Archive for the ‘immigrant’ tag
The Sins of the Father
This is a photo of my father-in-law as a young man of twenty-six as he prepared to leave his homeland in the Ukraine for a new life in Canada. In the process, he changed his name from that he was given to a name less likely to be traced, that of a man who was unlikely to ever leave his home village in the old country.
This is the name of the story I am busy writing. It is based on the life of a real man, my father-in-law. If you click on the link above, you will be able to read the first fifteen pages of his story – well the background story to his story. His story begins before his birth as do all of our stories. Our stories as men begin with the fathers of our fathers. Our stories as women begin with the stories of the mothers of our mothers. In a way, I guess you could say that the sins of our grandparents are visited upon us.
Not that I am his son, but my son is his grandson. I wonder if the sins of the maternal grandfather get visited upon their grandsons. Somehow, I think they do in a curious way, through the daughter to the son.
Once I have finished this book, I will dare to begin writing the story of my father, his father and myself. This will be a gift to my son as well as my daughters and to my grandchildren. Perhaps the work of making the shadows less dark will lighten the load for them.
On the Pull to Write
This is a detail of Krasne Church, a Ukrainian Catholic church found in rural Saskatchewan. I took this photo earlier this month while visiting my brother-in-law, Mike. The reason I am posting it is because I am now in the process of re-writing a book I wrote thirty-two years ago, a book about Mike’s father who immigrated to Canada in the 1920s from the Ukraine. This is the church in which Mike’s father was married less than a year after arriving in Canada. The first version was all text telling the story until departure for Canada. This second version will be mostly text with some photos, retelling the story but adding in the additional part of the story that talks about his life in Canada. It will be a biography as well as social history as told to me over a period of eight years. I will be adding to that information with my observations, my way of understanding the world and including some of the voices of his descendents.
It looks as though the Muse is not letting go of me too easily. For whatever reason, the pull to write is remaining strong. The third in the Through a Jungian Lens series, the second SoFoBoMo book, will appear in print by the end of July at the latest. It is in the final process of editing.
Other writing projects that are pushing their way forward are a book of poetry; an mythological approach to telling the story of my grandfather, father and myself; a series of photo essays on China, India and Mexico; and other ventures yet to be uncovered to continue the series, Through a Jungian Lens.
