reminders from Michi Saagiig Anishnaabeg writer
I asked for my unknown and forgotten ancestors to help me with grief.
I asked for their help not knowing how to, and not knowing if they even knew, not knowing if I could trust them, not knowing if I was the one to help them.
I asked for their help in humility of all the information I don’t have, and of all the information I do have I question the validity of.
burning. we don’t need these words. they just need to be put into the fire
leaving
I remember when I left my ex’s place that I didn’t even care that he had thrown my painting into the cold wet shed to rot, to never be seen by anyone. I couldn’t discard of it how I truly wanted or face my fear of his reaction to save it. Even now my blood is cold thinking of it. I remember shaking, crying, and screaming at my friend to not go down a particular road I thought he might be around in case he saw me in a car with another person that wasn’t him. I say this because I feel so much empathy for what situation my ancestors may have experienced. The lack of care, calmness, love, and support (we need) compounding with betrayal and poverty. The poverty mindset definitely being one of the most hurtful especially when myself and others were ostracized for living with more income than the others. There were good times. But how can I just think of the good times when our world is being destroyed because we play along with the narratives they designed for us. I’m not dwelling on the past, I’m concerned for the current for repeating it all over again. I am fully aware I am in the state now, speaking, writing, without the precision or careful force needed to be completely understood - there are so many barriers and separations to the connection - society lacks non-colonial/non-verbal languages.
I felt ashamed that I only knew english, that I was raised where this was the requirement, that my speech impediment when I was little was wrong, that my being, the way that I am, causes/ed enormous issues for my parents and loved ones, that my existence is/has a burden on the system. Of course, I manage well even if I feel the strain and contortions of it daily. I am still incredibly lucky to be able to do most of what I do today. I find myself incredibly lucky, even happy, though responsible to keep talking, to keep speaking even if I am completely missing the point, for those who cannot speak for themselves and give the world their genius that we desperately need. I am so incredibly grateful I can be myself, and for the moments when I do not fear my own safety, like now.
Later in the evening I went to my favorite book store in Brixton, Roundtable Books. I was recommended the book, Noopiming - The Cure for White Ladies, by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. I’m almost done reading it now but I found it linking so much of my feelings and heart aches, my loves, my repetition, the unknowns in my world were being mirrored to me. I felt I was looking into an expanse, as though I was on the edge of my field looking out into the edge of her field. I carry her truth in my mind. I think that is what it comes down to. In my journey I think I am just at the point of remembering what I can. And when the time comes that I learn the truth of something then that is the time. And for now I am the keeper of those. Fundamentally I know what is wrong with society, it’s clear as day for everyone, and I am not okay with what is happening - fundamentally I could do unto them exactly what they’ve done to others - but I am okay. I’m not patient. This moment, I am in the process, I am moving fast. so i write fast. I write assuming I might miss the point, I write ignorantly, curiously, like a child but in humility of this fact.
one day I’ll be able to make the point more clear with less or no words at all.
I do feel like my ancestors helped connect me to this book. I don’t know exactly how, that’s definitely not the point. But it’s nice to think that they heard me. Something heard me.
