Writing about Writing off...

Having ranted a post or so ago about my alienation from my family, i might have to say a few thingsd in defense of some of them. I'm normally one for being friendly to people you actually like, rather than pretending to like people you think it good, or advantagous, to be friends with. ONe thing about family, it forces you to have dealings wsith those you might not ordinarily have any interest in, those who, if they were not related to you, you would dismiss into the broad categories we use to avoid the inconvenience of dealing with people as individuals- like "trailer trash" for example. But i'm talking about my mother's side of the family here. Specifically my aunt and uncle, who are currently staying with my mother. My aunt is big, loud, and talks a million miles a minute in a stuttering rural accent ( despite living in calgary for probably 30 years!) She drives an old pick-up with a camper on it, her bearded husband drives a really old ( but not classic) harley( nobody said they were poor...)But they dress in zellers finest, and generally give the impression of being people that myself and a good many people i know would regard with , at best, morbid amusement , but really, would religate to a vaguely sub-human category of human charicatures, far-side cartoons, to refer to only as examples of the decay, the frayed edges, of north american civilization-to make fun of. In other words, they are not, in any common sense of the term, pretty.
But they do feel, and dream, and hope, and, wonder of wonders, think. I must be the first to admit i find my aunt's non-stop stammering really, REALLY, annoying, and can't be around her very long at all. But none of it, i am discovering, is meaningless, certainly not more meaningless than much of what i blather about . And it is not insincere.
They were talking to me about trying to find her husband's ( an adoptee) birth family, about travelling Alberta to find a quiet place to retire and live a simpler life- real things, and things i could identify with- and they know me so little, but they willingly share this with me. My aunt, in explaining why they ruled out retiring in her hometown, frankly and honestly discussed the "trailer trash" stigma- a subject my "PC" ness wouldn't have touched, or would have cloaked in vaguer language. She talked about what it was like to have grown up poor and scorned in a small town- how the stigma continued into adulthood- how everyone knew many of her brothers and sisters,and their children, were often drunk, divorced, broke, in trouble and always ripe for head-shaking, tut-tutt-ing gossip.She wasn't whining, she didn't attack the "small town mentality" or call people snobs, just honestly related the effect of a family's reputation- and i saw the genuine pain she felt- i recognized the pain of being misunderstood, of being judged and written off by people who never bothered to actually get to know her- being dismissed by assumption and association- and i felt a twinge of guilt for my own thinly veiled elitism, but i also identified. Aparently, there are those who have me categorized as a "loser", and while i frankly can't really blame them for their interpretation of my life based on visible circumstances, i'm afraid my attitude to them is not as charitable as my aunt's is to the small town prigs who have obviously haunted her life.
My own pride gets up at being dismissed ( or at being categorized at all- even when placed in arguably positive divisions) that people who do not personally know me ( and perhaps some who do) would DARE make evaluations of my worth. But i know i do it myself all the time.
IN my own case i know that respect is earned, i can't demand it,that i'm not living my life to impress the critics, and that they haven't had to BE me, so who gives a rip what they think? I'm trying, i'm certainly not proud of some things, but there are others i AM proud of that don't fall under some people's definitions of "accomplishments"
Back to my aunt- little about her life is "pretty" but she survived a bad marriage and finally, past middle age, found a good man. She worked a lowly job steadily and honestly for many years, and i've never heard her complain about it. She stubbornly resisted people's expectations of her failure, resisted the influence of her screwed-up family, and remains, in a realization i am struck with, a profoundly good-hearted person, who wants little more than peace and quiet, a simple life, and a little understanding.
But from the outside, in the things that are obvious- a big, loud redneck who talks continously in scrambled sentences that give the impression of some sort of mental disorder.