Well, Bonnie's birthday has been well celebrated yet anther year and, as usual after spending time with her childhood friends Bonnie and Barb, she has come away with a lot to think about. In fact, she has even more to reflect upon than usual because the weekend before Barb had a going away party for her two sons at her place in Prince Edward County (the place where she, Bonnie and Barb all hail from). This means she has had lots and lots of "County feelings, thoughts and insights" to sort through and cherish over the last 7 days.
What she was most struck by at Barb's party - where she was surrounded by more County Folk than usual - was how deep ran her feelings of belonging. At one point, late in the evening when her head started to spin from over-indulging, she quietly slid out of her lawn chair and curled up on the good ground beneath her where she felt completely righted once again and totally at peace.
As a child she often used to go outside and curl up in the long grass in the field beside her house on the West Lake Road. Sometimes she did this to make the chaotic world inside her parents' house stop spinning and sometimes she did it just because she was drawn to. Either way, the land she and generations of her family before her have grown up on has always been good to her, and for her.
From here ...
She began to become aware of how far and wide she has journeyed over the last 40 years without truly realizing, until this last year, exactly where she was headed. This realization has been eye-opening to her because she both knows and feels that this phase of her life has been successfully completed and she is now, finally, well and truly home.
From here ...
She began to understand something about herself she wasn't able to before. She could never understand why she always felt disinclined to commit to any of the many different tribes of people she has encountered along her life's path. It didn't matter if she felt compatible with them in many ways (outlook, interests, etc.) she never felt like she wanted to permanently join them; to become one of them. She came to believe she was simply a loner.
But now ...
When she is with other people who grew up in Prince Edward County she doesn't even have to think about joining or belonging. She simply does, through and through. She does have a world. She always did have a world but she turned her back on it - for good reasons at the time - when she was 16 and she didn't even begin to look back until she turned 40. And, then, it still took another 16 years of night time dreaming and of processing her early feelings before she could fully return to her true home with a smile on her face and love in her heart and comfortably resume her rightful place at the kitchen table with those whom she is one of.
Further to this ...
After spending two days with just Bonnie and Barb (and Bonnie's obliging and helpful husband, Jon) relaxing on Bonnie's back deck to celebrate her birthday she understands it isn't simply the fact they grew up together as children in Prince Edward County that makes them part of the same tribe. They are part of the same tribe because people, like the 3 of them, who sprang from the pioneers who settled this once isolated, island-like region share a similar basic makeup. It is still hard for her to pin-point the exact attributes they all have in common (stubbornness, pride, grittiness, determination and a straight-forward brand of honesty are a few of them) but she feels their rock-bottom similarity nonetheless.
It's funny ...
After she wrote a series of articles (from March 2009 to January 2010) about the changes in Prince Edward County, and its population, over the last 20, or so, years she reached the conclusion she is, and always will be, a "County Child". After the last two weekends she has also come to fully understand she is a "County Woman" as well.
And (wonder of wonders) ...
That's a good thing.
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