Indigenous Me

My Indigenous Story....

Indigenous Me, 2015

Until recently, I didn't even know I had an Indigenous story.

I'm Canadian, aren't I?

However, what I am as a Canadian is very different than what my neighbour is as a Canadian. I was beginning to feel very confused. We speak the same language but we share completely different perspectives on Canada. 

Why is that?

Through my former Masters program at Wilfrid Laurier University in Community Music, I discovered that I see the world through the experiences that I grew up with, which don't necessarily relate to the experiences of those around me. It absolutely makes sense but I simply was not completely aware of this.

With these new eyes, I'm meeting new people. They're so familiar to me. They're like family to me but we have only just met. They're teaching me and I'm learning so much and I knew that I needed to learn more. I'm now attempting to enter the Masters in Social Work program in Aboriginal Field of Study at Wilfrid Laurier University. I need to connect more with my Indigenous perspective. 

I have so much to learn!

On Wednesday evening, a new friend of mine, Shawn Johnston of Nations and Voices, will be hosting a fundraiser for his inspiring photography project that will give a voice to People of Colour around the world. He's an Indigenous person of Canada who understands the perspective of people of colour. 

He gets me!

I love him!

Shawn will be revealing a picture that he took of me on my 41st birthday weekend, at his fundraiser on Wednesday, August 16th. I was so nervous about him taking my picture and showcasing this side of me that it took months for me to actually do it. He was so patient. He understood my struggle. He waited until I felt comfortable with my voice and now, he will reveal a part of me that I'm still discovering and seeking to understand better.

I feel completely vulnerable but...

I've never felt happier in my life.

Thank you, Shawn for being a teacher of "Indigenous Me."

Come to Shawn's fundraiser on Wednesday night at The Museum in Kitchener. He's been working hard finding sponsors and musicians and will be hosting an incredible evening of Art. Maybe you'll end up buying the picture of me. Good luck, as I'm trying to buy it for myself. 

I hope to see you there!

Buy Tickets

Transitions

Flexibility

The story of my life lately.

It's all good. I'll figure it out.

For now, I'm transitioning.

André & I went out to dinner to re-connect. Under a lot of stress, I doodled with crayons by playing with curved lines & colours. From André's angle, he felt it looked like a woman dancing.
She's all I see now. She validated how I felt at the time,
Streeeeeeeeetched, but look at her. She's incredibly graceful in her...
flexibility.

Daughter of an Architect

I'm sure there's all kinds of offspring of architects. I have 3 different kinds. My darling daughter just happens to be exactly what I would imagine a daughter of an architect to be - you know, if I was the generalizing type.

For example, allow me to introduce you to her desk in her room:

(this desk is an old closet door, from our 100 yr. old home, turned into a desk by her Pappa when he was an architecture student. Note: this picture could only fit her entire desk because I used the "panoramic" feature. It's a large desk!)

Now before you think this blog is #MyFail as a parent, allow me to explain...

Think back...waaaaaaaay back, like back to when God created the earth (if you're a non-believer, stay with me for a moment more!). In Genesis 1:2 it says, "And the earth was without form...", after which God organized and created the heavens and this beautiful earth and all magnificent things that are here on earth.

I like to think of Melaia's desk as the stage right before the organization and creation happened. We have a desk here without clear form. A whole lot of "un-order". A heck of a lot of CRAZINESS! However, I can't wait to share a bit of order that comes out of my daughter's chaos.

Before we do that, for complete fun, allow me to attempt to label this physical representation of what's in her little head:

Anything not labelled could be put into one of 4 categories:

1. misc.

2. It's so pretty

3. It's so cute

4. Hasn't made it to the garbage yet

When Melaia was a toddler, she was like most toddlers - if she was quiet, you knew there was trouble. Like the day I left her for two minutes and she peeled the keys off of my husbands brand new Macintosh laptop and proceeded to insert them into the disc drive. I came back just in time to save that laptop. Minimal damage thanks to the engineering side of my husband's brain.

Nowadays, if she's quiet for hours on end, I don't worry - as much.

On one of those wonderful days that she disappeared into her creative dome of complete bliss, she re-appeared with "hand lotion". It looked like creamy, white hand lotion. It smelt like creamy, white hand lotion but it felt like creamy soup.

How did you do this Melaia?

"Easy!" 

She preceded to tell me how she took a bar of soap, shredded it down with her "tools". (On her desk are random pencil crayons. She uses the unshaven side to peel/shred apart the soap into tiny shavings of soap.) She then adds water and mixes until she gets her desired consistency after which she adds bath salts to enhance the scent.

The shredding process.
Next time I buy a bar of soap, I now know to hide them as this was her third bar in two days.

In Melaia's world, she has perfected her consistency and has turned my favourite bar of soap (above) into a liquid hand soap. She then finds a cute bottle, steals my real hand soap pumps and tries to sell me her finished product. Are you ready for her first official product unveiling?  

< drum roll pleeeeeeease >

Funny story about this particular batch of hand soap: 

Melaia had created this batch of soap with a couple of friends who came over to play for the day. I thought Melaia was sharing her fun discovery with these lovely little girls. It turns out my daughter was "employing them" in the making of her soap. She simply "supervised"! I told Melaia that she was like a "boss" to these girls - just like her Pappa has a boss at work. She then asked me if being a boss meant that you had to help your workers get along because her friends (who are also sisters) didn't always get along and Melaia felt that this didn't help them to produce the amount of hand soap that she wanted them to produce. She confessed that it was very hard to be the "boss" and help your workers to get along. I proceeded to laugh. Out loud!

In Melaia's world, creativity isn't limited to a desk. The world is her studio! On a recent trip to Bluffer's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, we explored a lovely beach filled with copious amounts of clay. Melaia couldn't help herself. She HAD to bring some home. I tried to convince her out of it by saying that I didn't want to carry it all the way back to the van and it would be so dirty travelling home in our van but how can you say 'no' to her when she had discovered it AND agreed to carry it back to the van? I was trapped, in a good way, as I knew that her passion was carrying her and I knew that I needed to support her passion and ideas. You could tell that every step of the way back to the van, her head was stirring with ideas and thoughts about this clay. I even offered to carry it for her (guilt poked at me) but she only let me carry it for a few steps. She was fuelled with passion for that walk back. I was a proud Mamma.

Toronto, ON to Waterloo, ON
Clay

Over several days, she worked away on our front porch experimenting with this natural element. Again, occupied for hours. Even though it's messy, I love these projects where she losses herself in her creations. It all began with play but her play evolved beyond the typical clay bowl.

I briefly perused on the internet how to prepare natural clay in order to make true clay sculptures. This wasn't a process built for me. It was too long and complicated for my impatient brain. So, I let Melaia just discover on her own how to work with this clay and we would watch how it dried out in the natural elements.

After experimenting in this way, she then found a huge Canadian Maple Leaf and began painting it with layers and layers of clay. You know where this is going, don't you?!! After many days of drying, somehow she managed to peal off this leaf to reveal a clay patterned leaf without breaking it. Confession: I broke it after attempting a second round of photography. She forgave me and liked my suggestion of painting it!

She has yet to initiate painting her sculptures, so, here's what we have today:

Remember her desk? "Without form". Even her creative process seems completely "without form" or in "chaos". Now look again at her creations. Order. Beauty. Form. "It was good."

It is SO good!

Clay sculptures.
by Melaia

Take Time to Reflect

Remember that message that comes up at the heightened moment of a T.V. show or website?....

"We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. 

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause."

That's the message that I feel I owe all of you who have been reading the story of my car accident and have been stuck in the ambulance with me.

Allow me to explain what has been going on...

TECHNICALLY, I didn't expect to re-live my story emotionally which manifested physically. Muscles painfully tensed and ached, anxiety overwhelmed me (via panic attacks) and disturbed sleep exhausted me. Wow! What a shock for me and my system. Nevertheless, an important learning curve.

TECHNICALLY, I needed some healing time. I sought out massage therapy for the first time since my car accident (I wish I did that a lot sooner!) and I did a lot of self-talk and reflection about how I am a survivor of a serious traumatic experience and how I'm O.K. now. I'm no longer in the throws of trauma. My husband and close friends have been incredible sounding boards during this time. I'm in love with them.

TECHNICALLY, I've had some wonderful visits from overseas family which was also incredibly healing. I love my New Zealand and Australia family members too. Our feelings run deep for each other (they've known me since my birth in New Zealand) and they soothed my aching wounds with their unconditional love.

TECHNICALLY, I've been involved in some fun and engaging community projects that allowed me to remember that I'm a grown and capable women (vs.trapped in a hospital bed) with an exciting present and future.

TECHNICALLY, my family is going through some exciting life changes that I look forward to sharing with you a little later.

TECHNICALLY, I'm on the hunt for some incredible material from my hospital days that I know you'll want to see. It involves pictures and other memorabilia related to my hospital stay.

TECHNICALLY, I had no idea what re-telling this story would do to me and how long it would take to tell you. This may take some unknown amount of time to tell and you may experience similar technical difficulties in the future.

TECHNICALLY, I know you'll love what's coming and want to come back.

HOWEVER, I'm very much enjoying the journey and having you along with me certainly makes this journey a lot lighter. Thanks for being there and sharing this with me.

"To be continued..."

Not all Love Stories look like Disney

Over the holiday break my husband dropped our kids off with my parents so they could all spend some time together. I know. I'm pretty lucky that my parents are willing and able to do this. I think my kids are pretty lucky too. Anyways! My husband came back from his trip with this photo in hand from my Dad:

I present you my parents wedding day on the little island of Samoa. *Sigh* L'Amore! Not. So. Fast. There won't be any steamy windows in this love story - remember? There's no windows in this fale!

Mum was 23. Dad was 31. Mum only knew her tiny island of Samoa and lived in the poorest village called Lauli'i. Dad was a Canadian tourist travelling from country to country, working as he went, experiencing new people and places. On a stop off in Samoa, he met my Mum. They have one short date and began writing each other - Dad went to work and live in New Zealand at this time. Short story even shorter, Dad asks my Mum to marry him through one of his letters to her and he arrives in Samoa a few days before the wedding. They get married and he takes her to New Zealand to have babies I mean, to start a new life together. Two strangers. Now married. You've heard of arranged marriages, right? This is kind of the same thing - except THEY arranged it!!

To say the least, their "honeymoon" was filled with more "howling at the moon" than "honey". 'Howling' is probably the perfect description as Mum knew very little English and Dad knew even less Samoan. It was a pretty colourful first year of marriage and let's be real...many years after that. Having said this, my Mum always told us kids that Dad was a good provider. Before she arrived with him in New Zealand, he had a house pretty well set-up and she always had food to eat.

Just a week before my kids went to visit their grandparents, my parents celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary. Their marriage never looked like a steamy romance. Thinking back through the years, their Love looked a lot like this:

Working hard together

Back Rubs

Cooking food for each other or the family

Gardening together

Canning together

Freezing food together

Unwillingly agreeing and being happy afterwards

Caring for four children - right into adulthood

Being there for the four children's school events (sports or music), church events and whatever else was needed

Forgiving one another (most of the time)

Forgetting the times that were not forgiven or rarely bringing them up

Laughing together

Allowing each other to be what they each wanted to be (Mum was a crazy dancer and a highly social person. Dad could barely move on the dance floor and was a highly anti-social person.)

Forgiving each other (yes, I repeated myself because this needed to happen A LOT!)

Going out together to the movies or to eat

Giving each other necessary space

Watching each other's shows - even if they don't like it

Caring for each other

I asked my kids (privately from each other and before reading this post) how they know their Nana and Grandper love each other. Here's what they said,

I remember them kissing - about once a year. On their Anniversary.

Bummer. Now that I'm done writing this blog post, I'm thinking I should've waited for Valentines Day to post it. Oh well! My Mum never grew up with Valentine's Day and when she learned about it, she would say to my Dad, "Valentines Day should be EVERY day!!" So, Happy 43rd Anniversary Mum & Dad and Happy Valentines Day!

Love,

daisy