Canada apologises for Residential Schools . . .now what?

A mere 9 months after refusing to sign the U.N. declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, Stephen Harper formally apologises to  Canada’s Aboriginal peoples for a system of assimilation that has had destructive effects up until today. The residential school system, funded by the federal government and run by churches, isolated Aboriginal children from their families and communities so that they could more easily be assimilated into Euro-Canadian cultures. Inside the schools, siblings were seperated and children were forbidden to speak their languages or practice their culture in any way. Living conditions for these children were abhorrent: bad ventilation, overcrowding, bad heating in the winter and rotten food led to much illness and death. Furthermore, since the schools were badly funded, children were often forced to work on school grounds on tasks such as farming, cleaning and so forth rather than get an actual education.

Suicide and Life

A few weeks ago was Suicide Prevention Week. It got me thinking. A lot. I don’t actually have a problem with suicide. I think that, in some cases, it’s a legitimate decision for someone to take their life and start all over again, somehow. I have no idea what happens to us – our spirits, souls or whatever the hell it is that makes us US – when we die but I’m pretty sure we don’t just disappear. In any case, who is anyone else to assess the legitimacy of what someone wants to do with their own life anyway?

Of sex and scamming

I got fucked! I got screwed! I got fucked in the ass!

No, I’m not describing my first gang bang (although . . . ummmm . . . never mind). These are all phrases people would use not to describe their latest experiences as a sexual penetratee, but situations in which they were ripped off or deceived.

A word for Sheemie

(Originally written February 19, 2006 on an even older blog).

In my last post, I wrote down my immediate reactions to the end of the Dark Tower series. I mentioned a whole bunch of people that had been a part of Roland’s life but I neglected to mention the helpful breakers in the last novel. They, of course, played a pivotal role in the quest for the tower, as did other individuals that were not mentioned either, but I especially wanted to make a special note for Sheemie.

Making Love to Metal

(Originally written March 15, 2006 on my old blog).

I just got back from seeing “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” . This film was created by an anthropologist from B.C. who is a total metalhead. How could someone who can combine two of my great passions go wrong? He could have, but he didn’t, or barely did.

Pink Triangle

(Originally written April 5, 2006 on my old blog).

Maybe you already know this symbol . . . it can often be seen in connection to the LGBT (lesbien,gay, bisexual, transgender) communuty. Perhaps you already knew that the origin of this symbol can be found in Nazi concentration camps where not only Jews, Roma, mentally handicappes people and Jehova’s Witnesses were persecuted but where at least 10,000 homosexual, bisexual and transgendered men were persecuted as well. Heck, some hetero men who were perceived as gay were probably in there as well since gossip was commonly used as evidence.

First drag king performance

(Originally written May 21, 2006 on my old blog).

Well, I finally did it. My first drag performance. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time but didn’t know when I would have the opportunity. When I saw the message about a contest, I figured it would be a great way to start. It was specified that beginners were welcome so I figured they wouldn’t be too hard on me.

I love my friends

(Originally written May 25, 2006 on my old blog).

At some time in my early 20s, I sacrificed quality for quantity when it came to friendships. I had been a loner and a misfit in my childhood and teens, with only a handfull of misfit friends. If these misfit friends were out of town over the summer, for example, then I would have no one to hang out with.

Changes . . . forever

(Originally written August 16, 2006 on my old blog).

When we change, as people, do we lose? Lose a part of who we were? Or is everything we once were incorporated into the new self?

Do new situations inherently detach us from what was? Or is the baggage of what was directly or indirectly incorporated into the newness? Even more strangely, does the new seep into the old, thus modifying the past itself, or at least our perception of it?

As we get older, perhaps we lose some of our naiveté, and this is highly applauded by our society in general. But is the loss of naiveté always a good thing?

Does the softening of rough edges really lead us to greater harmony with ourselves and with others? Or do they allow for the keener awareness of loss, and the keener perception of hurt?

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James Bay. How I yearned to recapture the view of your shore. The problem is that I yearned for it, the view that is, through the eyes of the person that I was . . .the naïve 25 year old woman who was running away from her life. Back then, the site of you filled me with hope of a world to be discovered. My trip along your coast, led by who I perceived back then as noble, courageous and rugged Cree hunter, made me feel small in comparison to all there was/is in the world for me to see. Touching you connected me with my home planet in a way that I had never been . . . while simultaneously disconnecting me from it. My dreams of you since then have kept me in a safe state of longing, undisturbed by the reality, real or imagined, of my internal changes. Changes in who I am and who I will be, and even changes in who I was at that time, for has not my own vision of who I was at the time of our first contact changed? Is it possible, from any present time, to go back and change who we were, even if only in our heads and hearts? Does my current understanding of my 25-year old self as naïve make it so? Or does my current self become incorporated into that past self, if only as a potential way of being? And does that mean that my past self is no longer so naïve?

 

James Bay. On your coast, for the first time, I fell in love with someone while I was already in love with someone else. In addition to changing my worldview from a cultural standpoint and in addition to changing who I was and how I perceived the world, my experience in your midst opened up my potential to love differently, to love “additionally”. But the past me that was could not assimilate this capacity into any concrete way of understanding or articulating  . . . even now, I’m somewhat at a loss, it seems.

 

James Bay. Returning to you, 8 lust-filled years later, to find out how much I have really changed, for how else could I know? How else could I know that I am not/was not the same person that touched you before? And yet I am, while not being so. How to even begin to pull apart what was and what is, and what has simply been transformed? Why would I even want to? Or need to? And what is change anyway? Aside from obvious things, like motherhood, age and life experience, what has really changed about me in between my visits to you? Have I really gained life experience independently from my first encounter with you and your people?

 

James Bay. Still I yearn for your wind-chilled caress. In the month since I’ve left you a second time, this time by air in more drastic fashion with (what I thought at the time was – and still is, in a unexpectedly transformed fashion) love waiting for me in the south, yet again I’ve changed . . . I think. Already less naïve than I was one month ago. Already more cynical. Already is desperate need of your serenity to appease my tortured heart and mind. Could I not be with you forever, James Bay? Forever a Whampstagoosyo in Eeyou Istchee? And would that change me forever, to the point where I would even forget who I ever was before? Do I want to forget who I ever was before?

 

No, James Bay, I don’t. I want to find a meaning to who I’ve ever been, even if (especially if) that meaning hurts. Do the runes that spell my name speak true? Or have I made them speak true, subconsciously and naively believing their wisdom? When I run away to you, I find transient responses to my questions as well as temporary relief from my quest . . . but no real answers about the nature of the quest. Your serenity, while appeasing the sting of my wounds, does not heal them. Only I can do that I’m afraid. And yet I love you for everything that you give me. For am I not lucky to at least have that?

 

James Bay. I’ll keep coming back, even as my quest takes me much further from you than I am now. I’ve no doubt that the majesty of humanly-defined world wonders will not be a rival to you, even if they wind up amazing me and bringing me to tears. I’ve no doubt that the people I will encounter will add to the richness I obtained from you and your people rather than dull it. And I have no doubt that I will love you . . . always.

 

 

Polyamory and the maintenance of autonomy

(Originally written December 16, 2006 on my old blog.)

I’ve been thinking about relationships a lot lately and have figured something out about the difference in views about relationships that poly and non-poly folks have. Through conversations with friends, colleages, etc. I’ve noticed that what bothers a lot of people about non-monogamy is not so much the fact of there being more than one simultaneous relationship in the life of one or both partners, but the maintenance of autonomy within “the couple.”