Grid lock…
Monk played with his whole body…
You could hear that…
He played each note as though he were amazed at the one that proceeded it…
It was sensual,
challenging music,
and it required your full attention to follow it…
Once you did,
there was a world of musical shapes,
textures and possibilities to reach for…
I became a jazz fan…
I listened to jazz and read about the music…
I read about the people…
When I started to read about the history of black music,
I saw where the butterflies were leading me…
I learned about field hollers,
spirituals,
the blues and the call and response choruses of a people chained…
Above all,
I learned that soul is a universal experience…
We discern that whenever we clamber to our feet and chase the butterflies…
— in One Native Voice by Richard Wagamese
Well the cat is out of the bag…
The decking on my little back porch has been pulled back revealing rot in a joist of this gabled story house…
The 1890’s were a long time ago,
and pooling water is definitely something you can count on during Vancouver winters…
The carpenter working on the job is an English gentleman who followed his son over here to Canada…
Today he told me about his emigration shock after having spent most of his life in the countryside of the UK…
As we sat together on the front steps waiting for his son to pick him up,
he offered information about predators…
He’d remembered the last time he’d worked in my house,
looking for rot in my wooden window frames…
He sensed that the man working on the windows was not happy for him to be in my house at the same time,
or that the consultation was designed to be collaborative…
I filled him in on some background,
and how his presence had been intentionally scheduled,
because of the sketchy boundaries I’d experienced in the past with this particular individual,
and how I’d had to resort to the laws of physics to manage the situation…
The very last time this glazier was due to work on the houses in our row,
I held him back,
like a woman who stares at old goats,
by looking another way…
When I finally left my house and dropped the bracing,
he pulled up in his van,
flabbergasted…
Telling my neighbour,
You can’t believe what happened to me this morning…
I kept trying to get over here and EVERYTHING you can imagine went wrong…
And then to top it all off,
the traffic was horrendous…
We’ve all heard the expression,
a force to be reckoned with,
I keep mine in my bag of tricks for occasions where they are warranted…
A Summer or two ago I was awakened in the middle of the night by a fierce pounding on my door…
I was so deep in sleep that it took me a while to claw my way back to the physical plane…
When I got down to my front door in my dressing gown,
there was a police officer belting out commands on the other side of the glass…
Although I was terrified,
I refused to OPEN UP,
AND LET ME IN!!!
until he gave me good reason…
With more than a decade as a primary teacher and a mother,
I am more than familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood…
When Mr. Wolf finally calmed himself down and told me that there was a ladder leaning up on my porch roof,
and he wanted to know if I was okay,
AND if anyone else was in the house…
I opened the door to find upwhere’s of ten of our city’s finest,
and their dogs,
in my field of vision…
I couldn’t believe my eyes,
and I had the feeling I’ve been in this scenario before,
and it didn’t end well…
I asked,
What in the Sam Hill is going on???!!!
My next door neighbour was the one who had called 911 after being awakened,
by the sound of an aluminum ladder being dragged down the alley,
and then propped up against my house…
Apparently the VPD had been outside for thirty minutes,
and it wasn’t until neighbour mentioned that there is a single woman living in this house,
that they SWATteamed for further investigation…
I found this a questionable way to demonstrate concern about another person’s security,
and not all that timely considering I could have been well on my way to becoming chopped liver…
I made my point of view quite clear…
But as we all know,
policing is a fishy business…
A double-edged sword of public safety,
and corruption,
mirroring the image of the tangled web we weave in the so called real world…
A mirror that says,
I’ve got my eye on you…
Musical fruit…
The opening of a sacred bundle is a returning…
It cuts through the modern trappings of our lives and releases us into the elemental spiritual way…
The truth is,
we all have Sacred Bundles…
They are our memories,
our stories,
our learning on this journey…
They are everything we hold as special,
as holy,
as timeless…
Each part is vital because it helps make us who we are…
Opening up and sharing them is a ceremony in its purest sense…
That’s true for all of us,
Indian or not…
— in Our Native Life by Richard Wagamese…
A little over a year ago,
prior to the post-season of the Canuck’s run into the Stanley Cup,
I was watching the game at a friend’s place…
I had a pit in my stomach the whole time I was there…
A grinding mix of anxiety and fear…
When I got home I found that my house had been broken into…
A crowbar used to get in through the back door…
Despite the fact that my wallet was sitting on the counter,
and my underwear drawer had been emptied onto my bedroom floor,
the only things the person took were my laptop,
some change from Little Gem’s piggy bank,
and the six remaining lucky toonies of the ten,
that my neighbour gave me,
when her father broke down the wall,
that he had been throwing change into,
for five plus years,
in Trail, B.C…
Due to damage,
the door could not be locked that night…
I pushed furniture up against it,
and tried to sleep,
thinking about all of the women and children in the world who have no secure roof over their head,
and spend the darkness in fear of terror…
This isn’t an old story,
it is happening right now,
and it makes me crazy…
I called my father the next day to tell him what had happened…
He said he had prior engagements and wasn’t available to come into town to help…
Spinning class,
or Sunday brunch was already written into the schedule…
His neighbour Jim,
our strata’s carpenter and handy-man,
was willing to miss his grand-daughter’s soccer game,
and ride the bus into Vancouver from Steveston,
as the door needed some woodwork…
But the matter was attended to by my direct neighbours…
Some went to the Home Depot and bought the replacement lock…
Another spent the morning gluing, installing, and reinforcing…
Starshine and Little Gem came home that morning from their half-week with their father and step-mom,
and immediately wanted to leave…
They could feel the energy of the intruder,
and they didn’t like it…
Starshine could smell him,
and she told me the story she picked up through her nose…
She described the man,
and said,
He could tell you were coming home,
and it scared him,
So he left quickly,
And you were spending too much time on your laptop…
It was time for you to let it go…
I’d had a dream a few weeks before this event,
that my laptop exploded,
and I was upset I hadn’t saved any of my work,
and all of our family photos…
In those weeks before the laptop was taken,
I started to send my writing out to different people,
and burned my photos to a disc…
Little Gem called this afternoon to ask what I was having for dinner…
When I said,
Beans with avocado and cheese…
She asked,
The beans that sissy likes???
Yes,
those brown beans that bring sweetness,
to the belly…
Oh, these are the days I won't get back...
Fragile industry…
When I closed my eyes to pass the smoke over my head again,
I found the silence I’d been searching for all my life…
There was only the breath in it…
There was only the slow beating of my heart like a drum in the darkness,
and the presence of something warm,
safe and eternal wafting around my shoulders,
lifting me,
cocooning me,
sheltering me…
There was only the feel of hands,
wrinkled and lined by time,
softened by rest and calm,
that touched my face and offered comfort…
— in One Native Voice by Richard Wagamese
Sometimes when the going gets rough Starshine and Little Gem have asked me,
Mama, why did you have children with Papa???
When that question hits the ground there is only one answer,
and I don’t have to search around to find the words…
They come out loud and clear,
I had children with Papa because I wanted you…
And I tell them that I watched their father for seven years before I made the decision to have children with him…
I watched him with other people’s children…
I brought him to my classroom and watched him with my students…
I watched how he treated our dog…
I knew that he wouldn’t drink, do drugs, chase women, or hurt me…
I tell them,
I couldn’t see everything but one thing I knew was that no matter how mad he got,
he would never hit you with a belt…
Then they ask me,
Did that happen to you???
And they can’t believe the answer…
When I was little my mother took my younger sister and I to Richmond Centre with regularity…
My Oma,
and my mother,
were fashion mavens…
Having grown up in post-war Germany,
and having lived in Zurich and Paris before she had me,
it must have been quite an adjustment to be stuck in a Canadian suburb with The Hudson’s Bay and Zellers,
but my mother made the best of it…
And as soon as we got in the mall she told me,
Watch your sister…
And as soon as we got into Sears my sister disappeared into the endless round clothing racks,
while my mother flipped through hangars looking for god knows what…
This was a standard routine…
I’d be hunting for my sister,
with the weight of infinite responsibility on my shoulders even though I was only twenty-two months older than her,
and after what seemed like hours my mother would come to me and say,
It’s time to go…
Where’s your sister???
I would be calling for her in a panic,
but my sister loved the game…
Sitting in a circle hidden by a surround of clothes,
wrapped up in her own little world,
Like the village idiot,
my mother would say…
Then my mother would announce that she’d had enough,
and we were leaving…
She’d start walking out of the store while I screamed for her to wait,
until I’d done what I was told to do…
Until I found my sister…
I didn’t know then what I know now,
about myself,
and my history of lost,
and stolen children…
My ultimate failures to protect those whom I loved…
I had re-occuring dreams throughout my childhood,
until I moved away from home…
Dreams where my sister and I were in my father’s utility trailer…
The trailer careening up and down Steveston Highway at top speed,
in the pitch black,
with my job to control it,
and to keep my sister safe…
Except for,
there were no controls…
The velocity and direction were out of my hands,
and there was no foot brake…
I would wake up from those nightmares sweating with terror,
and no resolution…
In my first year of teaching I would take my class of twenty-four four and five year olds for walks around the school field…
A school field from which I could see Steveston Highway in the distance…
I counted those children every five minutes,
and didn’t let them get one step ahead of me,
or too far behind…
It took a lot of years as a teacher before I could relax a bit,
and give my students some tether…
I remember a father of one of my students,
who was a teacher,
telling me,
at the end of an assembly,
The children in your class listen to you without your needing to say anything…
It’s like they’re wired into you…
How do you do that???
At the time I didn’t have an answer for him,
or awareness of that possibility…
I was just doing what I was made for,
and what came naturally…
Another father of a student,
an older Chinese gentleman who grew up in South Africa and went to the University of California during the 60’s,
would always shake his head when we were chatting out in the parking lot,
and say,
You should have been at Berkeley…
I always said,
Maybe I was,
and that’s why I seem so familiar to you…
Was it you who took me on that bad acid trip???
Two years ago he wrote me a letter of reference,
and as I drove away from him,
out of the staff parking lot,
he leaned out of his car window and called,
YOU are a survivor…
I didn’t know what he saw in that moment,
but I felt the truth of his words,
and thanked him for the message…
Canuck'd 