By Dorothy Nixon

Suspended in time and space:

This really happened. A girl, plunk in the middle of puberty, fighting with her grandmother probably isn't that unusual a deal. (I was the apple of my father's eye and clearly resented my grandmother, who expected to be the center of attention.)But for me it proved a defining moment. Not only did it alienate me entirely from my grandmother (that night she took back a ring with turquoise beads she had given me earlier and made that statement about 'losing face')but it changed my life. For in November, she convinced my father to move out of the city to the suburbs of Montreal. There I made new friends who I continue to be friends with until this day. I met my husband through them, etc.etc.

The great irony of this: my grandmother lived most of her life in one of the first multicultural communities, but she convinced my father that our multicultural street was not a place to raise a family.

In my new high school, (for I went straight from elementary to high school, quite traumatic) I was placed in a homeroom where EVERYONE'S name began with Mc or Mac.

I still have dreams about my first day at high school, where I can't find the proper classroom, or I can't remember the combination of the lock on my locker, etc.

Starting high school is traumatic enough for every kid (suddenly you are on your own, responsible for getting to class on time, etc and surrounded by GROWN UP students all of 16 and 17 years old!)

Later in the play my grandmother describes an incident at Changi, where she wrestles with a fellow inmate.