The Family IssueVolume 11 Issue 6 February 2012

CONTENTSVOLUME 11 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 2012

ESSAYS

LITERATURE

EDITORIALS

PROSE

ART

Beholder XIXNUNO TEIXEIRA EMMANUEL XERX JAVIER

Front CoverJOEL HENTGES

Back CoverJOEL HENTGES

Inside Front DEVON BUTLER

Inside Back DEVON BUTLER

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DisjointedANDREW SAVORY

On the Construction of the Bauer LoftsELLIE ANGLIN

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In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.

“MARGARET LAURENCE (1926 - 1987)

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It and OtherP.G. GALLANT

TwentyALEXIS CASTROGIOVANNI

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My BrothersMAEVE STRATHY

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What You Make ItERIN EPP

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A Blueprint for CommunityGRAHAM ENGEL

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You Loved MeSARAH MACDONALD

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Unusual AttitudesERIN OLDYNSKI

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Chosen FamilyCARLY LEWIS

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‘Make It Look Trippy’EMILY SLOFSTRA

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Eclectic DaughterFIORELLA MORZI

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On Dickens and DepressionDEVON BUTLER

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Family FoiblesKILEY BELL

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The Great DivideA.G.D.

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Distance JOSH SMEE

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The Tofurky Manifesto DAVID ALEXANDER

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Customer Appreciation DayEMILY HOLMES

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Kept WomanL.M. OLSEN

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Baby ShoesAMANDA COUTURE

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EDITORIALEditor-in-Chief Morgan Alanmorgan.alan@blueprintmagazine.ca

Production Manager Lakyn Bartonlakyn.barton@blueprintmagazine.ca

Contributing Editor Devon Butlerdevon.butler@blueprintmagazine.ca

Promotions Manager Lydia Ogwanglydia.ogwang@blueprintmagazine.ca

Radio Manager Katie Parkeskatie.parkes@blueprintmagazine.ca

Brantford Manager Leisha Senkoleisha.senko@blueprintmagazine.ca

Staff Contributors P.G. Gallant, Emily Holmes, Andrew Savory

CONTRIBUTORSA.G.D., David Alexander, Ellie Anglin, Kiley Bell, Alexis Castrogiovanni, Amanda Couture, Graham Engel, Erin Epp, Carly Lewis, Emmanuel Xerx Javier, Sarah MacDonald, Fiorella Morzi, Erin Oldynski, L.M. Olsen, Josh Smee, Emily Slofstra, Maeve Strathy, Nuno Teixeira

ADMINISTRATIONPresident, Publisher & Chair Erin EppExecutive Director Bryn OssingtonAdvertising Manager Angela TaylorVice Chair Judith BruntonTreasurer !omas PaddockDirector Mike LakusiakDirector Jon PryceCorporate Secretary Morgan Alan

CONTACTBlueprint Magazine 75 University Ave WWaterloo ON N2L 3C5p 519.884.0710 x3564blueprintmagazine.caAdvertise angela@wlusp.comblueprintmagazine.ca/advertiseContribute submissions@blueprintmagazine.cablueprintmagazine.ca/contribute

COLOPHONBlueprint is the official student magazine of the Wilfrid Laurier University community.

Founded in 2002, Blueprint is an editorially independent maga-zine published by Wilfrid Laurier University Student Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. WLUSP is governed by its board of directors.

Content appearing in Blueprint bears the copyright expressly of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.

Blueprint reserves the right to re-publish submissions in print or online.

Opinions in Blueprint are those of the author and do not neces-sarily re"ect those of Blueprint’s management, Blueprint, WLUSP, WLU or CanWeb Printing Inc.

Blueprint is created using Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.5 using Adobe Creative Suite 4.

!e circulation for a normal issue of Blueprint is 3000. Subscrip-tion rates are $20.00 per year for addresses in Canada.

NEXT ISSUEOn the theme of “Future”Submissions due March 2On stands March 14

THE FAMILY ISSUE

What started as a bi-monthly student life magazine, founded by a student interested in gaining magazine production experience, now enters its decennial year of pub-lication. In your hands you hold Blueprint’s tenth anniversary issue: the culmination of ten years of culture and expression at Wilfrid Laurier University.

To say that our little magazine has had a ‘torrid history’ would be somewhat of a vast understatement. From its early roots as a lifestyle magazine, Blueprint would quickly shi# its editorial direction to cultural criticism. !is perspective was generally maintained until the late 2000s, when the magazine transformed itself into a radical political ideologue. !ough critical politics would remain central to Blueprint’s mandate, the magazine has leveled in a more literary direction in the past several years. !is abridged history is to say nothing, of course, of budget woes, heated cover discussions, and an entire year where not a single issue was completed on time.

I could wax poetic about “Blueprint as a family”, but the vast outpouring of submissions in this issue from former contributors does that for me. We’ve assembled a ‘greatest hits col-lection’ of past editors, managers, and writers, each representing a cross-section of Blueprint’s editorial history. For even those years removed from their time with Blueprint, it is heartening to see that literature and self-expression are still something held so close.

To the next ten years, and the next ten a#er!

Morgan AlanEditor-in-Chief

COVERArt by JOEL HENTGES

When I think of family I think of returning home and how the idea of family is attached to the house itself. Whether it is my parent’s house or a grandparent’s house, the object holds the idea of family even a#er strangers move in and family moves on. !e back cover represents the disconnect many people feel with regards to fam-ily and those objects.

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The soiled roots of our sister-cities resisted gentri!cation by any means at their disposal, and their tactics proved highly e"ective. Secret societies of dirt began the good !ght: asbestos vined its way towards God between steel gird-ers and damp drywall. Mould splatted spores like Pollock’s paints, feeding on a blank canvas. #e old mattress factory spat out a young labourer fourteen stories down, back-break-ing on the main drag, for trying to transform it into tasteful lo$s for the Young Urban Professional.

Yes, the soiled roots of our sister-cities resisted gentri!ca-tion at every step, but progress and economy stepped on also. #e buildings and landmarks of a city anchor us in time, and my anchor lost its hold. I watched from my bedroom window as the lo$s came to dwarf our house, and the city I grew up in became foreign to me. All that remains of that rockin’ 1980’s ghost-city – the bowling alley, the ashtrays, my Mother’s clear nail polish, the smell of mattress factory !re, my Dad whis-tling Hotel California, the Dollar Store, the train tracks – are Memories.

But oh, how they evaporate! See them %oat skyward like cottonseed caught in the wind. See them take %ight from us like unsecured helium balloons! And see me (shamelessly) leap, jump, and snatch them to my body in a desperate dance of recovery.

As I see an elder so dear to me turn his chair toward shad-ows, see him retreat within to contemplate the corners of his mind, I direct my energies towards genealogy. With a crow-bar and might I open the attic door at night.

#ose corridors – unending like an anvil that falls but does not drop – of geometric faces and cut glass minds! Names en-

cased in crystal, embedded in space and time revolve slowly and twinkle in the spectral dust of ancestral ghosts.

Crests, medals, portraits! Iron, copper, Lyme! Family se-crets unfurl like streamers wound tightly for years in disqui-etude and dyspepsia. I want everyone to know! You were that turbine the sun that spins forever! You too are the iron blan-ket of winter that rusts over time. You’re fading to shadow now but I want them to know: you wrote letters and told jokes and collected coins once.

With this I am forced to concede that it is not just this new set-design of a city that has pasted itself over my past. And outrage and resistance just take so much energy these days! To be honest I was drunk and melancholy at the Residents Meeting to lobby against the Bauer development. I conclud-ed, in the end, that letter writing campaigns are no match for entropy. Nor are dra$smen, nor money, nor architects, nor mortar. Young urban professionals are but so$-headed souls like me, who will make memories and forget to keep them.

I guess we all just have to roll with the sucker-punches of change, loss, death and time. It did get pretty lonely living amongst construction for so many years, but at least there was this one day that I saw the sunset squeal through the gaping metal mouths, and I felt the giant crane loom its make-shi$ cross over the city, and for a minute I felt its arms connect the cracked sidewalks between my present and my past.

On the Construction of the Bauer Lofts Behind my Family Home, Kitchener-Waterloo, from 2003 - 2008ELLIE ANGLIN

Ellie Anglin has been a Blueprint contributor since 2009.

Yes, the soiled roots of our sister-cities resisted gentri!cation at every step, but progress and economy stepped on also. "e buildings and landmarks of a city anchor us in time, and my anchor lost its hold. I watched from my bedroom window as the lo#s came to dwarf our house, and the city I grew up in became foreign to me.

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Disjointed ANDREW SAVORY

Torrential clouds of grey trouble bubble overheadas we sit uni!ed around papa’s mahogany table.Hand in hand we give thanks and say gracewhile projected smiles create our little family fable.

We haven’t yet had dinner, but a roast is coming.We wait in eager anticipation as the !re "ickersand with each passing moment a blazing anger amounts until father takes a swig of jack and sputters an inebriated curse.

#e volcanic tension erupts as mother barksand sister whimpers for it all to stop!but it wont, and it can’t, and her bark is now a roar.Suddenly there’s a pop! Father’s hit the "oor.

His lifeless thud reverberates around the room.#e body of what was once a man lies sleepily on the carpet.Evidently, family dinners are nothing but doom.

Andrew Savory has been a Blueprint staff writer since 2011.

DEVON BUTLER

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It is found in wild and untamed,Uniting and holding up thousands.Many have them and lose them.

!e other is found in and on the work,Binding the structured and organized.!e other is easily bent out of shape.

Run millions, and know how common it is.Stack dozens, and then bend them for fun.

!e tap will show their chase, And the pro"le of connection.

It is quite rigid, and many say in#exible,But see it accentuate what’s beautiful.!e other is ordinary if not outdated,!ough the other coloured will shine.

Together other carries it, And the two make one, Like the millions,Like the dozens.

In boxes and on board, It and other do accord.

It and OtherP.G. GALLANT

P.G Gallant has been a Blueprint staff writer since 2011.

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If my second-year roommate had not thrust a Blueprint copy editor application into my hands in the win-ter of 2008, my life would be very di!erent. As a relatively shy student, I needed a friendly nudge to get involved. As soon as I was hired, I found my voice and gained the con-"dence that comes with being published for the "rst time.

Blueprint helped me "nd an alternative community on a campus where I felt I could not relate to most students. It gave me a safe space in which I could explore my creativity with others who were interested in social justice. Most im-portantly, I was so enamoured with Blueprint from the "rst time I picked it up because I knew I could have an impact on its production, content, and aesthetic.

Blueprint will continue to be whatever those involved make of it. It changes with every editorial team, and maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe Blueprint’s importance is its ability to adapt stylistically to those who care most about it. I have seen Blueprint change its focus from Laurier student life, to hyper-political commentary, to literary content and cultural criticism. Blueprint is now out of my hands and in yours, and will be what you make it.

What You Make ItERIN EPP

Erin Epp was Blueprint’s Copy Editor in 2008-9 and Editor-in-Chief in 2009-10. She currently sits as President of Student Publications.

I love my family. I have a mom, a dad and four sisters. All of them are wonderful and unique, interesting and smart, and beautiful in their own ways, inside and out. I love my family.

Obviously, I didn’t grow up with brothers, but I have them now; two of them. I met my brothers while at Laurier. As with my family, I didn’t choose them; we came together organical-ly. I can’t tell you the "rst time I met one or the other. I don’t know where our connection begins or ends. All I know is that they might as well have always been there, because without them I am absolutely useless.

My brothers are my limbs; I’d feel less without them. My brothers are my oxygen; I can’t live without them. My broth-ers are me and I am my brothers are me and I am.

#ank You. Be Well.

My BrothersMAEVE STRATHY

Maeve Strathy was Blueprint’s Culture Editor in 2007-8. She is Blueprint’s most prolific contributor, with over 20 contributed pieces to her credit since 2005.

DEVON BUTLER

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I’m sitting on my couch, 3000 kilometres from Waterloo, ocean air dri!ing in the window. My friends are sitting in prison. I watch the rage and resolve "ow out in a stream of articles and photos and sentences and I can’t help but think that “distance” needs some serious rede#nition.

Wait. Rewind. June 26th, 2010. Out for a walk with a few thousand new friends on the streets of Toronto. Small-town cops in dusted-o$ riot gear. I have a job interview the next day, for a job in a city where “G20” doesn’t mean much. I play it safe. Not involved in the organizing, and I feel like a tourist. Two months later, I move.

Even from far away, the pulling-together is palpable. %e hum of caring and support becomes a roar. I feel a "ash of pride – these are my friends, standing up to a threatened and angry State. %is is a community, a family, that I – and, in-deed, Blueprint – played some part in building.

But what does that amount to, now? What does it mean to be far away, when the surface of our social life stays with us so easily?

Watching people you care about go through a struggle is a good way to start sorting that out. A couple months of Facebook-checking will give you hints of all the new bonds being built, the allies in unexpected places – but these are just hints. More o!en, it’s a reminder just how backward looking our socially networked lives are. I live in St. John’s and have a job doing community work. A good part of my online self still lives in Waterloo, still works with Blueprint, still goes to Laurier.

What does this mean for our responsibilities as friends and allies? To be honest, I don’t know. I read all the articles. I get angry. I repost. But do I step back from my keyboard and actually do much about it? Nope. A friend went into prison, served his sentence, and got out before I even got my act to-gether to send him a letter. While we’re now fed far more detail about the lives of our distant friends than we once were, it’s placed into a box that we don’t really know what to do with yet.

I think this matters – maybe more than we acknowledge. %e telephone and the web did a pretty good job at shrinking distances in space; Facebook and its ilk are doing the same for distance in time.

Distance is important. We step away to rethink ourselves, to prioritize, to make choices. We walk around campus un-afraid to take a few risks because there’s real distance between our lives there and our lives on either side of it.

%is isn’t about becoming a luddite, or a hermit. %ere’s no need to be so drastic to realize that our ability to divide our own stories into chapters is starting to fade. We’re becoming more accountable to our past selves, for better or for worse.

DistanceJOSH SMEE

Josh Smee (formerly Smyth) was the Global Editor of Blueprint in 2006-7 and Editor-in-Chief in 2007-8.

Distance is important. We step away to rethink ourselves, to prioritize, to make choices. We walk around campus unafraid to take a few risks because there’s real distance between our lives there and our lives on either side of it.

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Once, in the hallowed pages of the Blueprint, I proclaimed that I was ‘starting a cult’ (ed’s note: see “Graham’s Startin’ a Cult!”, July 2008). At the time, it seemed like a cult would be the solution to my problems and needs. Lonely? Why not be surrounded by a sea of dependent others. Tired of perpetual bickering? !en it is time to drive out oppos-ing voices through a cleanse of your compound. Looking for love? Create a group of brainwashed followers who adore your every word and deed.

Sadly, this became boring. While my dreams of starting a cult never actually came to fruition, thinking about the process and the ultimate product of that dream made me say “Nay; ‘Tis not truly what my heart desires…”

What I really desired was a community, a group of peo-ple who shared a family of values – not always the same, but common enough that when individual ideals came up in a con"icting way choices could be made to cherish our com-monalities instead of to cultivate crisis – and that with that family of values we would be able to move forward, stronger, together. !is community held the love, challenge, and com-panionship I wanted out of my cult, and without the zombie-like obedience and pathetic sycophancy I had grown to reject.

During my university days, Blueprint and other groups, o#- and on-campus, were where I found communities found-ed on challenge and compassion, and became a better person through those contacts. Outside the cozy womb of university life, it could be argued one needs to put more e#ort into seek-ing these contacts out; a$er all, it’s not like a university cam-pus where you’re as likely to trip over any of the myriad of

groups presenting themselves to passersby. If you want the relation to a common cause, you need to forge it for yourself.

If you would consider yourself a seeker a$er community, as someone who wishes to create a non-biological family of folk promoting ideas and collaborative e#ort towards a uni-%ed goal, I would like to o#er a suggestion. Since our days with the Blueprint, myself and others have begun the process of establishing a publication available freely in the KW com-munity and beyond. !is is a forum available to anyone and everyone who wishes to share in the spirit of peace, and this forum is Highbraü Magazine.

Whether you write academic argument or dry satire; whether you see the world through your telephoto lens or through an explosion of paint on paper; whether you wish to slam poetry or slip us a short story, Highbraü could be for you. Highbraü Magazine is an independent, locally-organized print forum that looks to provide opportunities to those who seek them. While our magazine is currently small scale and obscure, our intention is to sustainably grow the publica-tion and facilitate dialogue in the KW community. Don’t let the ‘culty’ beginning of this essay fool you - all opinions and ideas are welcome, encouraged, and delighted in. No need for brainwashed sycophants here; I only ask for those in my per-sonal life…

A Blueprint for CommunityGRAHAM ENGEL

Graham Engel has been a Blueprint contributor since 2007. Visit highbraumagazine.com to learn more about the magazine

What I really desired was a community, a group of people who shared a family of values...and that with that family of values we would be able to move forward, stronger, together.

DEVON BUTLER

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Family is a concept I have never “gotten.” There was no light bulb inside my head that went o! at one point or another and le" me feeling totally secure in myself and “my family.” I’ve never felt particularly illuminated about the no-tion of family. It’s abstract and almost always out of reach. It is this grand idealistic, dreamy support system that I have never known.

In terms of divisions and classi#cations, yes, I do have a family. I have cousins, second cousins, aunts, uncles, grand-parents and so many more people that have formed this circle around my life. To me, that’s not a family. It’s hard, mean and obligatory. $is family is from a catalogue. It’s not real. $ey tell each other lies under the guise of “$is is for your own good” and “You are better to be seen and not heard.” Maybe this is just what I have come to know from these people; these relatives. $at in itself is a tricky idea because I feel in no way

related to them. I live in a city and support choices that were whispered about decades ago and they live in a hamlet where those choices should remain as whispers. Somehow, in the midst of all of this mess, I formed a family. I formed what I think is a family.

Let me tell you about my family.My family is a great big tree. $e cliché of this is not at all

lost on me. Instead of following the branches to see where they go and how they have informed me as a person, I traced

the veins in the bark with my #ngertips and found myself at the roots. I have two thick roots at the base of this tree and they are the most solid things I have ever gripped. Believe me: I haven’t always treated this tree with the kind of respect and care it deserves. Somewhere in-between the earth-shattering heartache that was growing up and getting my life together, I sat next to this tree and whispered all of my deepest, darkest secrets, knowing that it was #nally time to say all of the things I never could.

My roots braid together and spiral into a solid trunk, forming a lush and old tree. $e branches of the tree aren’t people connected to me but experiences and memories that bring me back to my roots. Each root is vastly di!erent from the other. $e oldest root is my mother. She is warm and kind and wears her struggles on her sleeve. $ere is something so heartbreaking in knowing there are invisible marks along her beautiful skin but having to watch her #ght to live in a harsh, hard world. She is weary but moves along and loves #ercely. $e youngest root is lighter, tender but strong. $ey are both so strong. $is root is my sister. She anchors the rest of the tree with a stark stoicism that is a rarity to #nd. Her eyes are quiet but can say so much without really saying anything at all. She has my heart in her hands and knows, in spite of all the destruction I did to tear this root from the ground so long ago, her happiness now is the only thing that matters to me.

From what I understand about family, the very basic idea is love: to love and be loved by another person and for them be a sanctuary to help you survive living. Love doesn’t always happen that way though, but this is what we want, right? Instead of #ghting and forgetting what we fought about, we tell jokes to one another. We laugh until our bellies are sore and throats so hoarse no sane thoughts can be formed or ex-pressed. We talk until the sun turns into the moon and back to day once more. We rest upon one another when everything gets so heavy and can barely move, holding everyone together because that is just what you do. We do it because we want to, not because we have to.

My family is so small but I like it that way. I don’t know how to exist around the people I am related to. We’re aliens to one another. $eir family is di!erent from mine. $ey see me and #gure that based upon some scienti#c data I must be family. Our blood and genetic make-up may be similar, we may have the same bone structure in our nose, but this is not a family.

You both loved me but I loved you more. And that’s what a family is; what my family is.

You Loved MeSARAH MACDONALD

Sarah MacDonald has been a Blueprint contributor since 2009. She is Editor-in-Chief of Fine Cut, a film and television industry magazine.

My roots braid together and spiral into a solid trunk, forming a lush and old tree. !e branches of the tree aren’t people connected to me but experiences and memories that bring me back to my roots. Each root is vastly di"erent from the other.

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A!er kissing each small e"gy of his face, his saints#e cruci$xes all mean something di%erentIn the garden-like calmOf a thousand bodies sleeping

Canon in D is out of placeBut it’s playing low in the backgroundIt’s walking me down the aisle Where all the black plastic chairs are emptyAnd my mother is whispering on the marble About the loss of my religion

#e names and dates are all here#ey’re mapping out lifetimes from one side of the dash to

the other#ey are missing all the information in betweenOr maybe this is all I need to know

And the &owers are just pinpoints of colourIn amongst the roses and greysI’m walking in between the head stonesAnd my grandmother is pointing and sayingAnd there lies my friendAnd there lies my familyAnd there lies my graveWaiting patiently for meAnd patience is the name of the gameYou have to try and go gracefullyFrom conception To the beauty of the black

And the epitaphs are foreignIn more ways than oneSome in Italian, some in Polish But they’re wishing every man woman and child#e very bestWherever it may be#at they have gone

And I’ve lost something else today#at I wasn’t missing yet yesterdayI’ll just wait calmly for the enormity to hitFor the last dam to breakWhile my grandmother sits and praysIn that high backed chair For her children and her grandchildrenAnd these souls in their little densI am a little lostI am gathering my religion

I am gathering my breathsShard by shard

And the dash they have inscribed on the plaquesMeans more#an all the names of the very dear to meAnd all the birthdays I, or anyone else has ever celebratedAnd all the funerals I have ever sat throughWith a skirt that hits below the kneeIn my entire life

Twenty seems like a long walkWhen I $nally stand still.

TwentyALEXIS CASTROGIOVANNI

Alexis Castrogiovanni has been a Blueprint contributor since 2011.

DEVON BUTLER

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Erin Oh interviews her dad about being a pilot.

Dad, why did you start flying?Ralph Fowler was the next-door neighbour to our place.

And he had a friend named Lincoln Ray who built his own airplane and !ew it. Ralph was quite the engineer, the back-yard engineer. He was building for as long as I knew him. Well into his 60s and 70s he was building an airplane. But he never did "nish it. He never did get his pilot’s license.

But his son Roddy, PhD in English, got the bug and be-came a pilot. And I sort of got the bug as well. I read in the paper that they were having private pilot lessons at the local airport.

How old would you have been at that point?Um, this would have been in the mid-80s. So early 30s.

And what were you doing at that time in your life?Um, unemployed. At this point I would have been living

with my brother Steve.

In his basement?Yeah.

You were unemployed when you were living in his basement?

Part of the time, yeah. I was in and out of employment at the steel plant from 1982 to ‘87.

Do you remember the first time you flew in a private airplane?

Yeah. #at would have been at my private pilot’s course. I wouldn’t have known diddly about it. I went on an indoctri-

Unusual AttitudesERIN OLDYNSKI

ERIN EPP

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nation ride: “Come and see what it’s like to !y!” Pay "#y bucks and they take you around, let you hold the controls. I thought that was pretty neat.

So while you were unemployed you started your pi-lot training?

Yep.

How did you have the money? It’s so expensive.I took a Sault College course for under $100. And then I

took ultra-light pilot training, which was fairly cheap at the time, about $40 an hour.

My whole rationale – why I thought I could write it o$ – was that, “Well, my daughter lives 500 miles away and it’s cheaper to !y there in a rented plane than it is to !y there commercially.”

Where was I? In New York City at that point?You were in Pittsburgh at that time.

Why did you want to learn how to fly?I guess it was because the next-door neighbours just made

it seem like such a cool thing. And it was. It was a challenge – I couldn’t believe that it was something that I could really undertake. I thought to myself at one point, “If I can do this, I can do anything. %e sky’s the limit! %ere’s no stopping me from doing anything!”

Flying took intellectual ability, it took coordination, you had to be well-rounded. You couldn’t panic at all. You had to keep yourself cool. When you get in dicey situations, you just have to buckle down, do your drills, and come out on the other side.

Did you ever have destinations in mind? I mean, where did you think you would fly to?

Oh, I would create them. My big goal, eventually, towards the end of my !ying was, “Oh, I’ll !y down to Pittsburgh and see Erin.” But in a small plane and with the various air tra&c circles en route, it would have been a dicey thing. In order to !y from Sault Ste Marie straight to Pittsburgh, there are international borders you have to cross, clearances, air tra&c control centres, and it’s quite an involved thing. So then, in the end, it wasn’t a practical way to get to Pittsburgh.

Dad?Hm?

Can you do anything now?Pardon?

Can you do anything?Can I do anything now?

I mean, you said that after you flew an airplane you felt like you can do anything. Do you still believe that?

Um. No. No, right now, no.

Why?I don’t sleep well enough. My brain’s not working a quarter

of what it should be.

But was there ever a time, when you were still sleep-ing well, that you felt that you could do anything?

Sure. Sure. I felt I could go to university and become a doctor if I wanted to.

When you’re young you come complete with the idea that the world is your oyster. %at you can do anything. I think that all !ying did was con"rm that for me. %at, “Hey I have talent here and yes I can do anything that I set my mind to.”

When I was younger and I used to be on airplanes, I always thought I was in heaven.

And it’s much like being in heaven, right? You’re defying all of the earthly, worldly laws of physics.

Does it kind of make you feel like you’re God?You are defying some basic laws, yeah. A#er you get the

fear of death out of you, and the fact that you’re going to re-turn and it’s going to be easy to land and you know what to look for to keep yourself out of trouble. Yeah. I even got to the point where I would go looking for trouble so that I could practice getting out of it.

Like, I’d go !ying with my chum Ernie. I’d say “Ernie, just tell me if I’m getting in trouble here, okay?” And I would practice my drills. About the worse thing that can happen to you is that you’re !ying along and weather deteriorates and you "nd yourself in a cloud. Once you get inside a cloud, it’s something like sixty to ninety seconds that the average pilot will lose his orientation, the plane will start dri#ing in one way or another. You’ll start going up, you’ll start going down, and if you don’t know how you read your instrument, you’ll end up in a spin. Or stalling the aircra# and then going into a life threatening dive.

So I would practice against that by covering my eyes. And the drill for getting out of a cloud is to keep yourself !at and level, and complete a standard call, it’s called, but it’s a very slow turn. Make a 180 degree sweep and go out. Go right back out the way you came.

I’d cover my eyes and pay attention just to my instruments. You can’t pay attention to what your head is telling you. Bad things are happening inside your head. My altimeter would tell me exactly at what level I was. My RPM gauge would tell me how hard the engine was working. And I would complete that 180 degree turn.

It was like being invincible. It was the challenge. I’ve done it all strictly for the challenge.

To challenge myself.

Erin Oldynski was Blueprint’s Community Outreach Director in 2010-11.

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There are ten people at my table on Christmas morning.

Two of them bear the chromosomes responsible for my quiddity and the quiddity of my sister, who is also at the table. One of the people at the table is me. !e other six are a smat-tering of idiosyncrasies who possess a coveted, longstanding invitation to the most hallowed of all brunches: that which happens on Christmas Day at my parents’ house. I am not related to them by blood. But they are my family.

Across from me is my aunt, who is not really my aunt, but who I’ve called my aunt since I could speak the word. She has

played this part very well for several decades. At the other end of the table is my brother, who is not actually my brother. But if I had a brother, it would be him, because we interact like siblings and spent our adolescences pretending that this is what we are. Beneath the table, with her head on my feet, is my pet dog, who is also a member of my family. Emitting from the record player in the living room is Bob Dylan. He is family too, even though we have never met. (I swore I saw

him once in a bakery in New York City, but it was dark out at the time, and he doesn’t seem the cupcake type. It probably wasn’t him.)

I say Bob Dylan is my family because he represents the things I think a family should be. He is timeless and uncon-ditional and available to me quickly whenever I desire him to be. My mom is this way, too. So is my dog. But my dog is not related to me by blood, and neither is Bob Dylan. !is doesn’t matter at all, because blood is con"ned to the veins, had no choice in getting there and thus cannot make a sound decision about whether or not it wants to be our family. And sometimes, quite frankly, blood is meaningless. Uncles can turn out to be assholes. Parents can fail at parenting. Cousins who were childhood con"dantes can grow up and become vapid model-types whose conversational o#erings are so in-su#erable that you "nish an entire brunch’s worth of mimosas in one swi$ gulp and sneak o# to the washroom for serenity.

So we must assemble our chosen families, which is what I have done.

Family is more of a feeling than a thing. Family means sta-bility and roots, but these things are not always available. Peo-ple change. People move. People die. !e proper de"nition of the family — the bloodline, the thing — is not eternal. Family the feeling, however, is everlasting and agreeable and always present, even when family — the people — have changed, have moved, have died. Bob Dylan is my family because he is unrelenting. I have forgiven him for making a nauseating Christmas record and he has forgiven me for snorting cocaine o# a Blood on the Tracks album cover.

He’ll never trap me in a conversation about jeggings and Miami and how fun it is to do photo shoots for advertise-ments that go on billboards beside the highway. He’ll never send me into the bathroom with a bottle of prosecco at 11 o’clock in the morning. And if he did, it would be okay, be-cause I selected him for my chosen family for a reason, and I would care enough to work through it. Family means giving a shit. !is is the most important thing.

Some members of my blood family are also in my chosen family, but only the good ones. My chosen family is comprised of approximately three blood relatives, six old roommates, "ve dead people, one animal, three old neighbours, a handful of friends, an accountant, some writers, some lawyers, some losers, a vagabond who I last saw in Berlin in 2007, a painter, and of course, Bob Dylan, who is really just a metaphor for someone I love because I choose to.

Blood is thicker than water, but that is irrelevant.

Chosen FamilyCARLY LEWIS

Carly Lewis was Blueprint’s Managing Editor in 2009-10. Her writing has been published in Spin, Bitch, Maisonneuve and the National Post.

Sometimes, quite frankly, blood is meaningless. Uncles can turn out to be assholes. Parents can fail at parenting. Cousins who were childhood con!dantes can grow up and become vapid model-types whose conversational o"erings are so insu"erable that you !nish an entire brunch’s worth of mimosas in one swi# gulp and sneak o" to the washroom for serenity.

15

The light summer air of early June tousled the hair hair of the crowds enjoying customer appreciation day out-side of the small business. !e store catered to the needs of farmers, selling animal food, grain, seed, and fertilizers. !e bright red sign in front was welcoming and friendly, and matched the large grain towers that stood beside the building.

It was the summer of 2000, and business was thriving. Customer appreciation day was a hit, as farmers from all over the city brought their families to enjoy fresh food, as well as entertainment provided by two small ponies used for giv-ing rides to children. !e daughter of the storeowner roared with laughter as her Dad gave her piggyback rides around the parking lot.

Some of her "rst memories were embedded in that build-ing. She used to run around the storage room and leap from piles stacked with bags of cattle feed. She would chase the stray cats around the building in hopes of catching one, but they were always too quick for her. She would write secret messages and clues for imaginary buried treasure in the dust of the shelves in the back corner, hoping someone would dis-cover them.

Even growing up, as she passed the store on the busy high-way it was located near, she would beam and say, “My Dad owns that.” !e red towers soared high above the skyline like a beacon, and every time she saw them she felt safe.

Today she stands in front of the building’s gates, "ngering the chain and bolted lock holding the two sides together. !e once vibrant red of the store’s sign no longer evokes warmth within her; instead it sends a chill down her spine. It hangs at a defeated angle, like it knew the world had won. Inside the dusty shelves and sacks of feed were gone. !e place had

been emptied and stood hollow like a gutted corpse. She imagined her father’s bare o#ce, which once held her poorly drawn childhood pictures and snapshots of their family. Only the darkened squares of wood that once sat behind picture frames and never seen the sunlight would prove that anything had existed there at all. It was all surreal. Everything had hap-pened so fast that she had barely realized the implications of it all. It wasn’t just the family business they had lost; it was like losing a family friend. Guilt ripped at her from inside as she realized she hadn’t even come home to say goodbye.

She sat on the ground in front of the gates and stared. She appeared to be waiting for some sign of life, some emergence of activity to shake her out of her dream and bring everything back to the way it was before.

She waited until the night grew too cold to bear any lon-ger, took one last look and headed home.

Customer Appreciation DayEMILY HOLMES

Emily Holmes has been a Blueprint staff writer since 2011.

DEVON BUTLER

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About A Boy is one of my favourite movies. Maybe I’m a sucker for cheesy coming-of-age stories, or

romantic comedies, or Hugh Grant. Or maybe there’s some-thing cathartic about the particular journey of its protagonist.

Our hero, a hermetically boyish Will Freeman, struggles to overcome 38-years of inheritance-fuelled self-grati!cation a"er he is shaken out of his every-man-is-an-island mental-ity by 12-year-old (vegetarian) social outcast Marcus Brewer. Seeking a father-like !gure to support himself and his emo-tionally unstable mother, Marcus foists himself into Will’s life, setting o# a chain-reaction that sparks our hero’s eventual transformation into sensitive, responsible family man – even if the family Will comes to embrace is not of blood relations, but of his own choosing.

At the !lm’s heart are the twin struggles of how we let peo-ple into our lives and how we accommodate them once they get there. Will !nds that interdependence has its advantages, particularly as his bond with Marcus grows; but his newfound obligations to Marcus are also a source of con$ict as he strug-gles against the limitations they impose on his freedom.

I made the decision to become vegan a couple years ago, a"er four years as a vegetarian who avoided eggs and dairy 95% of the time. Another vegan once chastised me for my al-most-veganism; I had stopped buying eggs and dairy at home and at restaurants, but didn’t feel comfortable speaking up at big family dinners to say, “Um, is there milk in this?”

So I asked my vegan friend, “Well, how do you deal with the holidays?”

“I stopped going.”Near the end of my time at Laurier, a friend persuaded me

to accompany her to a viewing of Peaceable Kingdom, a !lm that chronicles an animal advocacy & rescue organization in upstate New York called Farm Sanctuary. %e documentary challenges the dominant narrative about modern animal ag-riculture, illustrated by happy cartoon pigs and pastoral milk cartons.

I was outraged to learn the truth: that family farming is dead and the vast majority of animals raised for food in North America are reared by a mechanized system commonly re-ferred to as factory farming. In factory farms, what’s good for the bottom line goes, meaning that overcrowding, debeaking, tail-docking, and poor veterinary care are the norm for so-called domestic farm animals.

Domestic is a strange descriptor for the animals we raise for human food, as there’s nothing particularly domestic about modern animal husbandry. %e dominant narrative about domestication suggests that dogs, cats, horses, mules, cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep $ocked to us for the mutual bene!t of our species thousands of years ago. A long period of

interdependence followed, which directed the evolution not just of the human species, but of these companion species as well. By this logic, these domestic species can be thought of as members of our big, fat evolutionary family.

It is therefore troubling if we accept as domestic the mu-tilation of their bodies, their con!nement in stacked wire cages or gestation crates, and the forced separation of piglets, calves, and chicks from their mothers as early as ten days af-ter being born. Experts in animal behaviour and evolutionary biology agree that far from being mindless automatons, these are highly sensitive, social creatures. It surely pains them to be torn away from their loved ones at the industry’s !rst eco-nomically convenient opportunity.

%e tragedy of a farm animal’s life is not just the su#er-ing and fear caused by animals’ material conditions, although that is terrible; we’ve also taken away their opportunity to ex-perience life. Chickens don’t get to be chickens, pigs don’t get to be pigs, many roosters and bulls don’t get to live at all, and every animal is taken out of circulation as soon as he reaches his optimal weight for consumption or her reproductive sys-tem begins to lag. For those unfortunate individuals who hap-pen to be born as males of a dairy or egg-laying breeds, life is even shorter.

It’s hard not to sympathize with my friend who stopped going to %anksgiving. %ere’s a huge chasm between his family’s belief that eating animals is !ne and his belief that it’s a mass injustice that exploits billions of individual animals each year. %e cognitive dissonance that accompanies such a ri" can be alienating, frustrating, and disconcerting. How can we love people whose beliefs we !nd so problematic? How can we sit through dinner when the centerpiece of the meal is an example of the very cruelty we vow to end?

%e time of domestic farm animals is over, and has been for years. Food animals have become post-domestic: exploit-ed and institutionalized for our convenience – because we like animal foods, and we like them cheap.

Perhaps, as in Will Freeman’s journey, a chain-reaction is unfolding across humanity. Perhaps we are beginning to move away from pure self-interest to consider our obligations to these once domestic companions. If so, I tend to think we’re better positioned to make our case at the table, mowing down on tofurky, reveling in what we share with our loved ones, rather than in self-imposed exile. As Bon Jovi once said, no man is an island.

The Tofurky ManifestoDAVID ALEXANDER

David Alexander was Blueprint’s Editor-in-Chief in 2004-5. He is currently Executive Director of the Toronto Vegetarian Association.

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Sarah sits at the table while her mother’s friend fillsher in on the past two years. As the words baby, house and husband !oat from her mouth and hang in the air around them, Sarah’s index "nger and thumb pick at the deep fried appetizer in front of her. Her head is bowed toward the dish, but her eyes are upward, locked on her mother. When Sarah’s mother would, feeling her glare, look over, she would throw her eyes back on her plate and hum, inconspicuously.

Her mother’s friend slows her speech; the words merely dribbling. She turns her focus to Sarah’s mother, pulling sto-

ries out of her. Sarah’s mother’s mouth opens and with down-ward curls, speaks of accomplishments, love, and stability.

And Sarah’s eyes widen. She squirms in the cheap vinyl booth and takes a sip of her soda. And she continues picking at the secrets on the plate in front of her, swallowing hard and gulping long.

Kept Woman [kept] [woo m-uh n]L.M. OLSEN

L.M. Olsen has been a Blueprint contributor since 2011.

DEVON BUTLER

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Were they hiding this?I saw it. It was ino!ensive. It was rational that it stood on

its own, as stately and customary as it was: a testament to nor-malcy. So unsuspicious.

You see, in the house of a large family, there are always items that must be understood as, simply, the bi-product of children: untouched candy in a tucked-away place, a worn-out doll sitting with hands poised, waiting for tea fashioned out of water and a plastic cup. An army "xture halted mid-game, guns at the ready, sits in a dark corner or under fur-niture, hoping for an eventual end to the war. In this house, during this day alone I have seen one card game le# to its own tricks, sprawled across a discoloured carpet; two in$ated mattresses, enjoying the sunlight while $oating evenly across a pool, slowly de$ating through ill-"tted patches in the ma-terial; three pictures on faded paper – two, perhaps, vandal-ized by the creator of the third, as a red dash of marker has been smeared across all the available paper and then abruptly stopped, interrupted in process – and lastly, four pairs of shoes, eight children’s shoes, le# and right, thrown every-where, really, just a mess.

But, this was placed in the basement of the house, in the cold storage room, behind a blue tote, behind a box labeled “Baby Shoes”, smothered under a pink sleeping bag. Sleeping, this majestic item stood.

I think children are capable of great things. Mainly, great destruction. I estimate their capability for such planned obliv-ion is lacking.

No, it was parents – that selective breed – who placed this object here. Or perhaps hid it. I cannot be sure from the evi-dence provided. But I do know that in busy houses like this, there can exist such silent markers.

I remember many years ago that I watched, as a neigh-bour who babysits always watches, the father of this house step into his backyard. In his rage and pain, he swept across the overgrown grass, gingerly li#ed the baby swing on its un-touched chains, and – in a moment of depth that cannot be understood by a stranger – ripped the seat from its place and carried it inside, cradling it in his arms.

And now I face the past again. %is dark and undisturbed place behind the tote and box, behind the sleeping bag, be-hind the school lunches and sports matches and schoolyard squabbles and all that is and is to come – the baby swing is seated in its sacred secret.

I gently cover the symbol of a parent’s heart – more cher-ished than an unmarked grave, or a nameless jar of ashes – with the pink sleeping bag. I let it sleep again.

Baby ShoesAMANDA COUTURE

Amanda Couture is a first-time Blueprint contributor.

The most important thing I learned at Blueprint was how to make every cover look “trippy.”

Following my year as Managing Editor, I followed my pas-sion for spelling and grammar to the Cord for two more years before I graduated. Once I started working on my Masters at UW, I realized that I missed the media world, and promptly became Web Intern at Alternatives Journal. I really hope I can continue either working on publications as a pastime, or per-haps one day actually take it seriously enough to consider a career (‘cause Lord knows the environmental "eld ain’t gonna pay my mortgage).

Every time I see the call-out for Blueprint I exercise my creativity, jot some notes on paper, then get writers block. %is issue I have a lot on my mind regarding family, as I start my own at my Kitchener homestead, and connect with my ex-tended family more than ever before. But, as you can see from this miniscule write-up: I would rather be making babies than writing about them.

‘Make It Look Trippy’EMILY SLOFSTRA

Emily Slofstra was Blueprint’s Managing Editor in 2008-9.

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I was born and raised in Canada, which makes meCanadian. However, I grew up in a household with Peruvian, Spanish-speaking parents, making me bilingual at a young age. I cannot express to you how thankful I am about this fact. Speaking two languages makes me feel like I am part of two distinct worlds.

Attached to my Spanish-speaking parents are their lives before they came to Canada, lives lived lustfully back in Peru, standing on the beach, soaking in the Sun and drinking Chi-cha. It is because of them that I have been exposed to more than one language, and subsequently more than one culture. !e Peruvian culture is much like what you’d expect it to be: loud, passionately hungry, and dance-crazy. It is obnoxious (in the good way) and a"ectionate. Peruvians greet others with a kiss. !is aspect of the culture frightened my Cana-

dian friends at #rst, not quite understanding why my aunt and uncle, upon seeing them, kissed them frantically on both cheeks. It is my experience that Canadians are more reserved than Spanish-speaking folk.

With my right foot in one culture and the le$ foot in an-other, life is split right down the middle. We all know each culture is di"erent; combining two is like gaining two sepa-rate perspectives on how to live life. My bilingual family o"ers me multiple viewpoints on the issues of culture, heritage and blood relations. !e older I get, the more I appreciate my par-ent’s in%uence on me culturally and linguistically. I am their eclectic daughter, who is happy to be divided.

Eclectic DaughterFIORELLA MORZI

Fiorella Morzi is a first-time Blueprint contributor.

DEVON BUTLER

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I am related to Anne Boleyn and therefore, Queen Elizabeth I. I am related to mayors of London, and members of Marie Antoinette’s court. I am related to lawyers, soldiers and aristocratic ladies. I am re-lated to thieves, criminals, and men who beat their wives. I am royalty and I am rubbish.

Some time ago, I trudged around London, trying to !nd the church my great-grandparents attended, and were mar-ried in. Imagine my surprise when it stood rough and dirty in Southwark. Imagine my surprise when I learnt it was the same church which preached to Charles Dickens. It was the same location that housed Dickens’s father, when he served in debtor’s prison.

Imagine a life of dirty windows and yellow fog that en-gulfs your senses. A life of restrictions and rigid conventions. A life of hardships, where everybody knows their place. But Dickens knew better. He never went to prison; he wrote. He wrote legacies passed down with the promise of being a self-made man, of escaping his prison. I am grateful to Dickens and grateful to my great-grandfather who sustained himself by slaving at a luxury hotel, so that one day I could return to have a"ernoon tea in a fancy dress.

But how self-made can I be when the blood in my body and the thoughts in my head are pre-determined, pre-condi-tioned and running through another? When the state of my mental condition is subject to the anxiety and depression that runs through the veins of my ancestry. Hospitalization for their inevitable nervous breakdown is the cold memory I’ve been le" with to remember my predecessors, and to re#ect upon when I fall subject to the same fate.

It wouldn’t matter if my relatives were crowned monarchs or drug-dealing crooks, they would still encompass the blood that builds a legacy, and forms my sense of self-awareness. I am aware that there is purity in my intentions and I am aware I possess traces of evil. Evil that was trapped in somebody years ago that never fought its way out. It latched onto the next of kin to continue its reign a"er being forced o$ a bridge and drowned. So it wreaks its havoc down the line until some-body stands up to it; to claim their life as their own.

I will be the end of the line. My blood will soak into the ground with me, and only with me. I will not let it carry on and infect the pure intentions of another. I will engra" a leg-acy taught by Charles Dickens, to live eternal in a form that cannot be corrupted by the misguidance of a conscious that’s been reincarnated too many times. I am royalty and I am rub-bish and I’ve lost the ability to relate

On Dickens and DepressionDEVON BUTLER

Devon Butler is Blueprint’s current Contributing Editor.

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I knew by the age of 13 that I was going to adopt my!rst child. I was convinced that I would never !nd a boy to fall in love with, let alone want to reproduce with. Barely one year into high school I already knew my future would be atypi-cal. I’ve always preferred the idea of being someone’s mother rather than someone’s wife. I never really saw myself, ladle in hand, child on one hip, waiting for my husband to come home at the end of the day. I never fantasized about the mo-ment I’d kiss his cheek and we’d both laugh as he raised his hand to wipe lipstick marks from his face.

"e idea of being a housewife was something I loathed. "e thought made me cringe. It made my ovaries hurt. I be-gan to feel that perhaps I was programmed di#erently from the other girls in my high school. I found myself tuning out of conversations when the topics were always the same: who ac-cidentally skipped their birth control, who was dating a new guy, who blew who upstairs at some party last weekend. I had no problem feigning interest in these conversations, but the idea that I would have to actively participate and lend my own tale of sexual bravado was almost unbearable. I had nothing to add, no experience to relate. For the longest time I couldn’t decide who was worse, these silly girls, or me.

Somewhere along the line my thoughts turned to having a family; a real type of family with sticky children that had goofy smiles, a beautiful house where the neighbours didn’t bore me, and maybe even a dog or two. "is was the vision that kept me smiling and nodding while listening to these ri-diculous conversations about why it wasn’t my friend’s fault she had cheated on her boyfriend. I had pictured my future life so vividly for years, but it wasn’t until last year that I re-alized not once has my vision ever included a husband. For whatever reason, my brain hadn’t believed the idea that there truly could be a man out there for me. "e cynical, bitter side of my brain refused to even suggest that as an option. When I brought this up to one of my closest friends she simply told me that she wasn’t surprised the picture of my future doesn’t involve a husband. She casually said that as long as she had known me I had never even considered a husband to be a vi-able part of the family I wanted.

Admittedly, the idea of !lling out paperwork for an adop-tion, or $icking through di#erent sperm bank submissions makes me extremely nervous. Knowing I’d be doing this all on my own makes the burden that much heavier. However, this is the vision I chose. I don’t want to wait on some !ctional man to sweep me o# my feet and give me a baby.

Family FoiblesKILEY BELL

Kiely Bell is a first-time Blueprint contributor.

DEVON BUTLER

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Blueprint would like to extend its utmost thanks to the Office of the Vice-President: Finance & University Administration and Heather Jane Parkes & Wayne Parkes,

whose generous donations helped to fund the publication of this issue.

Than!You

follow us on twitter@Blueprint_Mag

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Stuck in traffic, nine exits away from where I was going, was the last place I wanted to be. Edged in first by the buildings lining the highway, then by the highway itself, then by the sea of other cars, then by my own car, and finally by the seatbelt rub-bing against my neck. The air conditioner in the car was useless, as my front was cool but my back was drenched in sweat.

I hadn’t been using the air conditioning in my car that whole summer. I had been travelling and working in the backcountry of British Columbia, where the roads were sel-dom crowded and never slow outside of the cities. !en it was back to the road and an ever-changing collage of farms, for-est, cottage-like houses and mountains. !e windows were al-ways open, the air was usually cool, and the conversation with friends and other travelers was enough to distract you from any momentary blemishes in the otherwise nice weather.

!en I had to come back and from my perch in the moun-tains. I descended down through the Great Plains with their mammoth sunsets, on through the muskeg, and then to the stretch of the Trans-Canada highway that plays peek-a-boo with Lake Superior.

Down, down, down, and now I was sitting here. My grand-father had died, and I was now on the way to his funeral. I knew very little about him. I knew he was born in England, and was a pilot in the war, that worked as an engineer at a number of heavy machine factories in Canada. He was on the advisory board for something, and when I was a child, he beat me mercilessly at chess and checkers.

Attending the funeral would by my uncles and aunts, who rarely spoke, let alone visited one another. I had stayed with them in my travels and listened to their stories, about why they didn’t call and the grudges that kept them apart. My aunt kept me up with a wine-soaked rant about what a jerk my father was, as he never supported her decision to marry her second husband from whom she had recently divorced. “He

couldn’t say one thing nice, not one thing!” I smiled and nod-ded along.

All of this added up to a room of about "#y people who shared only blood and a habit for criticism. It wouldn’t take long, I guessed, for someone to bring up some sore subject; voices would be raised, lines would be drawn, and people would storm out and wait in the hall for consolation and talk-ing to anyone who happened to pass by on the way to the bathroom. And because of the same sense of duty that made me come home for Christmas and be compared to my more successful cousins and siblings, I was now subjecting myself to this tra$c, this place, and the hornet’s nest of negative melodrama that I was about to walk into.

I was almost there. Two more exits, and the tra$c was clearing up. We were moving now and, for better or worse, I was almost at what would most likely be a catastrophe of a funeral. I arrived late, but no one noticed.

I sat beside my father, who sat beside my aunt. I had never seen my father cry, but he came close as they lowered his fa-ther into the ground. !e attendees of the reception every-one drank tea and co%ee, and swapped pictures and stories. !rough it all, my grandmother smiled and thanked everyone for his or her condolences. I stayed until everyone had le#, and went back to my grandmother’s house with my father and a few others. We talked lightly and before I le# we went to my grandfather’s closet to divide up his things. My father took a pair of gold cu&inks. I took some shirts and a pair of mocca-sins. !ere wasn’t much to take: at the end of his 85 years my grandfather only had twelve shirts, eight ties, seven pairs of pants, three pairs of shoes, and two suits: one black one blue. I said my goodbyes and drove back to my hotel room in the dark. It was quiet.

The Great DivideA.G.D.

A.G.D. is a first-time Blueprint contributor.

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