So this is May.

Every May gives me a double whammy of bittersweet.  It's Mother's Day, shortly followed by my birthday.  You'd think both those days would be happy and exciting, right?  It's so fun waking up to sweet homemade gifts from my kids on Mother's Day each year, and who doesn't like a good birthday celebration?

It should be all sweetness, but there is a bitter taste for both these days.  Each Mother's Day, I am reminded of what I have, but also of what I don't have.  It's been so long since I could say "Happy Mother's Day" to my own person, and that makes me miss my mom fiercely.  I honestly can't even remember her last Mother's Day with us, which would've been in 1995.  I was a week away from turning 14 that year, and I'm sure I didn't make a big enough deal of it.  So each Mother's Day, I wake up with the sweetness, feeling grateful that I have two healthy and decent young woment to call my daughters, but then that bitter taste sits at the back of my mouth and I have to swallow hard in order to curb the seeping sadness. I like and don't like Mother's Day. 

This same bitter taste taints my birthday.  I like and don't like that day as well.  My birthday is also my mom's birthday.  The last birthday she saw was when she turned 38, and then 9 months later, she was gone.  It used to be the most special day.  I loved waking up on my birthday because I knew my mom and I shared something really special. She would leave special things in my room for me to find when I woke up, and we would share a birthday cake with both our names.  It felt like our special connection that no one else had.  Now, my birthday has that same bittersweet feeling, because it's just mine, but I don't want it to be.  I miss that specialness that the first 14 of my birthdays had.  I miss feeling like I was in on a secret nobody else knew. 

This birthday is a big mouthful of bitter for me.  I am turning 38 in 6 days.  I refer to it as my "scary birthday".  I don't know what life can look like for me after 38.  I kind of want to close my eyes this year, and just wait for 39 because then I won't be the same age as my mom was when she died.  I want to skip this one.  This birthday carries with it more bitter than sweet, and I just have a gutful of gross sitting inside me right now.  I feel desperately sad.  I know I won't feel this way for long, and I know I can still be happy in my sadness, but at the moment, sadness is the heaviest thing I feel.  It's the kind of sadness that makes a person want to stay in their pjs all day, close the curtains, and pull up the blankets tight around your neck.  It's the kind of sadness that makes a person want to sleep through it. 

I'm not writing this because I am looking for sympathy or well wishes.  I write this because it's really important for me to embrace my times of not okay, because when I feel those emotions fully, I can work through them and let them go.  It really is okay to not be okay.  I can put my smile on any day of the week and act like all is well, but why?  Why should I need to act all the time?  I need to be authentic, and reality is far more interesting than any make-believe I can weave.  Sometimes I need to draw into myself and do some inner medicine, just allowing some gentleness and softness in.  I'm really good at being critical of myself, of my choices, of my actions, but today, this week, this month, I choose to be kind and gentle and treat my sadness with softness.  Don't be afraid to feel sad.  Being not okay is okay.  At least it's real.

When we are Silent

I have been overwhelmed by the support my last blog post received (https://saysomethingquiet.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-its-like-to-be-gay-in-alberta.html?m=1). I have heard messages of support from people I never expected to hear from. I have had several people's words make me feel more loved and supported than I even knew cared. I am so very grateful.

Those words, likes, shares and the general goodwill really give me hope and faith that whatever the majority's political stripe, they are moderate in social beliefs and don't reflect the bigoted garbage that came out this election. Those words have helped fan a fire in me to be louder, stronger and more active in my community and my province.

What I also heard, though, were the silences. In life, I have worked very hard to surround myself with those who bring out my best self, those who reciprocate love, support, empathy, and the energy I put into them. When I go through hard times, I don't always reach out. Those closest to me usually see what's  happening as it does, but I don't always reach out. A few weeks ago, I reached out in the most public way available to me. I opened my heart to the page, and showed just a glimpse of the pain I was feeling because of harmful and hurtful ideas being so accepted and supported. Please believe me when I say that was just a taste of it. I was surprised, encouraged and entirely heartened by the words and well wishes I received. I felt more love after I posted the blog than I did before it was published.  Now, I can also hear the gaping silences from some who I thought were in my corner.

When we sit by and let things happen without standing up, we are doing the same as if we are supporting the cause. When people I haven't spoken to in a decade piped in and said, hey, I support you and I support LGBTQ+ people in the province, those people, that day, were not silent bystanders. Really, that's all it takes sometimes. When you use your voice to show a person that you support them, that has ripple effects. You have no idea how far those words go. When we stay silent, when we don't say a word, when we sit back and say my silence has no effect, we show that we do not care enough to stand up. A society that does not care enough to stand up is one that becomes overtaken. It is one that sits back and becomes suppressed, beholden to the powers that be, and essentially gives permission to those in power to abuse them.

I have been abused, and I will never give permission to another living soul to do that to me again. I do not give permission to a government to quash my rights as a woman or as LGBTQ+.  I will not go gentle into that good night. I will not suffer in silence when a group of powerful bigots smile their charming smiles and convince the masses that they don't have dark motives. I will not.

But silence gives them permission. Silence is laying down in submission. Silence is an action, though it seems like it is nothing. Lack of action speaks loudly. Silence gives them permission.

I used to call myself a pacifist. I am assuredly not. I see a world that is swinging right into disaster. I see a country, a nation, a people divided. I see sinister motives and disgusting corruption put forth as cool heads and clever minds. I will not sit back and be quiet about it.

I don't ask anyone to take up a standard and march to some apocalyptic battle. I don't ask capitalists to swing left and sympathize with my bleeding socialist heart. I don't ask people to betray their own beliefs. I believe in freedom above all.

I do ask that you don't sit back and watch as people's dangerous rhetoric wages war on constitutional rights. I do ask that you don't sit back and listen to that same rhetoric which spreads hate and bigotry. I do ask, that if you love me, you support me back, when I feel the need to reach out.

I don't reach out when I am hurting very often. I am strong and powerful and I can shoulder just about anything. So, when I do reach out, you should know, you must know, I need actual, tangible help and support. I don't need you to hang a damn rainbow flag above your doorway, but what I do need is for my supporters to stand the fuck up and stop looking the other way when I, or others like me, ask for help. You don't have to repost my blogs, comment on my social media, or even text me to show your support. You don't have to do a thing, but you can. You can do so much by not being a bystander. Don't think I'm angry if you didn't reach out. I'm certainly not. But maybe I will reach out to those who spoke up, who piped up, who showed me they support me when I needed it.

If we all speak up, our message is amplified. I don't care if we disagree on a great many things, if you support true freedom and equal rights, we can stand unified in that.

I won't sit down today. I don't feel safe, and I won't sit and allow others to also feel unsafe. Silence will not be heard from me. Not today. Certainly not tomorrow. Silence will not be my legacy.

What it's Like to be Gay in Alberta

"You don't have to watch any TV for any length of time today where you don't see on the TV programs, them trying to tell you that homosexuality and homosexual love is good love.  Heck, there are people out there, I could take you, I could take you to places on the website I'm sure where you could find out that there's, where pedophilia is love." Mark Smith, UCP Education Critic, Candidate for Drayton Valley, Alberta.

Do you ever have moments that cut right to the heart?  This was a moment for me.  I am gay.  I am Albertan.  I am also the victim of abuse perpetrated by a pedophile who saw my 10 year old body as something to be desired.  To put these two things, the love I have for and receive from my fiance, and the perverted sexual gratification my abuser relished in when I was a child, in the same disparaging sentence, is, to say the least, hurtful.

No, hurtful is not the word I am looking for.  Devastating.  No, not strong enough yet.  Mind-blowing. No, that's not harsh enough.

Truth is, there isn't a word for how this feels.  It is more akin to the sound you make when you're sucker punched in the gut.  That's what those comments feel like.

I respect personal freedoms and the fundamental beliefs behind democracy, like free speech. I respect freedom of religion.  Heck, I devoutly followed a religion for the first 25 years of my life.  I saw the good that came along with that.  I also, unfortunately, saw the closed-mindedness too.  I followed the church without being discerning enough to understand the real impact these kinds of beliefs had on others.  And then, I woke up and saw the world around me.  I saw people, and then, I saw myself.

Let me tell you what it's like to be gay in Alberta.

This is what it's like.  I turn on the radio and hear an MLA, and elected member of public office, say that I am a perversion.  I hear the words coming out of his actual mouth.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  I am afraid when I have to come out to people, day after day, in my regular life.  Simple, unassuming questions like, "What does your husband do?" or "Oh your partner works at --, that's so cool.  What's his job?"  Do you know that that feels like?  Do you know how it cuts, little by little?  It's like little, stinging papercuts, and when you have too many, they're the only thing you can think about.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  My future wife and I feel uncomfortable holding hands in public for fear of the reaction we will receive.  Our paper cuts hurt enough, so we don't want the sucker punches that will follow.  When I drive around my neighbourhood and see signs on lawns that support the people who hate me, I feel like I don't belong in my own home.  I feel afraid of my neighbours.  I feel afraid of my own community.  It hurts my heart that my children will grow up with children whose parents think I am no different than a pedophile.  How do I protect my children from this kind of thinking?

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  I am never quite sure if people accept me or if they condemn me, but I read forced smiles more closely, and I am forced to have discretion in who I tell or don't tell that I am marrying a woman.  I get that butterfly, sick to my stomach feeling any time I am faced with the situation where I have to decide to speak about my partner using the correct female pronoun, or to use something more gender neutral in the spirit of self-preservation.

At this moment in time, I feel as though my human rights are in question.  Not only are the rights of LGBTQ+ going to be called into question, but my rights as a woman to choose what happens to my own body come up as well.  Maybe people will say it would never happen.  Maybe people don't believe that my hard earned rights could be repealed.  Whether they can be or not, people who think I shouldn't be allowed to have complete and total rights over my own body, will be emboldened and speak their beliefs loudly.  Those are much more than papercuts.

World events right now are proving that a leader who leans toward racist, sexist and homophobic views enable the others who share those sympathies to be louder, angrier, and eventually, more powerful.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.

The Stories That Shape Us Part Deux

I have always been a strong believer in the story.  I love literature.  I love poetry.  I love art.  The reason is that all of these tell stories, and we are made of them.  They are our souls.  They are the fabric that makes us.  What are we without them?  I am obsessed with them - yours, mine, humanity's.

I took art history in university. I never quite got art before that, but once I took my first class, I was hooked.  I considered becoming an art historian instead of a teacher.  Had I not had a deep and fiery passion for teaching and books, that would've been my choice.

In my first art history class, I was introduced to La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, painted in 1814.  I couldn't pinpoint why, but I was arrested by this image.  She was so vulnerable, complex, twisted, subverted and powerful.  I fell in love with this piece.  I remember returning over and over again to her, examining, interpreting, observing each and every detail.  Why did I feel so drawn to this odd, twisted, idealized woman?  This leads me to story #2, tidbits and realization from my first year of university,

Story #2 - Who the fuck am I?

I moved to another city for university.  I couldn't wait to leave the city I grew up in.  There was absolutely nothing in the place I wanted to associate with any longer, aside from my family.  In the few short years before university, I'd lost my mother, my home, my younger sister, my closest friend, and my dignity.  My mother succumbed to cancer.  I was ejected from my home with a change of the locks at 16.  My sister was too young to understand, and her father stopped my visits with her. My friend was going through her own things, and we were unable to reconcile differences.  My dignity was shattered by rehashing my childhood abuse over and over again with detectives, courts and counselors. 

I was ready to start again.

I didn't know who I was supposed to be.  I was angry.  I was hurt.  I was broken.  I was determined to build my life back up and make something of myself I could be proud of.  I wanted to be someone my mother and sister could be proud of.  I sunk myself into school with every fibre of my being.  I took English.  I took psychology.  I took Art History.  Capital A, capital H. 

La Grande Odalisque was on the screen at the front of the lecture hall.  My professor had a funny voice, but was full of wisdom and depth.  His passion for art shone through, right to the back of the hall.  She stared out from the screen at me.  Her eyes betrayed her.  The curve of her spine was impossible.  She was captivating, and I couldn't tell you why. 

I can now.

She was me.  I was her.  She was immortalized and twisted impossibly on canvas, forever altered by the eyes who saw her, created by the man whose brush told her what to be.  But her eyes betrayed him, and were only herself. They looked directly at me, the viewer, with an intensity that made me both shrink and bloom at the same time.  I couldn't look away from her because I saw all of myself in her eyes.  I had stopped being ashamed of looking at the hard things in life. and I was searching for a way out of the twisted pain of my reality.  She was twisted and on display, just like I had been in the many years I spent in court, soul bared before my abuser and my judge.  She was also defiant, and I detected an extravagant soul with passion behind her peacock feathers and piercing gaze. 

She was me.  I was her.

Her story became mine.  I had been made vulnerable by a man and his brush. I had been put on display, twisted impossibly, but not torn completely apart.  I still held onto whatever piece of myself she held in her eyes, and I was staring back at the world challenging it to try me.  You can look, but you can no longer touch.  I was her, forever immortalized, but also defiantly me underneath.  Eventually, I broke out of the canvas - out of the mold someone else had created for me.  But, in that moment in my life, I was exactly La Grande Odalisque. 

The Stories That Shape Us

I find myself in a position to hear a vast variety of people's life stories.  I hear stories of people's struggle, their triumph, their heartbreak, their devastation and their victory.  Over the past five years working with newcomers to Canada, and being a mother of two budding young women (and trying my damnedest to be a good listener), I've heard stories of how people's lives are shaped; how they become who they are; how they fight, shine, crumble, rise again.  I hear of a woman who walked 6 weeks through a war torn country in Africa with her children to escape civil war, never to see her husband again.  I hear of the cruelty of young men and women toward each other in the drama that is adolescence.  I hear of a family whose town was bombed to hell because they believed something different from the majority.  I hear of the trauma that is brought back to life by the simple sound of a fire drill.  I watch my daughters navigate the world, trying to figure out right from wrong.  I hear them tell of blatant homophobia in schools, bullying, slut shaming. I hear stories, and I cherish them.  You see, just as the stories shaped and are shaping those remarkable people, they shape me too.  Our stories can shape each other. 

It is because of these stories, and my own stories, that I find it appalling that a sign on a local bar advertises free drinks for women who take their shirts off.  It is because of these stories, and my own stories that I cry when faced with the realities of Residential Schools, Japanese Internment Camps, the Chinese Head Tax - these dark moments in Canadian history.  It is these stories that make me a firm believer in true inclusion and equality, rights for all, and need to fight for people to see the reality of racism, sexism, and all the other isms and phobias, myself included. 

Our stories shape our lives and perspectives.  Your stories add to the mosaic that is my perspective.  The hardest stories to hear are the ones that arguably have the most impact.  Even though I hate hearing about a man whose village was raided, who laid in the ditch, shot and bleeding for days, pretending to be dead just to survive, I need to hear about this man.  I need to hear him, see him, and see how he has survived, persevered and begun to live again.  You see, these hard stories can help others see that though the world is brutal, there is light.  There is true light when we see how much people can overcome. 

So, my purpose here is to start telling some of my stories.  I have some poignant stories that shaped who I am, and made me into the human I am now.  They made me into the mother I am, the partner I am, the friend I am.  They made me into the teacher I am. 

Story Number One: #metoo

I was ten years old.  I had just moved to a new neighbourhood after moving around to 3 different houses and schools that year.   I was in grade 4.  I wasn't yet beginning to show signs of womanhood, but I would soon. 

I got in trouble for something and was going to get a spanking from my step-father.  That spanking turned into several years of sexual and emotional abuse.  It turned into years of dread: sinking stomach, heart stopping terror.  It turned into a twisted view of sexuality, and a desperate need to feel safe.  I was never safe.  Ever.

I remember chanting to myself, to God, walking home from school each day, "Please, don't be home." My mom didn't get home until 5 or 6.  I would have to be alone with him.  When we were alone, it happened.  I couldn't escape. 

I don't remember when it stopped.  Probably when I was too old to be dominated the same way.  It was always about power and dominance.  It was about crushing the female. It was about stamping out anything positive I thought about myself.  It was about subduing and stealing my power.  I was too young to know I had power or to even think of wielding it. 

I don't tell this story because I want people to feel sorry for me.  Please, don't.  I tell this story because it shaped who I am.  It created in me a strength I wish I'd found somewhere else, somehow else.  But, here it is.  I am more powerful now because I was broken before.  This story made me fiercely protective of my rights as a woman, and an advocate for other young women to stand in their own power.  It made me able to see and empathize with those who have been pushed down by an abuser.  It gave me an anger and a rage that turned into drive, perseverance, and ultimately victory.  I worked through being a victim and took back my femininity, womanhood, and sexuality.  Because I was a victim, I feel I can empathize and love victims more. 

You see?  Our stories can help to shape not only ourselves, but others.  Would I care so much about empowering young people if I hadn't had my power taken from me?  Probably not. Would I be able to look at my daughters the same way?  Probably not.  Would I be so concerned with them standing in their power, being strong, independent women?  I think it would be so different. 

Stay tuned for more stories, if you care to read.  Maybe you have some of the same ones. Maybe reading mine can help yours to take their own power in your life.  Our stories shape us, but we must not let them break us.  If I can sit across a table with a man who lived in a refugee camp for ten years, and see the light that burns in his eyes, surely my stories cannot break me.  If I can speak face to face with a young man who watched his family be shot to death in front of him, and live to tell the story and smile again, then surely my stories cannot break me. 

Let's listen to the stories around us, and take heart in the fact that we are resilient and powerful.

Taped, Glued, Smushed, But Whole

SOUL

If you could cut open your soul, like a nice, neat cross-section from science class, what would you find?  Nice, neat, ordered layers?  Like the rings of a tree, maybe?  Layer of experience upon experience, all smushed up, adding to your self?  I wonder what mine would look like.  I am sure I can wager a guess, and I am nothing like the beautifully scientific section of tree.

I am taped, glued, smushed, squished, cracked, brick and mortar, stone upon jagged stone, broken and rebuilt, over and over again.  If you could open up my soul and see a perfect cross-section, I think you would see a hot mess.  Listen, human life is nothing but orderly.  We try so hard to make sense of our world and put things into their neat and tidy places, but the truth of the matter is, we are all so broken and smashed and strung back together when it comes to the deep down. 

Does this patchwork soul make us any less?  Fuck no.  We are the sum of all our crazy parts, and that is what really makes us whole.  We are not neat and tidy.  We are mess and chaos.  We are happiness, sadness, heartache, heartbreak, joy, elation, love and hate.  We are all of it, all at once. 

Every person that comes into our lives can leave an impression.  Maybe they are a bit of tape or glue.  Maybe they are a crack.  Maybe they are a speck of dust.  Every loss we suffer, every win we have, they all leave their mark.  They build and they tear down. 

When we are torn down, we do whatever we can to put ourselves back together.  When we have someone or something in our lives that offers a bit of tape and glue, we administer it carefully, closing up the cracks and holes that shape our soul.  But really, what truly puts our pieces back together is the power and strength we can muster up ourselves.

Some people call it God.  Some call it the Divine within.  Others call it grit, self, human will.  Whatever you call it, it is this that builds us back up.  It is not another person.  It is not an outside experience.  It is not something good happening in your life.  It is YOU.  Whenever I am broken and beaten, I am the only one who can pull myself back together.  I will look like a holy mess on the inside, but that's A-OK with me.  Why?  Because I am whole, in and of myself.  I do not need someone else to make me more.  I am fine the way I am.  I am everything and nothing acting in tandem, and I can make or break myself. 

So, whatever glue, tape, or patch we stick and sew upon ourselves, rest assured it is all us.  Whatever place we are in mentally, emotionally, socially - only we can truly fill in the cracks and gaps. 

I may be barely holding together on some days, and hardened brick on others, but every day, I am all of me and I am whole.  And, so are you. 

What are you afraid of?

I looked at the cave opening filled with crystal clear water.  My snorkel mask felt like it was suffocating me already.  My stomach lurched like a freight train coming to an emergency stop as I jumped into the water.  I had to make a choice: let my fear overcome me or have a once in a lifetime experience.  

Everyone's afraid of something.  In fact, we're all afraid of so many things.  Some, we know, like my fear of water.  Those ones are able to be fought because we recognize them.  Our rational minds can consciously fight them, because we are aware of them.  They are blatant, and we know that most of the time they're irrational.

But, what about all those deep-seated fears we live in that we can't even see? It's those ones which are most dangerous, because they are born from biases we may not even know we have.  Those are the ones that cause us to hurt ourselves and others.  My fear of water will not hurt me or any other person.  It may be annoying, and a hindrance to me, but it isn't harmful.  But, our deep, bias-filled fears are only harmful.

I think prejudice, discrimination and hate all stem from this fear.  It is the fear of the unknown.  It is the fear of "otherness", fear of change, fear of being wrong.  It is the fear that our own ideas of how the world works will be shattered if we entertain anything we don't understand.

I recently participated in an interview about Pride and what it means to me (which you can see during Calgary's Pride Week starting next Monday - (https://www.facebook.com/GlobalCalgary/videos/1161304070693112/), and this post is the premise I left with: that fear is what causes people to discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals, and all of those who we find different from ourselves; that and lack of education, empathy and compassion.

These kinds of fears are so, so destructive.  They not only destroy ourselves, but the world around us.  Look at war.  Look at racism.  Look at laws that prohibit women from human rights.  Look at people who are put to death for being gay.  Look.  These things may feel far away from life as we know here and now, but assuredly they exist today.  And, they exist here, more than you may see.

I grew up with whispered rhetoric that was disparaging toward many people (but accepted as normal, and therefore not discriminatory because that's just the way it was) against - Indigenous, LGBTQ+, women, immigrants, People of Colour.  It was subtle, discreet and deeply ingrained in "white" culture.  It was subconscious.  It was disgusting.  It caused me to be afraid of those who were different from me without knowing why.  It was, is and will always be destructive.  We can do better.  We must do better. We don't even know or see these deep biases.

So, what are you afraid of?  Change?  Progress? A society that lives in equality, thus causing our comfortable hierarchy to crumble?

There is some truly deep work to be done here in order to uproot these fears.  I don't know that we will ever get there, but we must work.  There is just this one life we can be really sure of, so I'd rather live it free from the destruction my fear causes.  That's a choice that must be made daily.  Face the fear of things that are unknown, things that are "other", and allow things to move forward.  Change.  Be a champion of stamping out fear.  Listen to others.  See others.  See yourself for who you are, the good and the bad, and reinvent that deep, inner dialogue that destroys.