Angelika Preston:
CLASS OF 1972
David & Mary Thomson Collegiate Institute Class of 1972
Scarborough, ON
Humber College of Applied Arts & Technology Class of 1975
Toronto, ON
Donwood Park Junior High SchoolClass of 1968
Scarborough, ON
Angelika's Story
Life
IÂve been aware of Classmates for some time. It popped up on my screen one day while living in New York City during a breather between career moves. It didnÂt grab me at the time mostly because my memories of high school are vague at best. IÂm not sure I was ever consciously aware of those days in the sense of being in the moment. From day one I was already envisioning graduation. This was a step along the way to a destination until I figured out that there was no destination, just the way. Stringing together the moments along that way is life. High school too had its moments. It helps to think on them in the context of the times. Some of you may remember my sister Regina who graduated before me. While we crossed over a while I witnessed a swan song. The exiting in crowd seemed baffled by the dwindling school spirit. The dawn of counter culture had arrived and I embraced it with the self righteousness of the young and naïve, a quality not very endearing which lasted for the duration and well into college. I felt like the anti Christ of popularity.
IÂve never been good with names but a face to me is unforgettable. It was the precursor to portrait painting. When I switched over to Arts and Science in grade 10 I made a connection to a love affair that has lasted throughout my life. (No, not that one) It was my discovery of my love for creative work. Any kind it turns out. Identifying with artsy characteristics I was drawn to people who had a decided anti-social, slightly dark, definitely socialist and a passive aggressive nature. We butted heads in class because we were the experts in the room. It was quite an education aside from the curriculum.
I remember being allowed to wear pants one day a week, a failed attempt to walk out to protest school rules and gym suits designed to dampen the lust of any unsuspecting male genderÂs uncontrollable urge to throw down the virtuous in a hallway and have a go at her. I remember Mr. BrownÂs history classes. He had a passion for his subject that I found engaging. Being out of sync with the popular belief he was boring seemed to come naturally. As someone wrote in my yearbook:  good luck to a very different girl. He must have been psychic.
The radical appealed to me that by todayÂs standards was pretty tame I might add. As I recall there were a lot of pigeon holes filled with people who were counter to the expected norm. There was a well-defined script for girls and outside of that was nothingness or worse the counter scriptÂ
. a brand no one wanted to wear. I have wondered sometimes how many identified with their labels and have worn them ever since. I hope not. The judgment of a teenager isnÂt reliable.
I remember high school most by subject. Classes I loved and those I could do without. I remember the experimental was in vogue. We suddenly had choices in our curriculum. That made life a little easier. I dropped French and Math in a heart beat and filled them with classes I could do my homework in or sleep through depending. To this day I am mathematically challenged and working in Paris was a nightmare.
Looking back at that time I think of it as a formative life experience. Friends that I call friends to this day, not so friendly people that I remember because some of their perceptions were painfully true but most of all the experience as a whole. Not ever again would I have the freedom of time passing slowly or know the answer to everything.
Moving along to School (ran out of space here)
School
College passed pretty much the same as High School. I was on a mission to get what I needed and move on. I was married then and that left out the infamous college life but I donÂt really think being single would have changed much. My ambition had taken over and I had time for only one thing: My perception of the real world. I have no idea what my vision was but it was not 20/20 just self-absorbing.
Once I graduated and entered the work world as an interior designer any notion I had that my lifeÂs passion of creative expression had arrived, vanished. My first job at an architectural firm was specifying floor and wall finishes for hospitals. Hours were spent debating the characteristics of floor tile for bathrooms. My boss drove a pink Cadillac and had the disposition of a badger. The crowning touches were bogus meetings at 5:00 PM. and sexist remarks that would make me a wealthy woman today. I died my hair blond, had a nearly fatal car accident, and not willing to tempt fate again decided any final days would not be spent warding off the badger and specifying bathroom floor tile, I left. I was still ambitious.
Moving right along I found myself entering the retail design world. More fun but for whatever reason something was missing. What that was seemed more evasive than the nagging doubts I had that maybe I had made the wrong choice. Single now and living downtown on my own for the first time in my life left me with time to ponder my options. Not too much time because I soon found myself almost comatose from chemotherapy treatment and had more pressing things to contemplate like life. Post breast cancer treatment I was desperately at a loss. Sitting at the end of Pier 4 one day with a friend we bandied about ideas. Go to San Francisco she said. It is booming with design firms and youÂll love it. I did and moved within eight weeks.
At this point San Francisco was in transition. Silicon valley was still a concept. My first Mac was the SE with a screen the size of a powder compact. I was enthralled. Faxes were my next dream come true. In between adapting to technological leaps and bounds I spent my time in the air or my nose pressed to a drawing board. This was more like it. It was thrilling to design the Concorde seats and cabin architecture was infinitely more challenging than figuring out a better way to sell bananas. I had entered the world of aviation. This was fun.
There was so much work and so much to learn I lived out of a suitcase. I truly understand the saying if its Tuesday it must be Belgium. Immersed in cultures like Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo and Jakarta I co...Expand for more
uld barely keep up with the real meaning of the word different. The California culture alone was a challenge. Meaningful conversations centered on the fad of the week left me speechless. Why on earth would lettuce not be good for you?
Home came in the form of New York City. Unexpectedly Gotham captured my heart. I am a liberal right coast person in the end. New York was like a long lost comfortable pair of shoes. An abject necessity since walking is the means to daily life. That and work. I lived downtown near Union Square and worked in midtown. At first the subway was not an option. Giuliani had not yet arrived. Cabs were cheap and on lucky days you got a clean one. On rainy days you were lucky to get one at all.
Moving on to College...needed more space
College
New York and London have a special relationship. Some day theyÂll build a bridge. Most of my time was spent there as a base to European client work. We had offices everywhere. This is where the French lessons would have come in handy but it still left Spain, Holland and Portugal to deal with but Switzerland, Austria and Germany were a breeze to navigate. Fortunately the aviation language is English. My colleagues all had several languages that made life easier for me. Shy by nature, small talk in English was paralyzing which made foreign languages an immediate impossibility. I thrived in meetings. Outspoken, experienced and direct I was still the expert in the room. The difference was that I was supposed to be. Outside of the boardroom during endless social dinners I was a shrinking violet with an edge.
Back to the Pacific Rim I fell in love with Sydney and cherished Melbourne. Australia is a magnificent country and working there over a number of years was a life altering experience. The people alone have a passion for life that is refreshing. I was the least opinionated in the room at all times. Warmth, tolerance and espree de coer entered my life in a very big way like all things down under. Hats, opals and oil slickers worked their way into my oh so New York black on black fashion sense.
From there New Zealand was a stones throw away, as different from Australia as Canada is to the US. I covered what remained of Asia and moved on to South Africa. Barely post apartheid, Mandela had just taken the chair and we were about to launch a new South African Airways. Talk about inspiration. I didnÂt know where to turn first with the cultural richness this country has. After our escorted tour through Soweto my appreciation for freedom and human rights sharpened. Read the book Born in Soweto to get a good insight to what I mean.
Years had gone by and my passion for the industry had not faded but I was bone tired. Unfocused and a little lost I took some time off and just lived day by day in New York. I explored and did some heavy lifting in the psyche department. Dumping excess baggage that was not wanted.
In the wilderness up near Killarney the question came to me what was all that for. It was precipitated by a fact that I was half buried under a dead tree, alone in the middle of the night listening to wolves hunt because I was lost. In a moment of witless abandon I went off roading in an SUV and sunk bumper deep in a swamp. The second witless decision was to try to walk out. A hunter found me and I lived to tell but it was definitely another life altering experience. Back in New York I began to process PTS. Diving into any and all creative ventures I could think of kept me from becoming unhinged. I learned to build websites, sculpted, painted, learned to do beadwork, make moccasins, and clothing not meant for the everyday. My trauma was mixed in with grief over the death of my father.
Moving onto workplace...needed more space
Workplace
One perfect September morning Regina called me and asked me if I had seen it. No I said, I just heard an explosion and sirens blaring so I asked her what she had seen. My cable had gone dead. Out on my terrace for a closer look I see the silver flash of an aircraft disappear into the South Tower. Within half an hour my already imbalanced world had spun out of control amid a dark cloud of pulverized concrete. An hour later I was walking uptown to a friends because of the evacuation. New York is not ever associated with quiet. This was a calm and silence that is indescribable. All we could do was let the tears fall and keep the fear at bay. I understood that permanence is a figment of my imagination. From there life really changed.
I donÂt know who lives in that wonderful apartment overlooking ground zero with views of the East River and bridges but it isnÂt me. I live in a house on a couple of acres where deer pass through at dawn and dusk with the occasional bear stopping by for a look. A couple of years of getting my hands dirty, painting portraits and blessed peace brought me back to a new sense of life. I began to work again in the industry that I love and just finished a total transformation project with Air Canada. Because of technology I can do it from the middle of the woods. Thank you blue tooth.
Not really needing another life altering experience, I found myself once again facing an old enemy. The treatment was aggressive and mind numbing. In a state of near emptiness images and words flowed. I wrote and photographed the journey that is a book I just published: My Experience of Truth. Regina helped throughout the process particularly with her TT treatments. My friends and family were a lifeline.
Now I am back from the edge and working again doing what I love to do. I create. My greatest project it turns out is my life. There is still no destination. Nothing has changed since High School in that regard but the string of moments is much longer and connecting the dots is much easier. Who knew we didnÂt have to know everything because as it turns out, there is so very little to know.
And by the way. Those artsy, slightly dark, anti social, passive aggressive types find no attraction in my neck of the woods. The sun is too bright and the day dawns too early. My energy field has changed polarity but that is another story.
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