A Book is Born.

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by my grandparents; the language they spoke when alone in the kitchen or on the phone to their friends enthralled me.  When I was younger I thought they were speaking Chinese- my young mind associated anything exotic and foreign with China. In actuality they were speaking Slovene a language spoken by a mere 2.5 million people worldwide and that number is shrinking rapidly. It is a language that belongs to a strong and proud people who live in somewhat obscurity surrounded by the European big guns; Italy, Austria, Hungary and Germany. 
*Take a look at the map to the right to see what I mean!

Going to my grandparents was always an adventure. They live in Toronto on the Lakeshore in an old split house they bought for $15,000 in 1956 and is now worth the better half of a million dollars. Our visits were jam-packed with fun and food; rollerblading along the Toronto Lakeshore, feeding the ducks at High Park, skating on the frozen Grenadier Pond. We were always fed far beyond capacity, our stomachs bursting from the schnitzel, smashed potatoes (smashed-not mashed), salad made from the lettuce my grandparents grow in their backyard vegetable garden and of course the most delicious apple strudel you will ever taste outside of Eastern Europe.  

The table setting was always elegant and formal -the conversation was loose and comfortable. We all had our favourite stories about my dad and uncles and all the hell they raised as 3 boys growing up in a poor, immigrant family in 1950’s and 60’s Toronto. In among the tales of boys getting into fights, playing pond hockey, breaking bones and running away there were the stories of my Grandparents' past. Their stories were filled with humour and lightheartedness that left us grandkids laughing at the thought of our grandpa eating the peel of the first banana he ever ate at age 23. As young children we never understood that the world of their past was so ugly and evil.

Theirs was a world of refugee camps, mass killings, murderous Communists, starvation and the constant cloud of death above them- the realities of all Europeans during World War II. And yet still, their stories would have everyone laughing, never knowing they were happening in such a dark blotch of world history. How were they able to find humour, friendship and love in such desperate, inhumane circumstances? Why were they not dark and angry over the cruel injustices that consumed the best years of their lives and abruptly ended the lives of far too many of their friends, family and countrymen? 

These questions and a seemingly endless supply of others entered my thoughts in my pre-teens and just never left. Instead the questions nestled comfortably in my mind, knowing they were going to be there for the long haul, knowing that a part of me would always have a need to know more, to answer those questions. Knowing that eventually the small voice of curiosity would get louder and louder until I could no longer ignore it and I would eventually have to face it head on. 

So that is my book-the book that I have been writing in my head since I was 14 years old, the book that sits patiently in my thoughts waiting its turn to be addressed. The book that I am making my first real, wholehearted attempt to get onto paper and this is the story of the book that is to be. 

My Grandma with her 3 sons a.k.a the Village People