Open Letters

Hello, Goodbye 

Love, Open Letters

It has been an amazing year, undoubtedly. On the horizon there are so many things to look forward to. But, in retrospect, it has been a pretty tough year.

With some miscarriages and struggles to make our own family grow, the death of one of my students, and having to put our lovely boy, Felix, to sleep, I’m a little relieved to say goodbye 2016. So, this year will be all about appreciating. 


This is our little family, with Chester, who doesn’t mind being the only cat in the house. 

Looking forward, though I don’t believe in ultimatum-style resolutions, I certainty think that there are lots of things to lay out as a plan that might make the year amazing.

First, gratitude. Every day I will try to find one thing I am sincerely grateful for. Today, it’s on the homefront: I have a bed that I get to sleep in with my wife each night. It has clean, beautiful sheets, a warm duvet, it feels like heaven every time we lie down. 

And, second, I’ll be embracing acting like a grown-up:

  1. I’ll invest in myself. More sleep. More downtime. Going to the gym. Keep doing my awesome pole fit classes. I’m getting stronger by the day, and it feels good. Eating well. All the foods I love, all in moderation. 
  2.  Learn more. Try new recipes. Read more books. Write things down that I’d like to try or do, right away, and then make an effort to do them. For example, I’d like to make my own textile wallhangings. I’m also going to keep up with the fantastic app, meal lime, which has us eating such tasty, easy meals.
  3. Communicate with the people I love. Send cards. And keep up my habit of calling as soon as it occurs to me that I’d like to talk to someone…instead of calling them later. My granny just celebrated her 100th.  She loves me, despite what her face is telling you. 
  4. Shop less.
  5. Be a grown-up. Or at least look like one. Wear beautiful pajamas, while avoiding clothes that encourage me to feel lazy. No bumming around clothes. The better I feel, the happier I will be. This doesn’t mean no comfortable clothes, it just means getting rid of the stuff that doesn’t look or feel good. This is the perfect excuse for a clothing swap. This includes decluttering and paring down on ‘stuff’. 
  6. Stop procrastinating. See list above. And this especially goes for schoolwork and marking. Divide and conquer it.
  7. Plan better so that we can use our money on cool experiences. This year I’m going to try the money challenge.
  8. Keep doing the things that make me feel youthful. Even if I feel tired the next day… work hard, play hard. 
  9. Shower my friends and family with love. 
  10. Remember to be less critical of myself. I will never be more young, with more of my life ahead of me than I am today. That’s a message I wish I could go back and tell myself at 15. Twenty years later, I’m more confident than ever and capable of making life exactly what I want it to be – and what I can’t change, I’m strong enough to handle. I may be two decades older. But from where I’m sitting…life is pretty sweet. No filter needed. 

America, How Could You?

Open Letters

My lament takes a dark turn. Nothing brings reality into sharper focus then I brush with mortality. Life-and-death situations tend to bring things into sharp sharp contrast.

I thought the worst thing that could happen today had already happened: and accused sexual predator. A racist. A misogynist. A man whose many many public gaffes should have been enough individually to disqualify him from even the consideration of running for student government, let alone running a sovereign nation… Has managed to convince 50% of millions of people that he is fit to be president.

So I dressed for the occasion.

The End. I dressed for a day of mourning, and (ironically?) posed in front of an image of sheep plummeting off a cliff en masse – one lone sheep is going against the herd, bleating ‘excusez moi…’. And the day only got worse from there.


And we can all joke about how the Canadian immigration site crashed due to all the increased traffic, or how maybe this is all some horrible misunderstanding… But when I woke up and checked my phone, confirming what I thought must be a mistake as I went to bed, a deep discomfort set up residence in my gut. How did this happen?


The dread exploded with apropos responses, and I was shielded from many of the exuberant postings of joy from people who actually voted for this man, because Facebook at least can protect me from this reality through its ingenious filter settings. However, there’s a complicated reality being revealed… And what’s most disturbing is the sheer number of people who are willing to accept someone whose personality is vile, whose values are vile beyond comprehending, because these voters think he is somehow better than Hillary Clinton. Whatever your issues are with her, how can so many people have been duped into voting against their own best interest, for a man who has let workers take the fall for his financial losses, outsourced jobs within his own enterprises, degraded and humiliated his opponents, female and male, made so many blatantly racist comments that we hardly notice the subtle ones, like when he refers to ghettos and each time throws in the words Blacks and Latinos, as though these are the only people living below the poverty line, as though Black and Latino are synonymous with poor and unsuccessful, or that inner cities are homogeneously populated… The view from up here is unsettling.


And I thought it couldn’t get worse. But at 8 AM as I began teaching my first class of 17 and 18-year-olds, I got the news that one of our very own students bodies was found after he had been missing for several days. Shah Ruhk is who I’m thinking of today because his life is important, because I can’t stop thinking about his last moments, because he is Muslim, because the rhetoric across the border demonizes young people like him, because I have read his heart felt writing, where the ambition, love, and values of a young man are so clearly revealed and are so contrary to everything that Donald Trump claims to know about people like this young man who is so tragically lost to us. The last piece of school work that this boy wrote, praised his parents for providing him with opportunities to live and grow in this country, praised his faith for teaching him how to respect the opportunity to learn and to pursue a bright future; he wrote about the admiration he had for his teachers, the love and dedication he felt towards his family, the importance of treating children with kindness and respecting your elders. The last conversation I had with this quiet, sweet young man was about how he was continuing to encourage his brother to get back on track and take his studies seriously; he said to me, “I can’t give up on him he’s my brother and I need to look after him.”

Maybe this is the most profound statement that has come to mind today, because, for me, his words might also be applied to the way we view the current situation south of our border – we need to respond with love, and patience, and clear values, and lead the way, hoping that we will set our neighbour on a better path.

I don’t really know how I got through today, with the eyes of so many young people watching, and asking how to deal with this loss. By talking. By asking questions. By listening. And remembering what is important.

Words of Wisdom: Fashion Edition

Open Letters

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I read this on Refinery29 and smiled:

“Clothing Shopping Mistakes: “The Too-Small Thing (That Fits If You Haven’t Had Lunch Yet & As Long As You Don’t Breathe)”. News flash: You like lunch. And breathing. Buying clothes that don’t fit with the assumption that they may fit if you do a bunch of things that aren’t that fun is a terrible idea. There will always be another version of that item in your actual size. You can wait.”

On that note, as someone who loves clothes, I cringe a little as I recognize the traps we create in ‘justification land.’

I feel like I have this problem with coats … and shorts. I always envision myself being this kickass person with the perfect, polished winter coat. I usually buy a discounted version of the coat I really want and end up not loving it, while secretly envying other people’s amazing outerwear. I need to learn to hold off. I need to cull and then just wait for the perfect coat… not its kid sister.

I have the same problem with shorts and leg-revealing items, but worse. I trick myself into thinking that if I just buy the right pair of shorts,.. I will be a person who likes to wear/looks good in shorts. Buying the right pair of shorts will not change my legs. Only eating less cheesecake, drinking less wine and working out more will change them; and I’m not sure that the sacrifices I’d have to make to get those legs (ie. living without the joys of eating delicious desserts) would actually be worth having those model-esque legs… or make me the kind of person I’d enjoy being around. So, rather than envision and be tormented by clothes that fit a “better” version of me – a deluded, unrealistic version – I should focus on wearing the clothes that make me feel great NOW. I’ve been going to Polefit (more on that another time) and it has totally changed my relationship with my thighs; I can now go to the gym in shorts and be proud of how hard my legs work for me. Win.

Although it would be kind of nice if just buying the shorts Shay Mitchell is wearing on Instagram made me look like Shay Mitchell…

But clothes, for me, are like a superhero costume – items that send a message out into the world, transforming and arming the wearer, concealing tiny weaknesses (our personal kryptonite) and letting us putting on a braver face to the world. It’s not quite an ‘I woke up like this,’ as much as a ‘I created the me before you. Good work, me!’

If I spend too long living in fashion ‘future’, I will miss fun present. I have a great collection of well-worn faves, vintage, hand-me-downs, handmade items and a mish-mash of pieces from contemporary stores, and making good with what I have has been the focus of this past year.

I want to be focused on enjoying my slice of life (and cake), while relishing the great assets that might I might be overlooking while considering my (mostly) shorts-averse pear shape. Also, when I do wear shorts, I ought to consider that the strength in these legs is what lets me do all the things I love, like dancing in the kitchen, walking the streets of foreign places, and shaking it to music out on the stage, or on the dance floor.

It’s a fashion mindfulness moment: be present. be happy.  and eat that cake.

TBT – Toronto Pride 

Love, Open Letters

In Toronto we love our pride. We live it. I’ve been attending pride for 15 years, only missing one year because I was celebrating a friend’s marriage in Greece. 

Highlight time: 

   
 Orange is The New Black was making dreams come true. On a parade float    

    
  From start to finish the weekend was full of love and firsts…  
Shout it from the rooftop. 
    
    
    
    
   
    
    
Vag Halen performs. And sends a powerful message to people about First Nations rights, trans rights and  Black Lives Matter.    
    
Pride is about being together. With friends and loves. 
    
    
 Canada Day grilling. 

  
    
Brewery time with a glass raised to Canada’s birthday. 

  
The Drake party.     
    
    
When the P gets away. 

 

Summer to-do: day 17 – take a stand

Open Letters

Make a step towards progress by getting involved in something you believe in. Raising awareness about the homophobic laws in Jamaica and asking for a review of these antiquated laws is a cause I can get behind (especially since it’s my wife’s home country and I haven’t been there yet). 

British laws from the colonial past target gay men, specifically with buggery laws that criminalize gay-ness or gay ‘acts’ (though I doubt any straight people are being arrested for their participation in anal play); these laws can be widely interpreted to catch any act that alludes to a person being non-heterosexual as ‘obscenity’ or indecency. So, tucking your partner’s hair behind their ear, putting on his or her sunscreen, or living together are cause enough to substantiate a claim of ‘homosexuality’ and the attending violence; the result is that LGBTQ people who are victims of violence are seen as criminals and face discrimination from the officers they report to, and even reporting can put them at increased risk because acknowledging that they have been victimized makes them more vulnerable.   
    
   
   
Jamaica has one hell of a track record. When a recent murder, of two known gay men, occurred – the news paper quoted neighbours sneeringly referring to the homicide as a “fish fry.”  People have been stabbed. Raped. Set on fire. Run over multiple times. And police have treated the  victims as the criminals. 

It’s shameful that violence of any kind is supported, especially when the targets are a marginalized group with no legal recourse. Before meaningful change can happen, legislation has to change… To protect victims of violence from behind labelled as criminals. 

Day 159

Open Letters, style
Day 159

Spending three days at a working and learning conference, focused on Social Justice, is a great way to feel like you can counteract some of the terrible things we are seeing so much of in the news; planning for an upcoming year of inclusive, actively engaged, equity-fuelled learning and teaching is the perfect re-set for summer.   

   Checking my privilege, analyzing  the roots of power and working on my cultural proficiency: I can’t think of a better way to strengthen my impact on my students. 

Is it superficial, then, to throw in some details about my OOTD? No. My clothing is my armour, in a world where a thousand prejudgments are  made daily, I choose what image to present to the world. It makes me legible and tells my story. After all, beauty is only skin deep and the real work starts when we really engage and go below the surface. 

So I put my bravest, professional foot forward and open myself up to sharing, being vulnerable and listening.    
 

everyman

Art, Open Letters

Every coming out story is set in a small town. Whether urban, suburban or remotely rural … When you are dealing with family, the stories we tell, the people who have known us our whole lives and who make up our world, changing how others tell the story of your life, and questions like ‘what will everyone think?’- it doesn’t matter what locality or geography surrounds that experience as much as it matters that it can feel like your whole world is shattering. Your piece of it, big or small, will never feel the same again. I just watched a film and although I will never know what it’s like to live in Oklahoma … I have lived moments of heartbreak like that film.

the day to end it

Open Letters


Yesterday was the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia!

What is IDAHOT?  For 12 years, this day has been celebrated to “draw the attention of policymakers, opinion leaders, social movements, the public and the media to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTI people internationally… when LGBTI communities mobilize on a worldwide scale.

The Day represents an annual landmark to draw the attention of decision makers, the media, the public, opinion leaders and local authorities to the alarming situation faced by lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender and intersex people and all those who do not conform to majority sexual and gender norms.”

As the IDAHOT site  explains, “May 17 is now celebrated in more than 130 countries, including 37 where same-sex acts are illegal, with 1600 events reported from 1280 organizations in 2014. These mobilisations unite millions of people in support of the recognition of human rights for all, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.”

This Is What Inspiration Looks Like:

I spent the day with over 300 young leaders and activists from Halton, at a gorgeous farm, listening to speakers and attending workshops.

Our day included a First Nations welcome and circle dance, performances by IllNaNa Dance, poet Jenna Tenn-Yuk and keynote delivered by MPP Cheri DiNovo.

Getting 300 people to form concentric circles and dance in the morning sunshine was pretty amazing.  In this symbolic shape, no one is more important than anyone else. We are all connected. Everyone is equal. Recognizing that we are on colonized land, while we do this anti-oppression work, is a key part of building awareness.

Forget Kanye. I was in the presence of true greatness today, listening to Cheri DiNovo speak. She was so amazing and I, as a lesbian, owe her more than I could have realized before hearing her keynote address. She helped to introduce and get more LGBTQ legislation passed in Canada than anyone in our history. She performed the first gay marriage in Canada. She is spearheading the equal parents bill and trans rights bills. I was particularly touched by her advocacy for lesbian parents who – at this exact moment – don’t have legal rights to their partners’ babies. Even if conceived (of) together… if my wife were in a medical emergency and had carried our baby, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the hospital with our baby or have legal rights regarding our child. This is horrifying and we need to change it now.  This woman exemplifies activism and humility, encouraging youth to be the change – as she closed with a story of her own ironic journey:

As a street-involved, young queer person, she spent nights, at 16 years old, sleeping outside in Toronto’s Queen’s Park… under the same window that she now looks out from in her office as a Member of Provincial Parliament.She went back to school and transformed her life… and subsequently, the lives of so many queer people in Canada.
DiNovo also spoke about the incredible vulnerability of the trans community, citing Toby Dancer and Toby’s Law, which she has been instrumental in passing. This law added ‘gender identity and gender expression’ to our Human Rights Code.  Ground breaking! Side note: there is a stained-glass window of Toby in a local church – perhaps the only one of a trans person in a church … in the world!

From politics, to short stories, to poetry and dance – the day was as diverse as the room.

IllNaNa Dance

When students come together, smiles on their faces, to celebrate activism, learning, leadership and equality, it’s no wonder the sun was shining!

Vegan lunches in the sunshine.

With some irony, the setting was a historic village, with old ‘general stores’ and juxtaposed against the past, we worked to make the future better for future generations.

I’m excited to see what lies ahead, as we venture through these doors, mindful of the past and energized for the long road that stretches before us.

Really?

Open Letters

So, this happened:

First.. it must be noted that (in spite of what the occasional typo might suggest…) I’m an English teacher. I usually choose my words pretty carefully. And… this conversation happened in English. And, this happened at work. Speaking to an adult person.

———————-

Him: “It must be my lucky day… I’ve seen you three times today!”
Me: “Well, it’s Friday the Thirteenth, so … I guess that’s ironic.”
Him: “If I hadn’t seen you today again, I’d have to go home and cry…”
Me: “Um… I guess I’ll have to …tell my wife”
Him: “You mean your husband”
Me: (incredulous look) “No. I mean my wife”
Him: “What?”
Me: “I’m gay. I mean my wife”
Him: “Oh, that must be why you don’t have any kids”
Me: “No. That isn’t why. I will have kids. I just don’t have any… yet.”
Him: “Well you don’t look… I mean..”
Me: “Why would I?”

Also… you don’t KNOW me.

He tried to save the whole thing by saying “You have a parade coming up next month”

Yes, yes. I do. Me personally. I have several floats. One is for cats, because I like them. One is for rainbows, because I like colours, generally. One is for naked baton twirlers, because I think that’s pretty skillful (and brave). And I let all kinds of other weirdos join in.

And you’re not invited.

Ps. If this has never happened to you… imagine introducing yourself to someone as “Maria,” and having them correct you.

“Don’t you mean Polly?”

Nope, I’m pretty sure I meant what I said. And why the fuck wouldn’t I know my own name? Or who I’m sleeping with? Or married to?

Do a little better hiding your shock. If I had been speaking another language and misinterpreted or misspoke… then I could understand your confusion if I didn’t match up with your ‘lesbian’s look like X’ picture. But seriously…

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Not only do we not all look the same, we don’t all try to desperately replicate straight gender roles (read: stereotypes) in our gay relationships.

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Lastly, we don’t all get up to what you might think. We have diverse jobs, interests, bodies, intellects, languages, traditions… just like regular people. Woah. 2d3d4ffe68d0009c6d3bc1d82bfa9292.jpg

And just because:

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I know you think it’s a compliment… but it’s not flattering that you assume all people in my ‘group’ are unattractive. And then praise me, somehow, for not being as ugly as you’d expected. Or whatever you think you’re implying. Why would you be able to tell? Sometimes you can, mostly you can’t. Plus, you don’t know our secret handshake. We’re like unsparkly vampires, with daylight rings, walking among you.

in_the_making1_md.jpgWould you walk up to a woman and say… “you’re so smart… for a woman” or to a young person and say, “wow, for a teen you hardly steal at all!” Or to a man and say, “you sure do behave like a non-violent non-neanderthal, it’s so pleasantly surprising!” No. You would never say that. We all know someone who fits a stereotype. In order for it to be TRUE, all people of that group would need to adhere to the stereotype. So, yes, sometimes we ring true to the funny, campy image… but never have I accidentally forgotten that I married a woman.

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