tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20770522685768043452024-03-12T17:06:52.169-06:00The Capital I"If we don't actively build the kind of world we want, we're going to get the kind of world that somebody else wants." - Buffy Sainte-MarieUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger310125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-73020190331163051092021-12-09T12:09:00.013-06:002021-12-09T13:14:42.021-06:00<p> I have thought to myself, you should put up a blog for your children to read about that time in history about [those endless years with] that virus. It's as simple as it is complex. Yes, there have been inconveniences: I can't get my vaccine passport QR code to work, for one. Something about how it was entered in the system, is it L or Lynn, a comma after the last name? We tried it all and the lady at the insurance place wouldn't, for the love of God, open up her computer and compare it to my card despite my quiet-yet-assertive method of asking in three different ways. Would a compound-complex sentence help, or is simple always best? So I just have that flimsy little card that you get with the sticker: "I stuck it to COVID!" Like a punch ticket to get a free blizzard. So far it's worked fine. </p><p>What else? Well, I have been sitting at home for a week practicing my fire-starting skills while my workplace passive-aggressively asks if I can find any other childcare options. No, I do not wish to pay a sitter to sit with my sick son while I am already paying for his daycare spot. No, my husband who does not get compensated for taking days at home with sick kids does not wish for this temporary unemployment. Subs are few and far between these days, something about <i>fear in uncertain times</i>. Maybe something to do with having to be vaccinated or show proof of a negative Covid test to come to work. Cue guilt for burdening one's fellow employees to cover one's classes in a time where words like <i>mental health </i>and <i>stress</i> are buzzwords on PD days. Benjamin has a cold and must be 48-hours symptom free prior to returning to daycare, per the regulations. In case you didn't know, the average cold lasts ten days, so you can imagine how often that is actually enforced. Not all professions are as accommodating as mine, passive aggressive or not. Did I shove a q-tip on a diet up his nasal passage until I felt slight resistance and turn it in a full circle for 3-5 seconds (definitely 3) while holding his arms down with my legs to make sure his sister isn't a close contact in order to make a friend feel comfortable having her in her house and taking her to her dance class tonight because Benjamin isn't allowed in such institutions while ill? Maybe. I mean, I didn't mind the science experiment either, the thrill of waiting to see if it's a single or a double line. He only cried a bit. </p><p>In the beginning of things, the grocery shelves were cleared out. It was a bit eerie, but more annoying. It was the start of looking at one's neighbours and family members and thinking, <i>why?</i> My mother-in-law has turned into a food-and-dried-goods hoarder, canning carrots, potatoes, soups, instead of spending time with her grandchildren. <i>Daniel, can you build some more shelving? </i>At the start the kids virtually never went to Grandma's because she works in healthcare (or she's canning), so <i>it</i> could either come or go, but even with the vaccine, the habits have been made. Mom and Dad used to come to every birthday, but then one time they were sick, or maybe it was to try to keep our circle of germs smaller, being they're from a larger metropolis, and then this past birthday they forgot to send the present on time in the mail. It doesn't really matter, does it? </p><p>I mean, it's everything and it's nothing. We stopped going to church. I have been fighting with acne on my face from the Norwex masks, because I was trying to be environmental, but it's just itchy and nasty, so I caved and bought a box of those trendy black disposable ones from Pharmasave, because the ones supplied at school hurt the back of my ears. I have to be a mask-police at work, on top of the sit-in-your-desk and ask-permission-to-use-the-washroom and put-your-cellphone-on-my-desk and no-you-can't-leave-two-minutes-before-the-bell police, but at least I don't have to be a social-distance-enforcer, like last year. Our emergency services have been reduced, gone, reduced. <i>Maybe don't climb that latter, kids. </i></p><p>In all honesty, I can't really distinguish the negativities that exist between starting full-time work in the fall of 2020 and Covid, because they're connected like a sexual disease, unwelcome warts in tender places-- never seeing family; stress and anxiety; avoiding friends and conversations; busy and tired; running spiritually on E (not making time for reading, yoga, nature, stillness). </p><p>Of course I'm anxious. I haven't wanted to talk about it because it's all that's talked about. <i>Are you getting your kids vaccinated? Have you heard that the world powers have conspired to be a totalitarian government and that you're all a bunch of Nazi Germany sheep? Is the vaccine passport and lack of citizen rights turning us into a communist country? If only those anti-vaxers would have just gotten vaccinated, like every other vaccination out there, maybe we could get rid of the masks with lower rates. I can't even talk to so-and-so anymore. Did you know that *spews a bunch of rancid diseases* will be common in children due to the vaccine? If you don't want to get Covid, stay home! If you don't want to get vaccinated, stay home! </i>And, one of the worst: <i>variant, variant, variant. </i>I find myself seeking escape in books and TV shows: hibernating, pretending, waiting. </p><p>A long time ago I made this sketch of a tattoo with a clock and "THE TIME IS NOW" scrawled where the 1-12 should be. It's been on my mind. Open up, strengthen a few muscles, get rid of the hunch, pet the dog, laugh. Shutting down is easy, human. Pull the blanket in on yourself and cave, gravity at work. But some of the wisest lessons come from young minds. You can view a snotty nose as a curse or a snack. Eating it doesn't make it not snot, but ignoring it only causes its slow descent and hating it doesn't get rid of it. If you don't water the plant it'll die, tick, tick, tick. </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-81993806997673264262021-01-30T11:19:00.006-06:002021-01-30T15:51:28.179-06:00<p>Dreams have a way of waking us. We re-plugged in our 11-year-old iMac, in our once-kids-room-now-office-space, only ever temporarily resurrected for back-ups, that photo or password. It has been cause of long-dead synapses to flow within my mind, the same electrical energy powering the unit. </p><p>We had to take Benjamin to the dentist because he has cavities due to neglectful brushing. The anecdote I like to say is that I brushed my teeth a whole of ten times in my childhood and didn't have one cavity, so it comes from Daniel's side of the family. Blinking screen: laughter. Back to the city of my twenties, the boring familiarity, endless loops of discontent. People as dead as the screen used to be, emotionless memories, pixilated into living beings I touch and play with in my dreams. </p><p>It's like how you think you'd be so different in high school now. The things that might be different if you are the person you are now, then. </p><p>Yeah, right. </p><p>But I've spent most of my life in a dream anyway: what might be, what should be, what isn't, what I will be, what I haven't been. Sprouting life from the deadfall, moss and mushrooms, un-raked grass. Parts of us die--move on. </p><p>Candlesticks un-melted; gentle snow, resting in the curvature of the trees, forever thawing and melting, changing state. The plant looks like it's dying and yet it's flowering, vibrant purple against the white of the snow, as violent as blood itself, reaching always<i> out</i>, from one windowsill to the next. Turn the plant or it will grow lopsided. We'll always cherish what's old and lost, what wasn't or maybe was, but you weren't sure, because you never really touched it. Whatever might have been, dreams can will: the reverie violet pressed against glass.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZAgnShUp8RVNWLCQNa8y93ipKzQwHl9CbeOF5ISsWtePJN6_h5hdbX5MEI0eNDCj71Kcl6seOm1M0FbjtYHGNsA_GxyBtaONqDZ_zzYMbxYLrR3piW10GrtZ-pHaNHUYnjJ0KQAhTEhl/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrZAgnShUp8RVNWLCQNa8y93ipKzQwHl9CbeOF5ISsWtePJN6_h5hdbX5MEI0eNDCj71Kcl6seOm1M0FbjtYHGNsA_GxyBtaONqDZ_zzYMbxYLrR3piW10GrtZ-pHaNHUYnjJ0KQAhTEhl/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-30978103795366500742020-02-01T14:04:00.000-06:002020-02-01T14:04:11.894-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
Sleep Routines</div>
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</div>
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Beneath the white flannel I face</div>
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you facing red light, reflecting </div>
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on the ceiling like water, triangle dips and swirls. Legs that once</div>
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stretched to meet my thigh, now splayed </div>
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outgrowing the cocoon, my body </div>
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your cradle. Holding that red dragon </div>
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watch it fly in chubby hands, cheek surrenders</div>
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against forehead, arm </div>
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now around my neck and <i>pat pat pat</i> with fingers only</div>
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feigning sleep with a sssssss-exhale. <i>Pretend until it happens</i>. Eyelashes </div>
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bow and rise, surviving </div>
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the wake, <span style="font-size: 1em;">toes press until the cozy nestle melts </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">intentions of defiance, swallowing </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">now those blurring red tones with black, red, black, still</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">and I know it's almost time for my escape </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">those hues and softness beg my stay </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;">his perfect form, elongated baby.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-57167755157476685342019-05-18T14:09:00.002-06:002019-05-18T14:09:45.819-06:00<br />
<br />
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Gravity</div>
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<br />
</div>
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She sat, on a comfortable couch, papers
</div>
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stacked in neat piles, clipped and
bull-dogged, sticky</div>
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notes listing incompletes. She had
</div>
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to get up, adjust her bones and fight</div>
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gravity, pressing her
</div>
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down
</div>
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down</div>
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down
</div>
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into the couch, into the flooring, into
the joists on
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stacks of concrete</div>
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on gravel</div>
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on sand</div>
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and whatever else, right to that core.
She just knew</div>
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if she didn't move, her pelvis</div>
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and all the rest of it
</div>
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would split
</div>
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through fatty tissue, veins and skin</div>
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all those layers
</div>
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bursting a skeletal display</div>
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of density versus Newton force</div>
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for her daughter</div>
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watching a show she refers to as <i>Rydan
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">(a mispronunciation)</span></div>
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to see.
</div>
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; }</style>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-41229037479203435332018-11-20T22:18:00.001-06:002018-11-21T13:51:04.609-06:00<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">The Cabin</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">That long drive that took us </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">to all those spruce trees</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">so skinny</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">so tall</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">just an hour from </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">home </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">that</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">moss-drenched world, ground </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">might give way </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">but I couldn’t explore much then. Excitement was </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">quad paths with Grandpa, </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">engine revving high </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">we thought we were going so fast. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">We</span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">’d squeal </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">as the Suburban chugged </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">past the boats, that marina or moor closed down now </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">till we arrived </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">at that impossible </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">roof slanting </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">nothing but aesthetic charm, wood </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">among the woods, </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">cement path leading </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">past </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">fire pit Grandpa built</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the treehouse my oldest siblings hogged, fizzy candies </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">dissolving </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">in our mouths. The game </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">was to hop </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">those round blocks </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">all the way </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">to the dock. It was always </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">too cold </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">to swim, dark-green water, slime on the rocks, all the good </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">fish gone but I know Grandma loved to sit there because </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">they framed that picture so large. Inside, </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">shiny helmets </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">and so many coats</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the toilet you had to flush with your foot</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the pike fish petrified</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">Simon Says under the couch. </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">We’d pet </span><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the black bear </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">as we went up the stairs, peer </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">into its mouth. <i>Put your hand in. </i>We didn't know</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">the tongue wasn't real. My sisters</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">got to sleep on bunk beds in the room</span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">with the dolls I didn’t like, staring </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">at the diamond-shaped bits of mattress </span></span></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">sinking through the wires, feet pushing </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: ".sfuitext"; font-size: small;">up. I don’t remember where I slept. </span></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-56370753774722201682018-09-20T21:20:00.001-06:002018-09-20T21:20:20.940-06:00A metaphor given in one of my university classes under the label of "social justice" has remained with me. I've spoken of it before. It was on privilege, stating that those with privilege are people who have their pockets filled. In order to restore the balance between the privileged and those who are not, those who are privileged need to empty their pockets.<br />
<br />
I'm rather ashamed to admit that I am baffled by the fact that <i>privilege</i>, namely <i>white privilege</i> is a concept that has long been acknowledged, and yet it's still widely disregarded and ignored. When it has come up in topic, most white folks that I know roll their eyes and act annoyed, or simply haven't heard of it. <i>It's just those First Nations people complaining again. When will an apology ever be enough. Sure, let's throw more money on it. That happened a long time ago. Those people are just lazy. I've worked hard for what I've earned; it wasn't from any ancestors of mine. Privilege? Are you kidding me? </i><br />
<br />
I am reading a book called <i>On Truth</i>, a collection of lengthy quotations by George Orwell in his various works under the theme of "truth." The subject of human beings' ability to brush truth to the side on certain occasions (primary examples being privilege and treatment of other human beings) is thick. That white privilege is <i>fact</i> doesn't matter if people discredit it. If we refuse to empty our pockets, nothing will ever change.<br />
<br />
An example of wilful ignorance is seen in Orwell's review of Upton Sinclair's <i>World End</i>, who wrote about deplorable conditions in American slaughterhouses for the people working there. His aim was to draw attention to the foreigners working in these conditions, but all people were concerned about was that it was an unclean workplace for the meat entering their stomachs. The treatment of the human beings or why certain humans were working there while others were not was not deemed valuable enough information by the public to do anything about it. For whatever reason, it was accepted as the way things are. Systemic, if you will. Inequality is the norm; it has always existed and always will continue to exist.<br />
<br />
Orwell points out that England as a nation was built on the
backs of foreigners, "half-starved Asiatic coolies" (Orwell 71) as he puts it. This is well known, as well known as it is about North America. To possess this information there needs to be two opinions (that Orwell argues could have been expressed in the press, but were not): the first opinion would side with Hitler in that we are the
superior race and so we should "live by exploiting inferior races" (72),
but that wasn't said, and isn't said today, even though our exploiting other nations in order to maintain our level of comforts, all the while knowing others do not have the same comforts, expresses this ideology in action. On the other end, <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The other possible policy was
to say something like this: We cannot go on exploiting the world forever, we must do justice to the Indians, the Chinese and all the rest of
them, and since our standard of living is artificially high and the
process of adjustment is bound to be painful and difficult, we must be
ready to lower that standard of living for the time being. Also, since
powerful influences will be at work to prevent the underdog from getting
his rights, we must arm ourselves against the coming international civil war, instead of simply agitating for higher wages and shorter
hours (72-73).</blockquote>
But are we willing to lower our standard of living for the sake of equality? To empty our pockets to balance the scales? Obviously not. We hold onto the possessions and rights we have as tightly as a toddler demanding <i>mine </i>of a possession a parent has given. We teach children to share to make friends and be socially acceptable creatures, all the while denying others the same rights we hold by refusing to acknowledge privilege itself, let alone making any effort to give any of it up. The fact is that truth does not guarantee change. We hear truth and fact and may choose to ignore it. Privilege gives that option. Meanwhile, our pockets remain full with clean water and sound housing, good schooling and credibility in courtrooms and what not, accepted as the way things are, truth be damned. <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-68662998959436511622018-09-19T12:41:00.000-06:002018-09-19T12:41:14.281-06:00You knew where he'd been by his toothpicks. He always let his hair grow too long, hiding behind that beard. <i>"</i>That private man<i>," </i>she said. "Won't even tell his own wife his thoughts about God. Never asks for help from nobody." He worked late that day, concerned about debt and time. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-68082560174826643912018-08-24T20:58:00.004-06:002018-08-26T14:21:53.525-06:00My polka-dotted pajama princess lies on her daddy, on the new couch on the new floor in front of the new fireplace, Peppa Pig playing above the new mantle. The monitor is a third presence in the room. It's a newfound joy to leave the bed on which my almost-one-year-old son sleeps and join the rest of the family. We sprawl, wearing the short-short pajamas, talking the same topics we've always talked, at ease of it being repeated at coffee row. We no longer share a home with our in-laws, residing in the home we planned for ourselves, built by the steady hands of devotion and madness. We're in. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-56619518211589306812017-10-23T15:39:00.001-06:002017-10-24T13:26:18.650-06:00Today I changed my son's diaper, accidentally smearing fecal matter onto the new diaper conveniently placed underneath the dirty diaper (a trick I learned last time). So I, feeling the weight of the waste, put both diapers in the trash. The wipe I'd placed overtop of his little wiener got adjusted in the process, so a spray miraculous in both distance and volume cascaded into the air, onto my newborn's face, and all over our blanket (but that's already covered in spitup, other pee, breast milk and blood, so at this point, who even cares about that). I wipe his face, hoping none got in his mouth, and replace the diaper, to have him defecate as soon as I had it placed--and no well-meaning mother could really just continue on at that point without nightmares of rash-bums and infant cries. The fourth diaper remains in place. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-73395167454633672302017-09-05T15:41:00.000-06:002017-10-23T15:44:44.073-06:00Eden, the napless little monster that she is (I adore her), threw a red-faced-screaming-tears-rolling-down-cheeks fit because she wanted to go to the doctor, with Bear, in the car, by themselves, and I wouldn't open up the door to let them go. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-74538182241661186602017-08-24T15:11:00.000-06:002017-08-24T15:12:35.332-06:00My Daughter's Hair is Always in her Face <br />
<br />
The strands of hair around her face are not<br />
kept but collective forward-<br />
falling agents tasked to rebel against whatever pig<br />
or pony that nasty coloured<br />
straight-jacket conformist weapon is <i>just let me merge with the long </i><br />
<i>dark lashes they all comment upon</i><br />
"beautiful beautiful beautiful" while this mass of whisp tangled<br />
neither brown nor yellow endures comb<br />
brush cloth endless fingers "get out<br />
of the eyes away<br />
from the face and curl or fluff or stay" <i> </i><br />
<br />
<br />
and all the while the lashes admired but untouched pretend<br />
to side with the humans but blush<br />
with every interference Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-43976676151213611892017-07-02T14:37:00.000-06:002017-07-02T17:39:44.033-06:00We moved. Not to our permanent, life-long, forever home, but to a transitory space with some of our things in the town that we'll call "our town" up until the time our bodies are lowered down into the dirt to rest. So far, I've learned that "we don't go" to the one grocery store (out of two) in town because Auntie Betty was fired from there for no reason 15-20 years ago. My mom laughed; said that I'd better conjure up a disguise so I can go in there for whatever product I happen to want from there that isn't at the Co-Op without being discovered. Aside from getting violently ill for a night and a day with another day for recovery, I've been happy. Sure, the mom who invited me to meet at the pool showed up 45 minutes late just as we were leaving, but she apologized; I spent the entire time going up and down the water-slide anyway (not exactly visit-able) and I haven't had anyone suggest a play-date with me in Regina for probably a year--so I'll take it. I could do without the ticks, but Deep Woods OFF seems to work, so it's just a simple toss-up between<i> cancer-causing agent </i>and <i>lyme disease. </i>There's a cougar in the area, but no one seems to be too concerned about it. A tiny library exists just across the street from my mother-in-law's, the kind with the two steps down into the children's area and about five shelves of adult books available, but who cares about that when you can just order whatever book you want from any library in Saskatchewan anyway? I'm watching my driving. <i>THUE</i> is plastered on my back licence plate, a known and established name in these parts. Can't go making my reputation as the crazy passer, speeder, or one who doesn't stop at the four-ways. I almost chose the wrong MD, so I corrected that before the appointment. The sign that says "turn right" by the hospital is old, so you don't actually need to go the long way around; it's legal to turn left there. Co-Op's open till 6pm. Auntie Ruth works at the second-hand place on Wednesdays. Should sign up for swim lessons in mid-July. Cousin Melissa will be at the pool after 4pm most days with her son, Owen; that's Auntie Chris's daughter. I haven't been able to figure out what that one bird is by its call. Sounds owl-ish (Eden calls it an owl), but I think maybe it's some kind of dove.<br />
<br />
It's bizarre I'll be here for the rest of my life, near this small town, kids at these schools, seeing those Moms for the next 18 years. I drove down the highway back from the farm and didn't meet one soul. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-35269055167428488612017-06-20T16:10:00.003-06:002017-06-20T16:10:55.065-06:00"The only thing you can depend on is yourself," he said to me after I had vented about how squeamish and flaky people are, threatening to sever all ties as we move physically and non-physically into phase two of our lives, and delete my Facebook account so that people who don't <i>actually</i> give a care about who I am can't spy on me and feel as though they've done something good that day, and neither can I to them.<br />
<br />
So this thing happened where I tried to arrange a reunion among my college schoolmates, many of whom I hadn't seen or communicated with for ten years. I started by communicating with some of the people I had been close to during my time there, asking if they thought it was a good idea. They did. So I started a Facebook group page and added a bunch of people, and got interest there, too. So I did thing like put polls on to figure out the date and location of the event. People voted, things were decided. June came along, very close to the date, and the last-minute details needed to be arranged, but no one was willing to spend their time for input, so the venue wound up being a little less desirable (it was joined to a larger event for convenience, and because it was free, but we had hopes of getting a private room to ourselves, which didn't happen.)<br />
<br />
As you can guess, very few showed. I left feeling happy to have caught up with the four that showed, but feeling sorry for making those that did come take time out of their day for such a disappointing event, and resentful at those who had taken the time to give interest and vote on time and location and then not bother to show or let others know they were not coming.<br />
<br />
It spurred me to take things to the next level in a thought-process that has long been running, and delete my Facebook account. Not a huge, life-altering moment, I agree; I simply decided that the Facebook style of feeling like you're all caught up in everybody's lives by scrolling down a screen, intermittent with ads and useless <i>who likes what business or game</i> information, privy to private information in people's lives of which I have no relationship whatsoever, no matter how well I used to know them -- including family, by the way-- was not for me.<br />
<br />
I mean, I'm easily a 2/10 when it comes to "social capability and prowess." I do not thrive. I have always had very few close friends (ie. 1-2), and any attempt, such as this blasted reunion, I have made at re-connecting or establishing any kind of connection with any kind of group in the past 2-4 years, has not been met with reciprocation or really much of anything. People are too busy. People live in places where they are surrounded by their families, where they feel supported by their church, where they are busy during the work-time hours and want to veg it out in their spare time with their immediate family. But most critically, people live in a social media world where they don't feel the need to catch up in the <i>physical</i> world, and who are content to flake out on whomever they like whenever they like because the relationship isn't there; their relationship is with Facebook, not people. I'm not saying I don't get it; I'm a flake, sure. I get nervous talking on the phone. I avoid rather than confront. But I'm moving on, or at least that's the general idea of what I intend to do by deleting my account. I mean, I'm barely in contact two out of three of my siblings. I'm sure part of it is age, this stage of life, our generation, maybe, but it's unforgivable to me, to live in such a world where I receive updates on the whereabouts and wellbeing of my family on a public site. And it's on <i>me</i>, by allowing personal relationships to be replaced by a screen.<br />
<br />
So that's it. I'm done. Bye, bye, Facebook. Thank you for allowing me to communicate with my now-spouse when we were too shy to talk in person and I didn't own a cellphone or understand how T9 worked. You are handy for arranging group meets even when nobody shows, and for people trying to sell items, neither of which I'm particularly interested in. C'est la vie. <span class="_Tgc"></span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-2454435322689641902017-01-24T14:10:00.000-06:002017-01-24T14:12:20.596-06:00Donald Trump's inauguration has happened, and social media has exploded with the angry liberal against the angry conservative, both coming up with offensive slogans for the other. Trump supporters claim they united and got on board under Obama, wondering why on earth the mad liberals won't do the same. Liberals can't understand how anyone could be a Trump supporter given what he has said, his character, and so forth. One side says, "Give the guy a chance," the other side says, "He's had his chance. We've listened carefully to what he says and we reject it." It's funny if you can stop being horrified for a few seconds. I mean, come on, <i>alternative facts</i>? I'm not sure if anyone can legitimize <i>that</i>, no matter whose side your own, although I'm sure there's a way. The pussy-grabbing statement had a decent rebuttal from some well-put-together video stating facts about how crass Americans are in terms of who watches pornography and likes cheap entertainment and dirty lyrics, so why should Trump be any different. <br />
<br />
It's opening up grounds to argue just about anything. Feminism. White privilege. Racism. Morality. <br />
<br />
Can you be a feminist and be pro-life? Can you be a Christian and support Donald Trump? Can you be a Christian and a liberal? Can you support Trump and value equality? Should the term feminism exist? Do dirt-poor whites still deserve the label "white privileged"? Should Trump be held morally accountable? <br />
<br />
What I argue is at the very core of every debate is the question of <i>truth</i>-- and truth and morality are wed. Morality is changing; it's subjective; it's dependent on a source of authority (or Authority) and that source of authority is changing. We live in a world of information, where one (professional, educated, credible) person can make a valid position for why abortion is right and another for why it is wrong, or a (professional, educated, credible) person can make a debate for why Trump's promise to wipe ISIS off the face of the earth is a <i>good</i> claim and another that it is <i>evil</i>. It gets personal fast because it's an attack on how a person perceives <i>goodness</i>, <i>righteousness, morality</i>. Isn't that what makes us human? So we resort to child-like name-calling, just like the political campaigns themselves, until it gets violent, and even then that violence is either labelled <i>just</i> (punching Richard Spencer, for example), or <i>unjust</i> (damaging and ruining property in protest). <br />
<br />
Does truth exist? Credible, educated individuals argue opposite perspectives on any topic you can dream of. Is it just that one side is corrupt, spouting lies as truth? Does <i>doublethink</i> really exist? Is the world really going to melt or isn't it? Is abortion right or wrong? <i>Give us simple answers</i>, we beg. <br />
<br />
I do believe in truth, and I do believe in morality, but I also believe in complexity. In all of this, I advocate a devotion to seeking, asking, and knocking, a devotion to complexity, to revision. But in reality, my heart starts pounding and my hands start shaking and I start sweating when I dive in, and I just say <i>idiot, idiot, idiot.</i><br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-12277333528806485582017-01-20T13:59:00.004-06:002017-01-20T14:10:15.586-06:00We just keep throwing the boomerang.<br />
<br />
My neighbour won't get her big pile of tree-branches off her lawn, which also drapes a few feet on to my own lawn. It's been about two months since her water line broke and the city came to fix it and had to saw off a decent chunk of one of her trees. It bothers me, and it bothers me that it bothers me. It's just a pile of sticks. It's winter; everything is dead under the snow anyway. It's not killing my already almost-dead potentilla bush that's under all that somewhere. But still, I have to beat back passive-aggressive rage at least once a day when I look at it. <br />
<br />
They don't keep a very clean yard. As a person who's planning on selling her home a few months down the line, it <i>does </i>effect the external aura of my home that buyers will sniff out, for sure. This is where my brain goes: People don't want to stare at a few broken-down vehicles next door for months on end. People don't want to stare at a pile of dead branches for months on end. But listen to me. I just said "people" when I should have said "people like <i>me</i>--white people, middle-class people, people who don't have better things to do than to think about a state of tidiness in the neighbour's yard and how that state of untidiness overlaps onto my property line."<br />
<br />
Other people don't care about that stuff--my neighbours for one. I heard a radio program state that middle-class (white) folks see their yards as reflecting themselves. It's so petty, so see-through-obvious that it's just a consumer lie to keep us busy on things that have <i>no value whatsoever. </i>A scruffy-looking home doesn't at all reflect on whether or not someone is a <i>good person</i>, but that's what I've been taught to believe, and that's the vomit I have to swallow back down when I realize I am just living out some stupid fantasy some idiots dreamed up insisting that people who are valuable are people that are:<br />
<br />
- on time<br />
- tidy<br />
- extroverted <br />
- hygenic<br />
- only have body hair in certain areas<br />
- have certain facial features<br />
- attain a certain body-shape<br />
- wear trendy apparel<br />
- dress their children and house and car and cellphone in trendy apparel<br />
<br />
Do I really have to tell myself that it doesn't matter if my lawn is a universal shade of green? That an empty shelf doesn't have to be filled with knick-knacks? That I am harming a human being when I do not consider the ethics of where my food comes from? That my self-confidence cannot stem from my outfit or body weight?<br />
<br />
There's this nifty bible passage where Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees of the day for being self-righteous teachers who viewed the Law as a list of dos and don'ts for getting into heaven, while they were terrible human beings. We humans are drawn to simplicity: cause and effect, black and white. Do this, and get that. <br />
<br />
If you have a tidy house you are a ____ person.<br />
If you have a large house, you are a ______ person.<br />
If your children's faces are always dirty, you are a ______ person.<br />
<br />
The world is not black and white. It's complex. We know this, but we ignore it. At the end of Jesus' sermon, he says when you hear his words (as in, from the Christian perspective, the <i>truth</i>) you need to put them into practice. Comprehension without action is meaningless. I think this is true of any time we become aware of a truth. Oh, people suffer on account of my having coffee every morning. <i>Switch to fair trade</i>. Oh, it's not good for my body to eat so much artificial sugar. <i>Reduce and eliminate. </i>Oh, when I buy a new outfit every few weeks, I'm just getting sucked into consumer culture. <i>Stop. </i>Oh, when I buy X from Y, the people who produce X are suffering. <i>Stop supporting those companies.</i><br />
<br />
Of course it's hard. But if we don't beat to death these lies preached to us from both visible and invisible parts of our culture, lies about entitlement and comfort and security and self-worth and the nothing-is-too-much crap -- if we are complacent, if we are aware that we are harming another human and yet feel no desire to stop that act, we are ceasing to be human. When I know that I am just another wolf in some kind of deer-feeding frenzy, I have to stop. The world does not have my best interests at heart. If we do not question the irrational way we think, such as feeling passive-aggressive or questioning the "goodness" of a neighbour for simply leaving a pile of dead tree on her lawn, we're the cogs. We know the truth but don't act, because we're lazy, because we like the simple formulas that give us purpose and meaning, things that keep us busy and comfortable. We are losing grip on humanity. We are objects traded and used for wealth, and we are <i>actively participating</i> in it, complying, we are saying <i>yes, use me! Use them! Please! </i><br />
<br />
We just keep throwing the boomerang.<br />
<i> </i><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-18458226404735338162016-12-06T14:24:00.001-06:002016-12-06T14:42:50.337-06:00She selected photographs of herself that made her look the most thin. She had to squint at herself in the mirror, blur the edges, to find beauty in herself, and beauty was seen in the skinniness of the thighs, the waist, the calves, the ankles. She didn't like her breasts to look too large because it seemed to her to highlight the width of her shoulders. "Are you kidding me?" her boyfriend would say, and she would laugh. "You don't understand," she'd reply. She always wanted herself to be photographed from top to bottom -- "Get my feet in, too," she'd say -- but was always disappointed in the results. She would practice poses in the mirror, knee out, knee in, shoulders forward, back, to see what could be highlighted and hidden. When someone told her about a woman whose face had been mauled by a pet chimpanzee, she had asked <i>"</i>Was she pretty?"<i> </i>before she could keep herself in check. When a new woman was introduced on her favourite TV show, she wondered aloud why the character wasn't more attractive.<i> "</i>But I guess <i>he</i> isn't attractive," she says of a male lead. "It's so unfair, how men can be this and that, unjudged, carrying an extra fifteen pounds. Old newscasters are coveted, revered. Taken seriously. Who cares if he has a gut? But <i>her</i>, <i>she</i> has to be pretty." She scrolls through Pinterest, searches <i>best jeans to hide fat thighs</i> and is disappointed with the lack of results. "Ugh, they're all so <i>thin,</i> so <i>perfect</i>," she says to her boyfriend, then diverges onto a topic of a <i>nuimage </i>billboard she saw the other day. "It used some kind of funny twist of words on Merry Christmas, -- oh yes, Merry Christmas and a Happy New <i>you</i>, it said-- how offensive! A Christmas advertisement on getting your fat sucked from your butt," she laughs. "How ridiculous. Whatever happened to charity. Christmas really is dead. Something that used to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus is now a means for indulgence of the most selfish nature. What has this world come to? I can't imagine supporting a business like that." She shakes her head, switching to Facebook now. "Ah, the real world," she continues, turning the laptop so that he can see."Check it out: skinny Sal ain't so skinny no more." She laughs. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-30980741183998167242016-12-06T07:49:00.001-06:002016-12-06T07:50:41.371-06:00These are things that bother me:<br />
<br />
- how normal it is for the evildoer in any kid or adult show to have some kind of accent (for eg. a Sunday school Christmas movie has the couple with child -- a couple of turtles -- as outsiders <i>not having an accent</i>, and the local evildoers, I think it was a crab with a sidekick, with thick accents). Perpetuating fear of the other in our littles?<br />
<br />
- Eden likes to ask me to look up images on my phone from time to time. She says "nose," and I image search it. All the noses are white noses. I search "toes," same thing (also some gross images of weird fungal toes, as a warning). I search arm, or eyes, same thing. White white white white white white white. I search "babies," they're all light-skinned. Good grief even if you search "yellow" or "blue" there are varying shades.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-21151323013370498482016-11-18T12:24:00.005-06:002016-11-19T07:57:27.405-06:00The Moon<br />
<br />
Fervid white, suspended and reflected<br />
gravity-induced poise right there<br />
in the middle of the day<br />
shouting and straining to portray<br />
a kind of stillness that isn't<br />
real the great capital-m<br />
Mystery that temper that spite pleading<br />
misunderstanding sometimes<br />
unabashed other times<br />
absent altogether<br />
just black on black <br />
<i>Is she all there? </i>And yet here she is<br />
in the middle of the dayUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-2837233720927780262016-11-01T20:19:00.001-06:002016-12-02T08:12:22.457-06:00Today I read through a <a href="http://www.littlethings.com/tara-wood-mr-dan/?utm_source=qkme&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=miracle" target="_blank">story</a> circulating Facebook about a young girl who singled out an elderly widowed man as her companion after declaring to her mom that she liked old people best of all and wanted to love them up before they die. As I read it on my phone, head propped up on Eden's teddy bear lying beside my sleeping girl, I cried.<br />
<br />
If you want me to get all Christian and biblical on you, I will quote Jesus as stating the kingdom of heaven belongs to children. This story exemplifies that.<br />
<br />
If you don't want me to get all Christian and biblical on you, I will say that children are absolute gems of society whose ways are too often overlooked and belittled and labelled "cutsie" but not practical.<br />
<br />
This young girl's heart (and her mother's insistence on following through and making the connection between this man and her daughter happen, which is just as important) stuck with me as I ran a few errands this afternoon. I couldn't help but wonder what the world would be like if we stayed child-like, as opposed to the opposite, described by as Ally Sheedy as "When . . . your heart dies" (The Breakfast Club). Aside from having tight and bouncy skin and endless energy, youth is often chided:<br />
<br />
<i>Stop being so childish.</i><br />
<br />
<i>That's just ignorant.</i><br />
<br />
<i>Grow up.</i><br />
<br />
While being childish has its downfalls (for example, my toddler literally pooped in the tub while I was writing this post), they love passionately and seek fairness. Their love doesn't revolve around outward appearances or superficial qualities. They have profound joy: they are always happy until they are uncomfortable or feel like something isn't fair, and once that is righted, they quickly forget what upset them. They don't hold grudges; they can be selfish but also seek with all their hearts to create joy in others. They don't really have anything and have no concept of money or debt so sharing what they have is easy. <br />
<br />
Us adults, on the other hand, have student loans, mortgage debt, car loans, lines of credit. We must become indebted to get ahead, so by the time we're twenty-eight years old, and we see a guy standing shivering on the side of the road with a sign, we think as ones who have much but are in debt and are in this perpetual <i>need</i> of saving and spending large quantities of money. We've accumulated prejudice and a profound ability (a right, we might correct) of judging others. Our selfishness is the complex, thick-as-molasses kind of brew. <br />
<br />
Children expect the adults in the room to right wrongs, to kiss boo boos, to hold them and kiss them when they hurt. Adults question every authority and always think they know better than their parents, spouse, God. Children love their bodies. Adults don't. Nature fascinates children. Adults use nature as commodity and profit. Children don't like to see others hurting. Adults are used to it. Children see things that are wrong and point them out. Adults don't think the wrong things of the world can be changed. Children act on their impulses. Adults suppress and ignore. Children don't get depressed. In adults, it's an epidemic. A child would never think to self-harm. They are never lazy, never idle, delighting always in busywork, tasks, missions. Adults work jobs they hate for years, and years, and years. Children love to learn. Adults are overwhelmed with information and are easy being stagnant. Children trust. They are kind and friendly to strangers. Adults tell their children to stay in the house. <br />
<br />
If you want me to get all Christian on you, I will echo what Jesus said: that we need to be like children in all of the above ways.<br />
<br />
If you don't want me to get all Christian on you, I will say that we need a few more adult children in a world that is filled with distrust, anger, and selfishness. Instead of admiring adulthood and telling yourself over and over what it means to be an adult, try to not let your heart die.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-14165714738324888152016-10-25T09:50:00.000-06:002016-10-25T09:52:23.999-06:00I see her grinning at her reflection, her <i>self</i>, her companion. Left shoulder up, squirming, rotating sideways, face all glee--scrunching wherever it can. Her stare broadcasts a type of joy that requires adverbial supplements. Perhaps <i>boldly</i>, <i>unabashedly</i>. Please, please, please don't lose that, knowing she will. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-69916270219450849132016-10-16T06:56:00.002-06:002016-10-16T06:56:20.866-06:00The wind flips off gravity when it blows, swirling leaves and sleet and other normally-gravity-grounded items sideways and upward. Gravity doesn't reply to these accusations, knowing full well its effect will be had once the wind tires. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-58007185232878928332016-09-20T09:31:00.000-06:002016-09-20T13:09:50.109-06:00Dear atheist society,<br />
<br />
In light of the repetitive circumstances of both personal and societal hurt, resulting so commonly in your circles with responses of apathetic depression, continued rage against the uselessness of faith and religion (and humanity itself, perhaps), or sparking action against such circumstances, I must say the following:<br />
<br />
With no faith in a governing, all-knowing God, you are well aware that you are not rooted in anything but the selfish ambitions that guide you and those that matter to you (a selfishness that may extend much further than, of course, yourself, to include humanity or perhaps the whole of the universe, I realize). However, all of the ideas and knowledge sought in the name of Godless Science has resulted in the discredit of your own intelligence and self-awareness. A resistance of the melding of consciousness and <i>God</i>, and the insistence of the un-speciality of the human race (whilst blaming it for the ills of morality and justice, environmental perils and lack of general education) has caused those like you to view such a species as one that is, of course, incredible, but also minute in our (but, you correct me, surely not <i>our</i> as in ownership, for it's no more ours than the trees') own infinite cosmos that knows no beginning of time. What I have been taught from you is that, essentially, in that which is the <i>grand scheme </i>of billions of years and what not, our lives mean nothing; we are a blip, a tick on a twenty-four hour clock; we will die, and something (or nothing) will replace us; our existence is as likely as our non-existence (with much more favour in the latter). You are not special, you cry, clutching your spouse and daughters, and any material thing that might promise happiness, even for a moment, because we evolved to desire happiness, to dull guilt, to feel within ourselves right and wrong. But it's the tangible, tangible, tangible what matters-- TOUCH IT, you say, not unlike the resurrected Jesus Christ, SMELL IT, TASTE IT, because those Christian buzzwords <i>hope, mission, </i>and<i> purpose</i> are found in the mouths of those who are so rarely actually doing anything other than clutching onto their spouse and daughters, and any material thing that might promise happiness, even for a moment. Their <i>mission</i>, you think, might just be to make <a href="http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/home/" target="_blank">laughable claims</a> against scientific proof, along with the raising hands in worship to a feeling. Such ignorance for those at the top of the food chain who should be--what? What is it you say we should be doing, pursuing, for whom? Our survival? The survival of organic materials, because of guilt, awareness, self-preservation, empathy, intelligence? All this from a blip of a species, as <a href="http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/" target="_blank">Niel deGrasse Tyson</a> reminds us over and over, created by nothing other than trial and error of mutated genes, no <i>creative designer</i>, no <i>guide</i>, no <i>supernatural </i>(not even the allowance to credit all that is beautiful before us, however it that it has come to be, to God, even if we believe that it came to be exactly how you've written about it in Science 9 textbooks)? I mean think about it: we can't touch love, consciousness, guilt, or even properly define those things, but we accept them as real, don't we? To feel and know a God who explains our idiosyncrasies, our drive for perfection, our desire to preserve the natural world around us and even love it, to learn and create ourselves-- is it really so bazaar? This notion I hold that within us has been <i>placed</i> the drive to right the world as we find it (the same drive you feel every day to spur either action or inaction)-- that, you say, is foolishness, denying yourselves the right to hope and give broader meaning than <i>survival</i> or <i>historical significance </i>to such tasks as education and environmentalism and social justice. <br />
<br />
While we're on the topic, I must say that I appreciate all you're doing, especially in regard to that which many of my God-believing community is not: specifically in your pursuit of knowledge and betterment of our world <i>here and now</i>, not waiting around for the redeeming (or extinction, depending which circle you're in) of our world by an <i>other</i>. If, in fact, you read the man-written text I call <i>holy</i> for yourself, depending not on what you heard your mother or grandmother say (or more importantly, act) on the subject, it actually calls believers to do exactly that-- meaning that I believe many could be said to be "doing the work of God" in your daily good-will and endeavors. The real truth of it is that, we, too, (as in, the faith community) are human: stupid, clutching onto whatever material things might make us happy for a time, blind to our privilege, abilities, and most importantly, our duties or <i>mission</i>, other than that raising of hands that aggravates you so. Or perhaps it is the <i>outreach </i>that bothers you most, insistence upon a particular <i>belief system</i> that names certain acts as <i>sinful</i> and what not. If we were to all abstain from religious thought of an afterlife or any reward for good-doing, you must realize that it's just as likely for humans to resort back to a self-preservation of the most intimate nature of selfishness, rather than a devotion to education and reason to create a utopia based on general principles of love.<br />
<br />
In fact, I believe it to be sound logic to assert that the human race, with its capitalist, self-preserving, climb-to-the-top-of-the-pile personality, would find ample ways to destroy both each other and the world, faith or not (as I assume in your ideal world there would be no religion whatsoever). My argument is not at all against your science or reason, it's against this hopelessness you perpetuate in your <i>we are not anything unique among the rest of the universe</i> propaganda that at best is cause for some to make a name for themselves in history as a means of self-preservation (which has been cause of some real advancements), and at worst the catalyst for mass apathy, depression, and a sense of worthlessness to any kind of daily pursuit (why? Why does it really <i>matter?</i>). Beings raised with no <i>hope</i> at all are blinded, like the apostle Paul on the day of his conversion, in the light of your overt proclaiming of our brief (and not at all <i>special) </i>appearance on the stage of the universe, as opposed to those whose endeavors to better the world are (or better stated, should be) based on bringing the kingdom of heaven <i>here on earth</i>, that their daily pursuits matter for the future when we believe all things will be righted and perfect under an authority who has the power to do such a thing--a God who calls us to such perfect simplicities as community and caring.<br />
<br />
I say all this to point out that we actually want the same thing: that the existence of all species in the world be given their right to live as lovely a life as possible and the ceasing of that which destroys that ability. Our primary clash is, of course, that you believe faith to trap and blind, while I see faith as a means to free us from those tangible, material things which (I know you would agree) are nothing but distraction from what really matters in the (you may interpret the term in its most physical, literal way) salvation of our world--for your (such as I accused) selfish, life-preserving, intelligent-bound reasons, to which I concretely relate (eternal damnation being an ill-used but effective method of self-preservation indeed).<br />
<br />
Love your Christian neighbour,<br />
JoniUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-62953472212934123362016-09-16T14:50:00.001-06:002016-09-20T13:05:35.888-06:00Daniel and I joke (with all sincerity but laughing still) that we are too churchy for our non-Christian friends and not churchy enough for the ones with whom we attend--because we have real conversations about what it is that makes us unappealing to others, quick to forget, not invited. We have a kid now, so that is a large part I'm sure. We're too traditional, I say.<i> </i>We're too white, we're too do-things-in-the-right-order-before-you-reach-30, we don't smoke marijuana, we live in a nice home, our tattoos are too Christian. Nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody cares. Most days I'm over it. I tell him, we should probably become more Christian; someday we'll find someone with just the right amount of grit, someone who makes us laugh and think, crass but accepting of our gentle lifestyle: evening walks in the back ally, early bed-sharing bedtimes and talk of finding future companionship in cows, horses, chickens-- most recently a pot-bellied pig. I tell him, we should probably invite people over if we want to be invited over. Naw, he says, and so stagnant we remain, complaining about being left out, resenting in-opportunities of friendship-making, wondering where our recently-separated neighbour is at these days, always driving off, like everyone else, to somewhere.<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-60624233255790531282016-08-17T14:38:00.000-06:002016-08-17T14:38:19.998-06:00Pens in a mason jar. Static from the baby monitor. <i>National Geographics</i>, mostly read. Trying to use up the <i>green works</i> spray so I can start using my home-made cleaners. Chairs facing each other on top of the table so the floor can be washed. Humid from the rain, ticking clock. There used to be a day when I was locked in my mind, begging for expression. Academic. Your daughter will respect you more if you work, they say. I say, I will, later, and shut up about it, and I know I'm a privileged little brat, giving away bags of clothes, the nicest ones to a consignment place so I can make a bit of money, because I feel guilty I don't make any, but I'm not willing to go to work, I'm willing to cut those things that used to matter out so I can watch a baby sleep, listen to her say <i>cheerios</i>. The garden didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. Next year. I almost forgot I need to make hummus today: first attempt. Lemon poppyseed was the third, might be a sign as it turns out no sugar in lemon poppyseed muffins makes for a bland muffin. I wish I was back at the lake with my feet in the water, listening to those loons. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2077052268576804345.post-61911394134429187322016-06-21T13:04:00.001-06:002016-08-17T14:28:13.542-06:00The older man glances at the younger man, plugged in to his mobile device. <i>Spacey </i>is how he'd describe him. Wearing his bright purple shorts. Bright blue t-shirt, some graphic he couldn't see and didn't care to. A pretty young girl walks in front of the younger fellow, but he doesn't look up. Absorbed in his phone, his music, both. The older man shakes his head. Adjusts his glasses: a habit of his to soothe his annoyance his wife uses as a cue to edge away from whatever errand she's telling him she'd like done, some overdone topic, some question she wants answered. Men don't know how to be men these days, he thinks. Back in my day, back in my day. But his day is long gone, stuck in small towns where rule-keeping for manliness is kept in check like his gut by his belt, not exploited and dishonoured in this transgendered time. Acceptance my ass, he thinks. No one knows what they are, who they are, and God help the man who tells another man who he ought to be. Driving their cars, working for gas, driving their cars. Young men preach night and day about saving the world but don't know their own neighbours. Wearing bright blue t-shirts and shorts shouting look at me, ignoring all else in those selfish gaddam headphones.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0