Tag: legacy

A Break In Boredom

Monday Afternoon. 8AM.

It’s not that I find Geography boring as a subject. It’s just — early morning and an obnoxious teacher was never a great combo.

When we step into the heavily decorated classroom, we’re all practically zombies. And to think this is extra credit. We chose to come and get bored for two hours in a row. Oh, we were interested the first few days. Actually tried paying attention. And then, as we started to understand that we would barely ever hear anything from Mr. WhatsHisName but the tall tales of his own exploits, our attention drifted, faster than logs of wood on omiscan rapids.

At first, we focused on the relics in their glass cases, against the further wall of the classroom. We had had the full tour on day one — probably to lure us into thinking this was going to be a subject we wouldn’t want to drop. Old dolls taken from tombs; vases and rare gems, and traditional woven baskets.

That’s all well and good, but from our seats, there was only so much we could see. So we focused on the plastic branch hanging from the ceiling. The various diplomas, awards, and certifications Mr. WhatsHisName had hung around the classroom to flatter his own ego.

I understand him in a way. He still wore clothes for the jungle, but he didn’t look like he had seen an adventure in my whole lifetime.

I guess I would also spend my days talking about greater times for me.

This one day, though, Hugo apparently decides he’s had enough. And suddenly the boring, boring morning class turns into not-so-muffled laughter. Fun, and shared jokes, and anecdotes. Hugo coming to the rescue of my comatose brain, and ensuring my day started great. I mean, it was still a Monday. But far from the worst Monday I’ve known.

I guess that was one time we were glad Mr. WhatsHisName was so self-absorbed.

A small class of very bored volunteers. Hugo, Charlotte, Charlotte’s jock neighbor and I lost first rank lottery that morning.

Watched over by an indifferent sugar skull, My and Hugo’s eyes are closed and our minds far, far from the tall tales of the oblivious middle-aged man in front of us.s

I gotta give Hugo credit for coming up with a joke in a creative wasteland.

And a good one at that.

Hugo: making my days better since primary school.

An Afternoon of Gaming

The Rascals and I, on one afternoon we decided to stay in — probably because Hugo and I convinced the others. Video games didn’t get everyone quite as excited as it did the two of us.

Being divided in teams meant not everybody could win at once. Rare depiction in this pic of Romain and I wiping the floor with Hugo.

It’s possible that Hugo didn’t spend 100% of his teenage years sober.

Very much possible.

Out of all of our activities, gaming was probably the one Shanna was the least interested in. It showed.

Typical teenagers, the lot of us. Marie, sneaking a selfie before she transitioned fully to her later punk style. Photos of her in a T-shirt became a rarity. This selfie ought to be in a museum.

Charlotte and I were the best of friends. We absolutely were.

Though I did not realize it yet, many things were already brewing in this tight-knit group of friends I thought we were.

Blooming Personality

Older, and wiser, and with dreams bigger than ever.

My first great act as a teenager was to re-do my bedroom entirely. It hadn’t changed a smidgen since my own Mom had been a kid. The pink was adorable, and I had loved it as a kid, but now it was time for my style to take over. We exposed the bare stone, got hold of a much bigger bookcase, upgraded my bed and my desk, and to top it off, bought me a brand new computer. 

One of the many perks of having the world’s most renown painter as your grandmother is that the funds to customize your bedroom for your Sweet 16 are practically unlimited. And I was Grandma’s darling princess.

My relationship with Grandma only got better as we both grew older. She approved of my new style, which didn’t surprise me. If my head was in electronic circuits and programming languages, my clothes sported the unmistakable touch of a boho, laid-back upbringing. They still do.

Just like Grandma before me, I also chose sports as one of my hobbies, though never to the extremes she had reached. She told me that when she was my age, she was much curvier, more so even than Mom. One day, a new gymnasium had opened in Oasis Springs, and she had found a passion in sports, setting the all-time record on their climbing wall. Then as old age won her body over, she took to yoga.

I just went jogging fairly regularly.

And I wrote, too. Not novels like Great-Grandma Ariana, or newspaper articles like a good number of my ancestors, but in my diary. There, I confided all my hopes, dreams and ambitions. I drew diagrams, schematics, and I wrote about the young boys that spun my head around…

My new and improved room, where I remember eating many, many fruit yoghurts for some reason.

Jogging became a part of my daily routine. It helped me clear my head, and as trapped as leaving enclosed by water could make me feel, the Brindleton Bay Wharf indeniably had some enjoyable sights.

Also helping me clear my head, my dear diary. I liked to write on the poolside patio.

Or I would write in our hall, with the weak, flickering light of our old lamp.

Even though the hall often meant little to no privacy.

Top notch toddler

image

I was a playful child. Some will say, I was the young, tiny tyrant of the household, but I was a tyrant who ruled with cuteness, smiles, and sass. Always following my grandmother around, always up to mischief.

I didn’t go to kindergarten, or have any friends my age. Naomi taught me everything herself, and the Brindleton Bay Park was my second home. I wouldn’t trade any of that for the world.

It takes a village to raise a child, they say, and I had a village. I had a town and the town’s pets. The little princess of the Bay. I ate the best food, played with the best toys (the ball pit was my favorite), learned everything my cohort of guardians were willing to teach me. And I learned happily.

And my top-notch upbringing meant top-notch grades once I entered school. My teachers loved me. What I loved the most was science. Needless to say, everyone expected me to be the next artist of the family. Oh, the dioramas we made together. They were many, and of great quality. But I always went back to my robots and water rockets.

There is so much to learn, and discover, and see out there. A family legend has it that a great-great aunt of ours meddled with aliens. No one can tell now, but some even say that the green-skinned family in town is related to ours in some way.

I should probably warn you now. When your family is around for as long as ours, there are many things people will say about it. Many mysteries. Many secrets.

image

Grandma played along with my silly games.

image

Probably my favorite birthday picture.

image

School projects as a family. Mom and Mam couldn’t help flirting with each other when they thought I wasn’t looking.

Love all around

image

At this point, you’ve probably understood that I grew up in a very loving, nurturing environment. My biological grandfather was long dead when I came into this world, but Patrick, grandma’s boyfriend then husband, more than stepped up to the task.

Mom and Ma, who had only gotten together after passionate, incessant courtship from Mom, were the very face of romanticism. Their wedding was held in the most romantic place of all, on the Magnolia Promenade. They adopted my sister, and then had to wait years to have me, the biological baby. Miranda and I were cherished and adored, by moms who wanted nothing but the very best for us.

And then of course, there were all the old pictures of Grandma and bio-Grandad, lining the walls, smiling down at all of us.

I grew up surrounded by romance, and soulmates, and undying loves. Is it really any wonder that I was going to look for the same thing? I may have taken a few wrong turns on the way, but I got there in the end.

I just hope I don’t lose it.

image

The day Mom proposed. Well, the second time, anyway. Mom is a tenacious person. She says her speech the second time was better. Mam… gives no comment.

image

Being tucked in every night by a loving grandmother is a guaranteed recipe for feeling safe.

image

Mam, and Mom, and Mom’s dog Rosie, who hated everybody but my mothers. How Mam could be covered in paint even on camping trips is beyond my understanding.

image

Just Maman and Me

Miranda

image

I could never adhere fully to the artsy, vegetarian, boho lifestyle. I deeply respect my grandma and my mothers, but a hippie’s life’s not for me.

I often think it started with my sister. When I was born, Miranda was already well on her way to adulthood, and I think she also knew that there was more out there than the Brindleton Bay wharf. 

Like our moms and grandma, Miranda was all about the arts. But where Mom had preferred the paintbrush, and found in Mam someone with the same paint-splattered drive, Miranda liked what pleased her ears. For her 16th birthday, Grandma had given her the most stylish guitar a teenager could wish for. I was only a toddler, but I remember drooling over it.

Much like I years later, Miranda wasn’t entirely satisfied with her peaceful little town, and at the young age of twenty, she fled the countryside and invested an old warehouse in the San Myshuno bay. She started a flourishing DJ career, living by night, blasting the Spice Market with the loud bass of her speakers, and as I learned much later, fluttering from good-looking man to good-looking man.

Miranda was my idol.

image

Miranda, enchanting people with music anywhere, anytime, since before I was born. Camping trips were no exception.

image

I was not invited to her 21st birthday at the restaurant, but they said it was a blast. Judging by the food, I believe them.

image

Miranda took reading me bedtime stories very seriously.

The incipit

image

I’m Azalea Stewarts, and I come from a long line of lovable weirdos.

No, I am not the woman above. That beautiful old lady is my grandmother, Naomi, the most amazing person I know. When my great-grandparents passed, she single-handedly raised her four younger siblings, along with her own son. 

She offered them the most amazing childhood, away from the tumult of San Myshuno, denying herself the right to marry the love of her life so that she could give them her undivided attention.

My mother was her youngest child. Unlike her brother and sisters, she was born after Grandma had reunited with Grandad. She had a perfect childhood, surrounded by love, two adorable dogs, and paintbrushes.

See, Grandma is also the best artist of her time. The best artist of the century! Every canvas her brushes touch is a masterpiece, every keyboard her fingers brush sings some new, incredible melody. Grandma raised us all, all three generations of us, to recognize the beauty that lies in art, in nature, in ourselves.

She also raised us to be vegetarians, and groomed us to take her place, when she dies, as the owners of the Windenburg Herbology Shop. You should see the garden she has in the back of the house. She and Mom spent their days there when I left.

Yes, I left.

The perfect life is a great life, but this was not the life for me.


image

When Grandma got older, her herbology shop became her hobby and her passion.

image

That, and yoga.