpected dismay, when they finally got there, his parents were traumatisés[2] when they saw this obviously pregnant and much, much older British woman walk through the door of their deserted French cottage. “Mon bébé! Mon bébé a fait un bébé! Une anglaise! Sainte-Marie mère de Dieu! Une abomination!” My father had told me many times about this part of his family romance, turning it to a comedic farce every time. You should see his face when he imitates his grandmother, as though the pain of being shunned from your own family by your own mother was inspiration for vaudeville; but the laughs he got from the family helped dedramatize his father’s personal drama and turn it into a family inside joke that had been passed on for two generations now. But the grand-mère and grand-père I never got to meet were right up to a point: I have seen the pictures, and he did look just like a bébé. A baby with manly balls nonetheless, because at that point in the story, (now this is the part where my father really enjoys playing his grandma's role; very dramatic, eyebrows frowned, high-pitch voice, French accent and everything, probably loving every minute of talking down to his own dad through his poor acting) he stood up to his infuriated parents, who had begun to transfer their anger on poor and confused grandma (my grandmum this time, but you were not confused, right?) She started to cry, with reason, not only because she couldn't make out what they were saying, even though she could quite easily guess what all the drama was about. Young granddad had never seen his bride cry ever, (You should hear the protective tone my father uses to personify his own dad) and had just spent the most wonderful three months of his life, learning a new language, shagging in the fields and making a woman he loved smile; he was happy and ready to fight for it, no matter the cost. Now it was at that point that grandma started to cry and cry like she had never done before; the pregnancy hormones were probably not helping. I guess she was expecting a bit of resistance to start with, and how hard is it to decode the language of screaming French anyway? Hate and rage is pretty much universal, wouldn't you say? Apparently, my granddad’s mum started to throw plates and saucers at poor pregnant and confused grandma, breaking whatever she could get her hands on in the cottage kitchen, when his dad joined the party by starting to point a finger at him, blaming him for destroying the family. Quelle horreur! The drama! The French screams! The English sobs! There was no way granddad could deal with the woman he loved, carrying a child that was conceived in love crying or that finger of shame pointed at him for that matter. All this misery was not his fault, he was fighting for life, love and everything that was good, and he was only nineteen! Ah, my grand father… what a romantic character. Gotta love him.
Twenty minutes after they had arrived in France, dad & pregnant soon-to-be-wife were heading back to England with their unpacked things and left France for good in a hurry, dodging the saucers and plates along the way, escaping from the motherly screams and the fatherly blame, leaving the hurt my granddad had lived with for too long already at the tender age of 19. They settled in that oh-so-quiet British village, where they had met, young fools in love (I'm guessing they had wed, since my British grandma was now named "Lafleur") and baby to come, and never, ever went back to or even thought of going back to France, nor my granddad ever spoke a word of French again. My dad told me his father vowed in English to his wife never to make her cry again, or so the story my almost bastard father told me goes. Isn't that a great family story?
Now, my own father, the one I was just telling you about - the bastard, that's right - was born as a legitimate Lafleur in 1948 England, and never heard a word of French in his village life, not even from his own father in times of upsets. Granddad had kept his promise. Dad only learned to speak French when he met my Quebecois mother thirty-some years ago in Montreal, whilst traveling to discover the new world. At 22, in 1967, he wanted to see the world, and since he was lazy, those are his words, not mine, he had said to me, poking fun at himself, that Montreal seemed a good idea at the time since it was going to host the “Man and his world, Expo 67” world exposition for 6 months that year. He was hoping of finding a job over there, or at least get a little idea of what the world had to offer without having to go around it, as he told me. He met my mother at the hot-dog stand in front of the Great-Britain pavilion; she was looking for frites and he was looking for chips, then violins suddenly started playing, the earth stood still and everyone disappeared but them, and all that romantic nonsense all over again. Love was in the international greasy spoon scented air this time, and the rest is family history. There is more to my parent’s love story, but be patient. I shall tell you that one a little later. I like it, it's romantic, and I want to save it for dessert. You'll like this one.
But Brigitte? What's with Bridges?
Oh, I'm sorry, almost forgot. Well, after my parents had agreed on "Brigitte", then my father convinced my mother they should spell it B-R-I-D-G-E-T, like St. Bridget, patron of charity and justice, or something like that. My dad thought it would be nice to have and English name with a French surname, the whole romantic idea of having a child embody the symbol of two countries and two languages coming together in harmony in one little tiny body and so forth...Anyway dad convinced mum, and she wanted to please her man, so, there I was, baby Bridget, daughter of the Canadian ideal, francophone meets Anglophone in one person. As my father was explaining the reason for the spelling of his daughter's name to the hospital employee filing out the official birth form, he must have been going on and on about Canadian history and the British and French empires, building bridges between countries and cultures and so on and so forth. He must have bored the clerk silly with his unbridled enthusiasm and impacted this person's unconscious, because when they finally got home a few days later, my official birth certificate read "Bridges S. Lafleur, fille de Marie Madeleine Dugas et de Leonard Andrew Lafleur”.
My parents agreed that fate had decided it was a much more appropriate name for me and never had it changed. Baby Bridges had a name cut right out for her.
[1] Giving birth is like pushing a turkey through your nose, Bridges; remember that before you start thinking of becoming a mother yourself!
[2] Traumatized.