Legacies

I had the same conversation with my mother tonight, the conversation we have been having most of my life it feels like, but probably the last 20 years in some version. Before i go any further, i wanted to say that i had no intention of being so personal in this blog, its awkward to read information that is so personal, and awkward to write, but right now i don’t care who knows. I don’t care if people know some things about me that have been really painful, things that have immobilized me, things that i live with everyday. I’m self conscious about it because i was raised, like so many people, to act like everything is okay, even when its not, especially when its not. So if you still want to believe that i’m nice, somewhat normal, a little cranky, likes pink, children and animals, then its probably best to not read my blog.

So about my mom, i feel like i’m betraying her somehow by writing about her here, but i just puked up my dinner after having the conversation that we have had hundreds of times, and felt like i needed to get the rest out by writing. It goes like this- Her calling me with news of recent ailment, this time atrophy in the brain, and i began to laugh, and so did she, in between protests that it wasn’t really funny, and i didn’t really think so either, i just hadn’t heard of it, and i was struck by the irony of it, she has been trying to tune out, die, numb the pain, as long as she has been alive, and now their is a part of her brain that is dead. She spins in the same thoughts, watches shows that upset her or numb her, and mentally beats herself for not leaving my father and not knowing what was going on with her kids while they were being traumatized, and for the way we live now. So she asks me to look up atrophy for clarification, i do, fatal, and sometimes fatal, but at the hospital, they seemed to think it was no big deal. I get aggitated, feeling like she’s not standing up for herself, and i feel like her caretaker, i am. I get angry, she gets angry, we both get sad, i get angry again, and do my ” i don’t buy this, you want to die thing, if you did you would been gone along time ago.” My mother has had 5 versions of a heart attack, partially paralyzed in one leg, missing discs in her back, diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, has had her body mangled by two surgeons, once on her breasts, the first time on her spine 50 years ago when they cut through her myelin sheath. She tried to commit suicide when i was 13, and i found her and dragged her around the room to keep her awake, made her drink mustard and water to puke up the pills, and then called a friend of hers, who worked in the mental health field and took her to the hospital, my siblings were downstairs watching tv. My dad bought her a fur coat after that. My mom was adopted, she loved her dad, hated her mom, and still aches to know her true parentage, even though she looks like the family she was adopted into, and so do i , and so does my brother, none of that will quell her loneliness of not knowing where she comes from. So i do the tough/cheerleady thing, i get easily worn out, then she starts talking about the lottery, it is her escape, if she were to win the money, then everything would be okay, we wouldn’t be poor, she would buy me a house and give me money to start a business, and she would go back to Montreal and get herself a villa in Greece, she has always wanted to go. I am exhausted at this point, but the call needs to end in a more positive way, so we do our best. I tell her i feel queezy, she says its because of her, and i said please don’t give yourself anything more to feel guilty about, she says okay, we wish each other a good sleep and the call ends. I feel like crap, get into my pyjamas and puke, come to the computer and write. Write because its the only thing that is helping.

I have worried about her dying all of my life, i worry that when i go away she will die, whenever i have gone away, when i don’t hear from her, i think she’s dead. I want it to stop, i want to be with her as someone who is alive, not someone who is waiting to die, or as someone who is waiting for her to die. Her deep loneliness, her brutallness with herself, these are part of my legacy, along with body shame, repression, and detatched affection. I want to give her a plug right now, that she hasn’t been so bad, that she’s funny, strong, etc. The truth is, she is passive, and she has fought to stay alive, but as a ghost, like me, watching life. She is funny, because she is blunt, and a bit harsh. She is also like a baby alot of the time, and even gets a baby voice sometimes, she likes it, she doesn’t want to grow up, she says. She would do anything she could for me, but always reminds me that i am her baby, which makes me feel trapped. I know she loves me, and i her, but it will always be tainted by these dynamics and the abuse they grew out of. I don’t know what to say from here, i wanted the things i write to be about the personal, and the communal, the public, culture, all that stuff. I guess this is, its about living in a culture of violence, that on top of taking the abuse, you also have to hide it and then show no signs that it has ever affected you. It’s almost as if we were not human.

Bud Osborn

I met Bud Osborn my first summer on the corner of Main and Hastings in 1995. He had joined the board of the Carnegie Centre, and wanted to let me know that he was really excited by the project i was working on. He was the first person i heard read poetry that kept me awake. I’m actually not very ” sophisticated” when it comes to art, writing, music. I want to be able to understand what i’m seeing, reading and hearing, for the work to be based in something that resonates, and feels real. Bud, for anyone that hasn’t heard or read his poetry, is someone who has suffered incredible brutality in his life. Suicides, sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, murders, all kinds of addiction. His life changes, he’s healing, and then with his poetry, lights a fire under the ass of a passive Health Board,( a board of which he became a member) lights a fire to let them know that we are in a state of emergency, we have reached epidemic rates of HIV infection, highest in the western world, in the Downtown Eastside. He mobilizes, along with Anne Livingstone, drug users, past and present to advocate for themselves and their community, for safer and more humane conditions. He got sick and couldn’t be around as much. They made a film called “Fix: The Story of an Addicted City” which gave him barely a mention. I know the truth. I know how hard he fought, for himself and for others.

He’s doing better now, he’s living back in the neighborhood, and he is still fighting for a more just world. He turned 60 last year, still with his wavy brown hair and bright blue eyes, he shines, he shines like someone with new skin. He has always been very kind and supportive to me, and i have felt comforted by his support over the years, i respect him deeply. I have been thinking about him over the past few days, as i pour my anger and sadness into these pages. I’ve also been thinking about him because i heard Jackie Wilson’s, “Your love is lifting me higher” twice in the last week. In the late 90’s, when Bud was performing his poetry, he performed this song at the end of a reading, he read it with accompanying bass and sax. A more hopeful ending i couldn’t have imagined, after hearing an hour of the violence, struggles, and injustices, he ends with love.

the awkward next post

The last post i wrote moved me in to a panic attack. I started to shake like all the heat was leaving my body, i pressed publish and went under the covers to warm up. Something moved, i felt exposed, less afraid, and now, well now, i feel like retreating, being small again. On February 23rd of 1995(i’m a freak with dates, phone#’s, birthdays, etc.) I had a moment of feeling like a giant, like my feet were the size of boats, and i was pounding happily down Pender Street in Chinatown. Why so happy? Why so big? The previous day i had completed a 20month, 20minute long process of a human rights complaint against a former employer who was writing us notes telling us not to serve Native people, and the 23rd of February was the day that i presented a project idea ( a summer chalk drawing project at the corner of Main and Hastings) to the Carnegie Centre Association board and they approved it. Happy, because i stood up in an unfair and illegal situation and i did something about it, and that i pitched an idea that i thought was good, and bold in its way, and not even knowing if i had the experience to do it, people were willing to let me try. Big, because i was filled with energy like i had never felt before, an energy that made me feel i was 10 times my actual size, in a good way. There was a quote on the sidewalk during the Speaking in Chalks project, which went like this- ” life shrinks and expands in proportion to ones courage.” What do you say after that, its true? I think so.

I was thinking about this idea of false peace. The peace we try and achieve is more often than not, the absence of war kind of peace. Whether that is in Countries who’s resources we want, or not being honest with our friends, family, colleauges and people in positions of power, for the sake of avoiding conflict. Not genuine peace. When i think of this word, i feel aggitated, i don’t know entirely why, i guess its felt like a copout, peace, the default position. I’m finding it incredibly hard to write this post, i feel like i should keep going, but all of the words look bad, unintelligent, disconnected. I feel like i fell off my bike, or a horse, scared myself, maybe felt like what moved last week was enough, i don’t want to share any more about my life, or my take on the world, its depressing, and i want to be funny and smart. I don’t want to stop, not for some addictive reason, but because i feel like its helping me make sense of things, ideas, and feelings. I have things i want to write about, but maybe it is an addictive thing, the charge of people seeing my words, knowing how i feel, giving me feedback, feeling less isolated. That’s the point of this i think, to feel less isolated. I can’t stand phoniness, i feel like i’m being phoney, i hate it, being nice when i don’t feel like it, trying to sound clever when i don’t feel it, and the worst i think, is talking to other people about my issues with some people, it feels like dissing, sometimes it is, and it makes me feel untrustworthy. I do it for the sake of avoiding conflict. What do i think is going to happen, there going to hit me, not be my friend anymore, never work with me again, maybe. Maybe i don’t care anymore, i wish that were true.

I saw a good definition of Peace when i googled definitions and found this site- http://www.fasngo.org/index.html- Femmes Africa Solidarite

Peace
- can be positive or negative. When we talk about negative peace, it refers simply to the absence of war. In this context, peace is unlikely to last unless further steps are taken to prevent the resurgence of violence. Positive peace is not just the absence of conflict but rather the presence of mechanisms that allow people to resolve conflicts using non-violent means.

I want this kind of peace, i don’t think i know how to do it, not yet anyway. I’m tired and i’ve realized that i know what looks wrong to me, but i don’t really know how to change it.

If i were to be truly honest, i would have to say that when i see a housing development or hip store in the Downtown Eastside i feel a combination of relief and dread. The relief is that the streets will soon be crowded by people who are less wounded, and the dread is about wondering where the wounded will go and that the chattiness, the forced intimacy that comes from sharing trauma, sharing struggles, being social, because the public space is the private space, the gathering spaces, people say hi, look at each other, comment, offer to help if your carrying heavy loads; those qualities will fade, and more fashionable chattiness will replace it. I wonder if i’m overreacting sometimes, if it won’t be so bad. Between the Churches, and Non-profits, the Province, the City and the Health Authority running a substantial amount of affordable and social housing, that large scale displacement isn’t entirely possible. That said, Chinatown is in danger of becoming a theme park like Gastown, it will be Chinatown chic, with white people running shops selling Asian fusion design, and pillows that are $35. Without a plan for maintaining affordable ammenities, and the less wounded moving in, they will drive the market, their needs will dominate, because they have more power, and the more wounded, well i don’t know, i had get a job here before, a phrase that often gets spewed at people on the street, but honestly i don’t know, i guess they’ll survive or die, or move, or stick around. I think the neighborhood, like the rest of the city will become a Hollywood version of itself, it already is.

Lyrics to Saturn

I felt like i trivialized this song in the previous post by calling it an imaginary better world song, It is, but its also beautiful, corny, hopeful and in parts, true.

Saturn- written by Stevie Wonder and Mike Sembello

Packing my bags-going away
To a place where the air is clean
On saturn
There’s no sense to sit and watch the people die
We don’t fight our wars the way you do
We put back all the things we use
On Saturn
There’s no sense to keep on doing such crimes

There’s no principles in what you say
No direction in the things you do
For your world is soon to come to a close
Through the ages all great men have taught
Truth and happiness just can’t be bought-or sold
Tell me why are you people so cold

I’m……
Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to saturn where the people smile
Don’t need cars cause we’ve learn to fly
On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

We have come here many times before
To find your strategy to peace is war
Killing helpless men, women and children
That don’t even know what they are dying for
We can’t trust you when you take a stand
With a cold expression on your face
Saying give us what we want or we’ll destroy

I’m……
Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to saturn where the people smile
Don’t need cars cause we’ve learn to fly
On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

My Planet.

Last summer i was listening to Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life, great title, best album next to Talking Book. I was listening to the song “Saturn”, and its about not needing cars, because you learn how to fly, people live to 205, stuff like that, an imaginary better world song. I started to imagine my planet, it started out being a place i could sleep with this person i kind of fell in love with last year, who’s with someone, and at the time, about to become a parent. It quickly became a place that i could retreat to, it could be whatever i wanted, i could bring people i loved back from the dead to talk with them and hold them. I wanted to erase things, erase the sexual abuse in my life, and the lives of my siblings and my mother, erase the emotional and physical violence that i was raised in. I wanted to erase the sexual, emotional and physical violence my friends have suffered, all of it. I wanted to create new currency, all based on kindness. If i had the power to take all the suffering away, knowing i wouldn’t be who i was today nor would anyone else i know, and maybe i wouldn’t know them if they hadn’t experienced that suffering, if i had that power, i would still take it all away. I don’t spend a lot of time in this place, wishing things away, but sometimes i wonder what i would have been like without it. I stopped imagining my planet by the end of the summer.

I talk about addiction a lot. Mostly with Bruce, he’s been talking about addiction for almost 40 years, my entire life. Greatest pandemic of our culture, bar none. Its the real plague. It is at the root of the devastation of our earth, of our bodies, and our cultures. It is a culture itself, a culture whose survival is reliant on our collective suffering, the more we suffer, the more it gets fed, the bigger it grows. It shrinks in the face of truth, love, contentedness. At the same time i don’t know if its that simple, but it makes for good drama in writing. I realized yesterday that the only thing that’s going to help me through this, help me through this death or whatever it is, is letting myself be as angry and as sad as i need to be, be as honest as i possibly can with myself until i’m gone, or this thing is gone, the weight. I feel like i’m this dance performance i saw from Chiapas about 6 years ago. The first 15 minutes, powerful and painful, the remaining 75 excrutiating. Its hard for me to stand in it, and not talk about the world i hope for, creating new dreams and better worlds. It would all be false at this point If i told you about the planet where no ones land, culture, body or spirit was ever raped for the sake of addiction, no such word as rape exists. That would of course be false, that would be denying the suffering, the devastation, the rape, and as i well know at this point in my life just because i don’t want to believe something it doesn’t mean its not true, denying it doesn’t stop it from happening, it does in fact perpetuate it. I was born a peacemaker, it was my family job, i’m named after the ending of the 6 day war in Isreal, my hebrew name means peace and blessing, i’m a 9 on the Eneagram- The Peacemaker, i stood at the corner of main and hastings street blowing bubbles while people were fighting. The 6 day war, peace at any cost, peace at the expense of someone else’s life or freedom, not peace, i am named after a false peace, and my life has mirrored that false peace. That is the truth.

Still angry actually..

I got off the off the phone with my friend Michael tonight feeling angry again, the kind of angry that sits in my chest, and makes it hard for me to breathe. It wasn’t him that made me angry, it was the press conference he told me about, a press conference he got smuggled into by a local reporter. Premier Gordon Campbell was announcing a 10 million dollar makeover fund for 40 blocks in the Downtown Eastside, a project called “New Beginnings”, all i could say was asshole, what an asshole. How can these people claim any fiscal responsibility when they build infrastructure, devastate the environment and whole neighborhoods, all based on a false boost to the economy from a notorious money pit, the Olympics. I realized the other day after my previous post and a conversation with my friend Keira, that like most anger, sadness is just beneath the surface.

I took a walk around the Downtown Eastside the other day, i’ve been feeling pretty sick lately, and sometimes i have this idea that if i dress up i’ll feel better, and at the very least, look better. So i’m walking around down Carrall St. towards Hastings St, see this woman, and she tells me how pretty i look, i walk across the street to Pigeon Park, i see some of Hermes writing on a piece of artwork, the writing is small but distinct, his handwriting, his words are all over the walls and alleys in the Downtown Eastside. I have known Hermes for about 8 years and he is a talented artist and writer, he is also active in the street scene and occasionally homeless. I went over to read his work and it was strangely like what i have been trying to articulate in this blog, i wanted to find him, talk to him, and see if could post his poetry here. I went down Hastings towards Abbott St., which is where he hangs out alot, and saw Dee and Shelley, got warm hugs, and i asked them if they had seen him recently and they told me where he was staying. I didn’t go see him, and i passed the park today and the poetry is gone. Hermes is narcoleptic, so he probably wrote it while he was sleeping, almost unfair that he could write so perfectly, literally with his eyes closed. I walked around for a while longer, went to say hi to Isidore, got some fabric, helped a woman i ran in to on Keefer Street find the Chinatown Medical Clinic, started to rain and then I headed to Gain Wah for some congee and mustard greens. I was in my bubble, my bubble that has shielded me from the parts of this city that i haven’t wanted to fully acknowledge. The Downtown Eastside has been my primary experience of Vancouver, good and bad. My sadness, is that it is disappearing, it is being given a makeover by a plain looking man, and being supported by a culture of beige and glass, our city of beige and glass, with little to no class, and run by an ass.

A portrait of a city

Vancouver caught in a moment of honesty, no mountains, no oceans, no cherry or magnolia trees, or mediocre architecture(with a few exceptions). Photographer Rob Kruyt is portraying a rarely revealed truth about our City, its darkness and its ugliness. That we have created policy after policy that has kept the appearance of our neighborhoods as beautiful places for beautiful people, and anything or anyone that doesn’t fit that criteria gets torn down or comes to the Downtown Eastside. Homeless people aren’t just in the Downtown Eastside, and those walls are breaking, the walls that protect the beautiful and the young, and those who want to stay beautiful and young from the realities of the fragility of the lifestyle created here, a lifestyle that is beyond the means of most people that live here, a lifestyle that has neither style or substance, but is more like smoke and mirrors.

It is the mountains, the ocean, the cherry and magnolia trees, the people i know, and for the last 15 years, one of the greatest buildings in our City that keeps me here, so maybe i just feel duped because i fell for this beautiful place. I fell in love with this beautiful place, and now, not so much. I think she’s ugly on the inside, cold and a bit of a ditz, but still pretty. Not sure where this leaves me, but maybe its like a fight with someone you love, you have to tell them about the things that are bugging you, and hope they can change or that maybe you can live with who they are, or maybe you just leave.

April 4th

Today is the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination. I cried this morning hearing his voice on the radio. His voice, his words, represented defiance, challenge, hope, change, the possibility of a better place, a more just place, and he spoke of it so convincingly it almost seemed possible. They shot him in the face, i didn’t know that until today, they shot his face, his blackness, his defiance, his hope, it was in his face. I say they, even though the murder is attributed to James Earl Ray, because it feels like they. It feels like the nation allowed him to be killed, and that we allow others like him all over the world who were and are defiant, who dare to speak of a more just place, we condemn them to stand alone, to be our heroes, our heroines, our martyrs, while we cheer them on in the protests, community meetings, conferences, and elections. We may not all be as eloquent as Martin Luther King jr., but if we don’t all speak, if we leave the speaking to the few that sound the best, those who are the most convincing, then we are sentencing them to be targets. Targets for psychotic racists who think they are ridding the world of evil and crave infamy, and paternalistic Governments that want to maintain dominance over their unruly children, and corporations and NGO’s that have substantial investment in keeping the world unjust.

Mould in my brain, Sun on my face

Couldn’t think of a title and this one wasn’t far from the truth. Blog entry #4. Not sure how this is supposed to work, or if there is a formula. A lot of people seem to use them as journals to express personal and public ideas, although its all public. I am conscious that anything i write will have been written before in some form, by others or the same thoughts being written over again by me, and just finding better ways to articulate them. I think”what’s the point?” i guess its really for me, the point is for me, to explore questions i have, things i’m thinking, and i guess to put something out into the world, and see what comes back, even though that part feels a bit scary.

I kind of do feel like i have mould in my brain, this place i live in, its not horrible, but i’ve never been really comfortable here, there is the noise above my head, the banging of 6 yr old feet upstairs, being at ground level, even though its pretty bright, i feel vulnerable, and there is an odour, that only i seem to be able to smell, that feels a little toxic, it is in my bedroom. I feel like i’m dying and i’m letting it happen, and i don’t have a great desire to fight. I wonder if its a metaphorical death, or a real one. I have been thinking about my death for a long time, and if “The Secret” is right, i’ll be dead shortly. I don’t know that i want to leave yet, if it is a physical death, if its metaphorical, then i think i’m okay with that, if it means that the part of me that dies, is the part that chains me to my past, to my family, to watching everything and not feeling like i have access or right to any of it, if the part of me that dies, is the part that doesn’t let me breathe, doesn’t let me be happy, doesn’t ever think that someone i love will be in love with me, if that part dies, i don’t know how to finish this thought, this sentence. I just keep thinking that i can’t wear it anymore, this old coat, that i may as well be dead, considering how i’m living, not living, well, living, but not happy. I’m conscious of this tragic figure i feel i’m embodying, this person, messed up life, goes on does some decent stuff, can’t escape herself, can’t escape the part of her that is sad, that has mental health issues, that she hides as best as she can, but can’t hide them very well anymore, see:blog. Going outside to make the other part of the title true.

what’s bugging me.?

Everything. Heroism, Shared Vision Magazine, Vancouver, and my gut, to name a few.

I’ll start with heroism. The heroism, saving the planet, saving Africa, saving addicts, and poor people. The heroism, the saving, is the blind arrogance that conveniently ignores the circumstances that brought on the need for “saving”. If we stay unconscious about our role in the creation of the mess, devastation, death, exploitation, genocide, stealing, all the taking, if we don’t acknowledge that we all take part in this system everyday, then we and the people who are being exploited, taken from, brutalized, stripped, we will be doomed to more of the same. These heroes and heroines, includes stars(the human kind,) politicians, wristbands, and alot of options for the everyday consumer to feel good; your buying a smart car, an energy efficient light bulb, a red t-shirt that will generate sells to send pills to people with HIV in Africa, not so bad i guess, pretty good probably, but i can’t help but think how Africa would be different, if we didn’t steal their diamonds, their gold, made them our slaves, if we didn’t send First Nations kids to residential schools or create reserves in the first place, or strip them of their culture and their land, i also can’t help but wonder what condition our earth would be in if we didn’t feel like we needed to take everything to feel like we were worth something.

Shared Vision Magazine, well its just annoying, for reasons stated above, this months issue a shiny white couple running to save the planet, and then a host of hippies on the inside, telling me that if i just thought the right things then i wouldn’t feel so awful, or that some 7 year old kid wouldn’t have been stuck with such shit parents if it wasn’t part of their karma. I do believe that our thoughts affect our actions, but i also believe in being human, and lately , finding a way to go easier on myself, so Shared Vision, fuck off.

Vancouver, because it is obsessed with its own beauty, it is becoming deeply ugly, a place that destroys anything that resembles aging, and if its aging that provides character, just gut the interior and keep the facade. That is what it is doing with every neighborhood in the city, that is what it is doing to the neighborhood that has kept me here for 16 years. A neighborhood that i have lived in, volunteered and worked in, celebrated in, grieved in, stood up for myself and people i cared about, made friends, fell in love a few times, know better than any other place in the world, this neighborhood, the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, this place was where i felt like i fit, no matter what else was happening, i could just walk around for a while, and feel grounded again, it doesn’t really feel like that anymore, i feel separate now, and still tied. Not knowing if there is anything i can do to help, not save, but maybe that is what i want to do, even though i know its arrogant, egotistical and impossible.

The image above is of a place that used to exist, a place we tried to save, so people could enjoy it for years to come, it was demolished, trees cut, the cob house bulldozed and now their are faux heritage duplexes in its place. This act fuels my hate of this city and the departments and city councillors that are giving license to initatives that homogenize communities, and inevitably the enitre city, a city with grand claims of its greatness, its world classness, its diversity… My gut, well, my gut is flabby, my other gut, my instinct gut, tells me i need to get out of this city, at least for a little while, so i will. East, to my other home, where i was born, Montreal, where old is honoured and there are different problems. I miss it, i miss the smells, i miss what it looked like, and i want to see what it looks like now. I want to know if my missing will be sated by a visit or if it is deeper than that, if it means that i need to leave this place that has been my home for 16 years.