My face is still warm from the sun. I have checked in the mirror several times to see if I am tanned. No. I am becoming concerned about the degree of vanity I observe in myself. I find myself staring long hours in the mirror. The utterly vain would watch themselves making love in mirrors. I have not reached this level. (But isn’t that the way in dreams then?) Anyway, I have noticed things. Things like my eyes. They never stay the same colour, and they look smaller from the outside. My hair isn’t as curly as everyone says it is either. I notice how I like to keep a little hair in places that people think you should get rid of it. They do tests with chimps and dolphins and mirrors. They mark “X’s” on their bodies in hard to reach places with paint. Then the scientists check to see whether the creatures will inspect this branding when they are presented with a mirror. It takes self-recognition you see, to do this. I wish I could discover an X one day while pondering my own reflection. The makers mark it would be. To a chimp or a dolphin perhaps this would be the spot of self-recognition. I would like something more. I would like to be brought to a specialist that would say that I was a one of a kind artefact. She could classify me by style, make, and year of creation, and maybe offer some historical references. Points would be docked, of course, because I would not be in my original condition. Nevertheless, the genuine article! I long for sweet vindication such as this. I don’t think I am alone. Perhaps one day, we will see a tattooed man examined for authenticity on the Antiques Road Show. I should think this priceless.

I am afraid of the dark. But as a child, there were no boogie-people, goblins, ghosts or drunk men. There were only forests under grandmother moon, and sweet damp fields alive with wind. But no longer does the night remind me of wet grass, deafening cicadas, fireflies, and chirping raccoons. No more. Only now are nights dark; angry and alone. The sound no longer seeps from earthly pores, as if soft whimpers from a sleeping giant. In the city, bass pounds the asphalt, and earthquake engines slap sound through concrete corridors. Lost voices are trapped in mad ricochet. They are answered only by a dissonant neon reprise. Sometimes people shout at each other on the street. Sometimes they are laughing dangerously. Sometimes they speak with hatred. I hear ambulances cry all the time.

Now I dream in laughable colour schemes. No longer love, or lovers, or other warm places.

I know I cannot return. Besides, I was scared of other things back then...

I was scared of running with scissors, and old people who frowned at me. I was scared of being a girl. I was afraid of other kinds of strangers too.

But now, ..
I know better.

peace march

Feb15 2003

What was remarkable was that there were so many people who were first-timers. People well into their 60's and 70's, and first-time children with their first-time parents; Punks, Muslims, Mennonites, Lesbians. In anthropology we call these people “communitas” . People united by time and place, during a rite of passage.

It was my first time too. It wasn’t glorious, and I didn’t have a religious experience. Strangely, I wasn’t feeling much of anything. I was without voice... and I wanted us to walk in silence. The footsteps of 30,000, marching without yells or drums. I thought this would be moving. I knew I had to walk,..and I had to keep walking,.. Just cause. Just because? I don’t particularly like Toronto, but I like who I find there. There were so many faces; so many voices speaking differently, but with the same conviction.

letter to a friend

I don’t know how you can stand to study communication,.. it’s a source of constant frustration! I realised today something that I thought was quite poignant. In English, when we speak to one another we always give a description of a noun before we talk about the noun itself. Okay so, when we refer to “a hat that is red” we just say “a red hat”. Simple. Stream-lined. But when we talk about people, it becomes, well, disturbing. Using phrases like “the Black woman”, “the autistic child”, or perhaps “the mentally retarded person”. Are these matters of fact? Matters of offence? We refer to a person’s attributes before we refer to them as a person. The foregone conclusion is that an individual is the sum total of their attributes before they are a human being. Does this language structure what we understand to be reality? Yes. But when we are observing the world and forming words, or perhaps the narrative in our mind, do we understand how deeply this challenges our inner understanding of what it means to be a human? A self?
I’ll continue to reflect on this for a while I’m sure. * * *