Sunday 2 April 2023

5 Day 100 Word Stories Challenge

Day 1: The Pink Hat (Origin Story) 

 The pink hat was unimportant. Maybe I lost it again the very next day. What mattered is that he jumped into that freezing mucky river to rescue it. Seven-year-old me stared aghast, unable to believe that an adult would sacrifice so much to assuage the tears of a child. There was trepidation, what if he drowned? The hat is not so special to me. He resurfaces, wringing neon in his heroic hands. “There, good as new,” he smiles. I don’t speak. My cousin, who later dies in a skydiving accident. If only the air had been a raging river instead. 

 Day 2: Sounds Like Limon (Emergent) 

 He looked back over his shoulder, blew me un besito, then walked away. He named me Limonada. A good man. I hurt him, and he didn’t even know it yet. Guilt and shame. Anxiety still gripped me, a flat tire on the way to the airport. Even with so much privilege, he could still change a tire. Income distribution. We learned that, in Guatemala, the richest ten percent control more than fifty percent of the national wealth. He is in that ten percent. The impossibility of a future together is a powerful love potion. I never saw him again. 

 Day 3: Sparkle Bear (Body) 

 Mind racing. Anxious and angry; why? Lonely. And you are already in bed. And yet, you have never rejected me… I crawl in, dig myself beneath you. Feel your weight, your warmth, your softness stilling my chaotic mind. Rhythmic breaths and city sounds soothe by paradox. Clean hair, I don’t love the too-sweet scent of that new coconut shampoo, but I do love you. It’s dark. I thought I was angry with you for being absent (asleep), but my skin was only longing to press against the specific sparkle of yours, to be gently crushed by the peace of you. 

 Day 4: GIRLS (Heart) 

 Standing outside, the old brick building looms over her. Above the door it says, “GIRLS.” She is here to pick up her youngest child. The door clicks, and she pulls it open. Sounds synonymous with little humans fill the air: laughing, crying, yelling, playing. She peeks through the glass before going into the room. Her daughter is sitting happily at the table, it’s snack time. As she turns the knob, her little girl’s eyes dart to the small window. “Mommy!” Love encompassed in one word. The angel with curls and deep eyes runs. This reunion never gets old. 

 Day 5: Manta Ray (Awe) 

 I am struggling to maintain buoyancy. The dive instructor rescued me from popping to the surface. I now hold his arm. We move silently, ten metres beneath the surface. Myriad of fish and colourful choral delight me eyes. I feel joyful. The dive instructor is making the signal for me to look up towards the surface. I bend my neck back and an enormous, graceful shadow floats over us, blocking out the water-refracted light streaming down. A manta ray! Time freezes, I stop breathing, and my eyes are transfixed. I am in love. I am in awe. I am free.

Sunday 5 June 2022

The Unk and the Ants Unite: A decolonial tale of death


 The Unk and the Ants Unite 


Women wash clothes--scrubbing each inch of colourful fabric between their powerful knuckles, hands becoming 3-inch square washboards—we peel onions, braid each other’s hair and visit. Our slippery Caucasian hair requires elastics to keep the rows of braids in place. The scent of salt air and frankincense fills me with a strange sense of home, and longing for home. Brilliant textiles dry on clotheslines, children play with old tires, and rejoice each time that we return, singing: “Toubaby, noumana, toubaby noumana:” the white skins are back. 

 All the while, the West African sun beats down. As I lean against the cement wall while sitting on the mosaic tiles, I find the heat almost bearable. A gentle breeze blows through the centrally located courtyard, though most days sweat gushes from my pores. My little sister and I have been in Sénégal for almost two weeks and have gone from drinking five litres to three litres of bottled water each day. Still, I hardly ever pee. 

 I notice a gecko, called unk in Wolof, on the wall opposite me. An invasive species that has made it all the way to the Americas, likely crossing on the same ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic. The unk is scurrying about catching flies and other insects, one moment deathly still, the next in rapid assault. The reptile’s keen eye catches a glimpse of something trundling through the sand, and in a flash it attacks. For a moment I think the gecko has decided that the bug is too large and has simply flipped it over. Feeling sorry for the overturned creature and having assigned myself the role of rescuer, I slowly walk the short but scalding stretch of sand to right it. 

 Only now do I realize that the odd bug, some kind of centipede perhaps, has been injured. One quick nip and the unk has removed some vital part of the creature’s form, some body part that kept it upright. Why did the gecko leave this many legged-bug to suffer? Why didn’t it gobble it up instead of wasting its life source? Often, when faced with suffering creatures, I become the merciful killer and crush them; this time, being a visitor to this world, I leave the bug to die as it may, on its back, legs flailing beneath the intense heat of the mid-afternoon sun. It’s not my responsibility to fix this trauma, is it? But if not me, then who will? 

 I return to my seat against the wall as a young girl named Amicole runs past yelling, “Bonjour toubab! Comment ça va?” The children love us, pull our arm hair, and cuddle up in our laps. I ask Amicole: “Pourquoi tu nous aimes?” Why do you like us? “Parce qu’on est Toubab?” “Because we’re white skins?” 

But not all the children feel this love and curiousity. Just yesterday, one young child screamed in horror when she saw our white skin and became inconsolable. On our first day little Mamlibasse studied us closely, then looked to the shared television as if trying to figure out how we had walked out of the Spanish tele-novelas that were so popular there. 

I begin to wonder if my volunteering as a teacher here is helping or is it futile, perhaps even harmful. Am I here for selfish reasons? All I have really accomplished here is translating the hokey-pokey into French, and even that caused harm. As our class performed the song, I accidentally smacked a young girl in the face with an over-exaggerated sweep of my arm. “Main gauche en avant…” the innocent instruction of left and right brings pain. 

 My pondering is interrupted as Madame Awa approaches. “Salamalekum,” she greets me. 

“Malekumsalam,” I reply. 

 Are we at peace? 

I think we might be, in these moments, while the heat of the equatorial sun melts any negative energies from our bodies, muscles relaxing and dripping with sweat. I glance back across the sand to discover that the doomed centipede is anything but at peace, its helpless body completely enveloped by an army of ants. As they continue to consume the live flesh of the flailing bug, I notice that the school children are returning. 

I take a gulp of water and prepare myself for the onslaught of play.

Tuesday 8 March 2022

In-Circle me with Wombs

Grandmothers, sisters, aunties, friends. I long for you on this day when the blood runs red and deep, my soul and body craving sleep, rest and the embrace of kind feminine faces all around me. We weren’t meant to be so isolated from each other. I am grateful for the love of man, my brothers, partner and lover. But today, I long for the depth of the feminine womb space, warm and welcoming, the embrace of earth magick, dark and damp and so powerful. I am lonely for my sisters. I am lonely for the goddesses and for the wisdom that has been silenced. For simple ritual and ceremony, for seeing and being seen. Hearing and being heard, each word landing on the soft all-encompassing flesh that heals by its very essence. Let the blood run red and wild down your legs seeping into our Earth mother, nourishing her with our long remembered womb-wisdom. The kingdom of childhood has been gone for so long, but what has replaced it? I have been robbed, but I will reclaim this space Where grandmothers and mothers, Maidens and Crohns, all sharing the throne that Kali, Brigid, and Sky Woman gifted us. I am sweet…sometimes, but not very often, the strength that I carry can soften the deepest pain. I am a warrior. I am a storyteller. I am a mother. I am a healer. I am your lover, too. But right now, I need the reflection, the reverence, the honouring and pleasurance, of my vulva, lips and folds that hold the forces of creation. Swollen and cleansing, I shed what is no longer needed in cycles that circle with grandmother moon. Too soon I am expected to reenter the room filled by man. I crave: Safe. Dark. Quiet. In reflection, held in sacred sister space. Such grace. Happy International Women's Day to everyone <3 I can offer so much more to the All if I am gifted the freedom of honouring my body, harmonizing with my cycles, and being the all so varying wild woman that I am.

Wednesday 16 February 2022

The (love) songs we sing - part 3

     Of course, this is my 111th blog post. Numbers, always with the numbers. And this is part three of my  lunaversary, anniversary, valentine's day trilogy tribute.

    Today is my and my Beloved's 39th lunaversary. What is a lunaversary, you are wondering? Our love was consummated as the five days in February came near their end. We were in a Kamloops motel after driving through a snowstorm with all-season tires on the Coquihalla. It was February 19th of 2019, we could drive no further, and a young woman delivered our pizza. I had never thought about the fact that perhaps every other pizza that had ever been delivered to me was delivered by a man, until the contrast of opposites stood smiling at me through the motel door. But I digress. We haven't even had our first kiss yet and here I am jumping ahead. To make a short idea long and complex, we celebrate each full moon, sometimes with a kiss, a mention, a foot rub. Earlier on, more often, with flowers, gifts (rainbow themed ones), cakes... 39 moons of loving.

I wrote this poem for my love today. Unedited, with baby at my feet, in about ten minutes (it could use some work):

For you, on our Lunaversary

Thirty-nine moons
full swoon
Time goes by so soon
Ethereal eyes of the deep-dive loon
And I am still, 
                loving you

I wonder if we have a tune
Celebrating the love and the ruin
Time-torn patterns mangled and strewn
Butterflies, both of us, emerge from the cocoon
And I am flying,
                     loving you

When we rise at dawn but wake at noon
songs of love from the speaker croon
Hearts bleed red, burgundy, and maroon / I know you will never leave me adrift, marooned
And if they lie our bodies 'neath icebergs or sand dunes
I will be sleeping,
                      loving you


    My love has a rhyming dictionary. I didn't grab it for the writing of the poem, but maybe I should have? I ran out of -oon words! Spoon! Of course. June, as in June's Lunch. 

    Come see JustBee and her amazing hand-crafted jewelry on February 26th in Highland's on 112ave in the old spooky fun La Bohème (which now houses Fox Burger and June's Lunch-it is worth coming just to go to the bathroom, so eerie down there). I will be doing a reading of poetry just for fun!


    If you wish for more exciting details about my first date to the ocean three years ago and the intense, apocalyptic love that has me growing, learning, and co-creating and nurturing new life...well, you will have to buy my collection of short stories, once I write it!


    

Tuesday 15 February 2022

The (love) songs we sing - part 2

    Before we get to the part where we go on our first date all the way to the pacific ocean, which was sort of our third date, let me tell you about our first date, an afternoon coffee...

    It was freeeeeeeezing. February something, I can't remember for sure. I had decided that I should be friends with a man, someone that felt safe and that could restore my faith in the notion that men are safe to be around. I remember the texts, I remember rolling around on the floor of my third story subsidized apartment after writing: "Well, I guess you could see me sooner if you asked me to go for coffee or something." I didn't know then of his oppositional tendencies. He never did ask, he asked what days would work for that and then I followed up with the actual: "How about..." was it a Wednesday? 

    We went to a place near the river, just in case we wanted to incorporate a nice walk, but, the freezing. I arrived first, ever the punctual rooster, and he appeared not too much later carrying a water bottle filled with NGW. I thought it odd when he refilled his tea with water from it (how could cool water re-steep a tea bag?). Now I agree that it is much safer to drink steam distilled water. But the more remarkable thing about the bottle was that it said "Nathan" on it. It was purple. I had not long before prayed to Creator holding the Eagle feather that had belonged to my brother-in-law's brother. I prayed hard, crying, praying for my Beloved to be sent to me. The feather of Migizi had belonged to Nathan. 

    I felt shivers when I saw the name. Of course, I didn't tell him. I don't think it is advisable to reveal that our love is fated to be on the first coffee. He spoke though, telling that he saw an Eagle on the drive over, flying just over the graveyard on 107ave while Bob Marley asked him: "Could you be loved?" over and over through his car speakers. Eagles. Nathan. I needed very obvious signs from the universe to break free from fear. 

    I feel it has taken at least three years of sometimes struggle, having me hum while the words "nobody said it would be easy" while I hear him bursting with "I still want the hard life!" to reach the point of really knowing, deep in my bones, that: "Love will lift us up where we belong, where the Eagles cry."




Monday 14 February 2022

The (love) songs we sing - part 1

    

"Could you be loved?"

    Three years ago today I texted a simple "Happy Valentine's Day" to my beloved one, but we hadn't done more than touch shoulders while watching a film at this point. I suppose he fell in love with me when I slid into second base 7 years before our first coffee meeting, but I didn't know that for a long time. My first reaction upon meeting him and playing on his ball team for the weekend was one of curiosity: "Why the strange moustache and mismatched sock pulled up so high?" And still, something about the way he walked drew my Spirit near; I now recognize it is the powerful connection he maintains with Spirit as he walks that first had my outer cells orbiting towards him, unbeknownst to my psyche at the time.

    I was in my office at the U of A when I texted the Hallmarkian capitalist greeting. He responded with some facts about St. Valentine, maybe it was something about relics and where Mr. Valentine's skull is held, I can't quite recall. After the shoulder touching incident I awoke craving him next to me. "For fuck's sake!" I chastised myself, for my intention had been to have a male friend. Nothing in my conscious thinking mind wanted a relationship, not after the hell I had been through, a hell from which I narrowly escaped. But escape I did! And I was practicing sinking deep into my body to listen to the wisdom there. So safe to stay in the body, such truth to be accessed. 

    The next day, on February 15th, 2019, I dropped my little T-man off at daycare. I had somehow managed to have 5 days of childlessness in a row ahead of me, and with no work after 3pm. I sat in the Kia a moment behind the old McCauley school. "Body?" I breathed deeply, wiggling toes and squeezing butt cheeks together to bring my traumatized self back inside of me. "Body, if we could go anywhere, where would we go?" The dissociation of body from self was still rather obvious. The answer came quickly. "The ocean, of course." Is that possible, I wondered? I guess so. "And with whom?" Why with Timothy, of course. Oh no...no, no. 

    The impulsivity. Body is texting. Stop it fingers! What are you doing?...click. Send. "Do you want to go to the ocean with me?" I wrote it. I sent it. And then I began to buzz with a mania that is almost unparalleled in my experience. Now the waiting...except I barely waited at all. Almost instantly he replied: "I can be ready by 4pm." Oh no oh no oh no, what have I done? I am terrified of loving and being loved, more than ever I am scared of this. And yet, my body, the universe, life, the ancestors, the beloved dead...they are all guiding and blessing this union, orchestrating this moment...


Tuesday 11 May 2021

"What is in a name?" Miinan Emma Star

Each of us is called something. Many times we identify more with a nickname, a second name or even a mononym (like Madonna). 

As a parent to three beautiful children, I must say that listening for their names to come was one of the greatest honours of my life. I heard Xavier's name whisper to me while my bare-feet were walking through the deep dark topsoil of our family garden when I was 13 years old. It took me holding Terran in my arms, feeling his earthy weight, to hear his name come. And now a sweet, special girl has also come through me to dance and to play, to love and to pray upon this beautiful Earth.

My partner is Anishnaabe. He said, quite early on, that our baby would have an Anishnaabe name. I felt that this statement was true. Yes, she will. I do not speak the language of my partner's people, but I do hope to learn as much as is meant for me to learn. So, once in awhile, I would do some looking. There are online dictionaries and sources. Eventually I stumbled on The Ojibwe People's Dictionary, an excellent resource that includes the voices of Elders speaking words, as well as full sentences. We also consulted with Elders from my partner's community in Ontario to be sure of pronunciation and so as not to rely on an internet source. 

My Grandma Mina was such a special person in my life. When people ask me who my hero is, I tell them that my Grandma is my hero. She was still alive when Xavier was born. We went to see her in the hospital pretty much every day. She would hold him and say, "And now you wonder what you ever did without him." She died about 3 months after he was born, 3 days before my birthday. 

After she passed away, I knew that I wanted to honour her if I ever had a baby girl. I was thinking second name maybe, who knows. So, as baby came closer and closer, I wondered if I searched up her name, maybe just maybe there would be an Anishanaabe word associated. Then I found Miinan. Miinan means blueberries. I got shivers all over my body. My grandmother LOVED picking blueberries. I mean, she literally was willing to stay in the forest with a mama bear and her cubs to keep on picking. Her and her sister would get stuck in ditches and drive great lengths just to find a good patch. I dare say that her favourite thing to do in the whole wide world was probably picking blueberries. 

When baby girl twirled out into this world, she just has the most beautiful perfect little face. She is SO beautiful and cute. Maybe the first evening home, my Beloved said, "She kind of looks like my Coco." I asked, "What was her name?" He told me it was Emma. I said, "I love that name. It is such a sweet name." So we had her second name. Our two Grandmothers honoured together but with Miinan having her own special name too. I only recently remembered that my great-grandmother was also called Emma. The Matriarchs. The Grandmothers! Bringing Peace, Harmony, Love and Wisdom <3

And, of course, Star. Maybe we are all Star children, that is what my partner believes based on stories from his culture. But I know that Miinan is a brilliant Star baby. She has been waiting so patiently to come, talking to me and guiding me for years now. And now she is here!! 

Her last name is a balance of masculine and feminine lineages. A hyphenated way forward that I hope we can all achieve, the yin and the yang. The Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine dancing Heart to Heart, side by side, in a world where we choose to base our actions always on Love rather than fear.