Through Spanish Eyes...

I have brown eyes. I come from a British/German Mennonite heritage. None of those people have brown eyes...they're always blue or green. I have brown eyes, because, somewhere back in my mother's British gene pool, a Spaniard snuck in. You have to watch those sneaky Spaniards. According to my grandmother, Spaniards were always thought of as pirates. Ahhhhharrrr!!!! Pass the rum, Matey!

So, a sneaky Spanish pirate surreptitiously dove into my gene pool and did the backstroke all over future generations. We have never been the same since. The British blood in our family has been trying to strangle the Spanish blood for generations...but the Spanish blood, even watered down, will not be annihilated!

My family is fucked up. My family's almost Victorian communication style and emotional unavailability have screwed over generations of children who have grown into adults who screw over children. It's not that they don't love their children, it's that they can't tell them. They can't hug them. They can't tell them they are proud of them. They can't even cry for the most part. Anytime I have witnessed my parents cry I have gone into panic mode...it took me until my mid 30's to get over that and play the role of grown-up...'cause normally I am not allowed to.

I often wonder how I became so different. I cry at sad movies, I feel other people's pain to a degree that often becomes detrimental to my own health. I love to hug and kiss people and hold them when they are sad or traumatized. I tell people I am proud of them and I try to never miss an opportunity to tell someone why they are great or why they are beautiful. There was never enough of that in my world.

Somebody who knows my family thinks they are liars. I think he is right...but more so liars by omission than commission. There must always be a smile on one's face and a meal on the table and no one ever commits the sin of anger...I guess there is something to be said for stoicism. Kinda like Queen Elizabeth when Diana died. There is something sickly laudable about lying like a freaking sidewalk about things emotional. Emotions and passions are shameful things to be hidden in the back of dusty closets along with the gay members of one's family. I realized, with a start, that I surround myself with honest people...sometimes brutally so...and I never made the connection why until I contemplated his thoughts on family dishonesty. Without even understanding why, I knew I needed something different.

So, I am going to Spain...I leave in three days. Spain. The place my eyes call home. Some people say it is a past life for me...or maybe even a case of cellular memory. I don't know what it is, but I know I need to go.

Ya see...I have a thing for Spanish stuff. I even lived with Spanish-speaking girls for a while. I love the language...I think it is the sexiest language alive. I love the primal emotion of the music. I love the passion of people who speak that language. I love that life is about dancing, wine, art, sunsets, food, making love, yelling if you want to, crying if you want to...and passionate honesty. Life is to be experienced, not watched from the sidelines and I have unhappily warmed a chair in that location for too long. I want to give up my seat...it has a great view. Any takers? I should warn you, you can feel like you are suffocating sometimes. Like you are Dorothy living the black and white version of her Iowa farm life and the dust from the tornadoes is weighing heavily in your lungs.

I choose to live my life in technicolor. Funny how the thought actually terrifies me, but I am damn well going to give it my best shot. So, if you happen to be in Spain and you see an odd Canadian woman of Uptight Heritage sporting a bottle of vino blanco dancing to Shakira across the meseta, chances are pretty good it's me. The hell if my British blood is going to strangle my Spanish blood. Fuck you Queen Vickie. I am going to see the world through Spanish eyes. Mine.