Oct 17, 2009
Oct 10, 2009
on reading james baldwin this afternoon
There is the theory of anti-racism: folks on the margins of any society must always (are forced to) understand and predict the behaviours of those at centre and not the other way around. In fact, those in power can remain completely ignorant of those at the margins, with no harm to themselves or their families (so they think). Check, got it, thanks bell hooks.
Then there is how it feels to connect to this: when i realized today how vastly I have under-appreciated the extent to which people of colour are experts on white folks, i found myself feeling...exposed and embarrassed at my ignorance. I should know this.
But I didn't know--and now this seems incredibly, laughably naive. Did I imagine that my whiteness (and only mine) was imbued with some kind of special neutrality whereby it went unnoticed?
White lady, we have known you along.
Then this memory: I'm standing in a Toronto grocery store checkout at 22, watching a middle class white woman out of the corner of my eye, trying to memorize the exact way that she imperiously flicks her auburn hair and pulls off her burgundy leather gloves, the patronizingly gracious tone she uses when the checkout girl messes up her purchase. I record her movements, language and clothing, knowing that I need to be able to reproduce them if i am going to ensure that I am never on the other side of this checkout line. The side that wears a nametag.
I remember this moment in particular because it is one of the first times I felt cunning and angry, not ashamed at the distance between myself and white middle class ladies. I got the difference between wanting the power she wielded and wanting to be her. I didn't want to be her, I didn't want her fake politeness, the cloud of haughtiness that swirled around her.
But hell, I too have been clocked.
It's 3 am, somehow I hadn't noticed. Tomorrow is "family history" day where we examine our family's relationship to white supremacy and genocide. Looking at that sentence, I think not many white folks would be excited at that prospect but maybe I'm wrong. White people wanna know where we came from, what our families gave up in order to become "white" and reap the benefits of white supremacy. Ok, enough. time for bed.
G'night dears.
p.s. my friends in the Anne Braden Program here in San Fran have been writing some great stuff on what we actually do, if'n you're interested.
http://lynnejpurvis.blogspot.com/
www.skinnedkneeswingsblueprints.wordpress.com
http://rootlessnes.blogspot.com/
Then there is how it feels to connect to this: when i realized today how vastly I have under-appreciated the extent to which people of colour are experts on white folks, i found myself feeling...exposed and embarrassed at my ignorance. I should know this.
But I didn't know--and now this seems incredibly, laughably naive. Did I imagine that my whiteness (and only mine) was imbued with some kind of special neutrality whereby it went unnoticed?
White lady, we have known you along.
Then this memory: I'm standing in a Toronto grocery store checkout at 22, watching a middle class white woman out of the corner of my eye, trying to memorize the exact way that she imperiously flicks her auburn hair and pulls off her burgundy leather gloves, the patronizingly gracious tone she uses when the checkout girl messes up her purchase. I record her movements, language and clothing, knowing that I need to be able to reproduce them if i am going to ensure that I am never on the other side of this checkout line. The side that wears a nametag.
I remember this moment in particular because it is one of the first times I felt cunning and angry, not ashamed at the distance between myself and white middle class ladies. I got the difference between wanting the power she wielded and wanting to be her. I didn't want to be her, I didn't want her fake politeness, the cloud of haughtiness that swirled around her.
But hell, I too have been clocked.
It's 3 am, somehow I hadn't noticed. Tomorrow is "family history" day where we examine our family's relationship to white supremacy and genocide. Looking at that sentence, I think not many white folks would be excited at that prospect but maybe I'm wrong. White people wanna know where we came from, what our families gave up in order to become "white" and reap the benefits of white supremacy. Ok, enough. time for bed.
G'night dears.
p.s. my friends in the Anne Braden Program here in San Fran have been writing some great stuff on what we actually do, if'n you're interested.
http://lynnejpurvis.blogspot.com/
www.skinnedkneeswingsblueprints.wordpress.com
http://rootlessnes.blogspot.com/
Aug 20, 2009
Anti-racism and the yogurt cup of despair: hello from SF, California
On day two of anti-racism school, I opened my eyes after listening to this poem and saw that my tears had created little dew drops on my name tag.
"Catalysts for change are everywhere." (Guest presenter, chicana organizer Betita Martinez)
But before I get to that, let's dispense with the recent past: I went home to Toronto, and it felt like home and I felt loved and grounded and happy with intermittent deep stress about moving stuff around so much. The comfort I felt was so sweet, it was almost excruciating. I hadn't felt that in 18 months.
Perhaps because it was so nice to be home, I know I am not going back too soon. My connections, my history, my safety net have not disappeared, though yes, my relationships have changed. I feel blessed with this incredibly supportive network around me, one that I relied on to love and nourish me—to a degree that sometimes felt smothering—and now that I have it, I can leave the nest.
I may be back in Toronto next year or in five years. The point is that I'm giving myself license to go where my passions and curiosity take me. Plus, I learned early on that there will always be ways for me to make a living and support myself. I'm not, it turns out, dependent on Toronto or Canada (who said I had to stay Canadian?). Why wait to find out what else there is to learn? “Do it now!” as my pa says.
What I Did On My Summer Gaycation
While I've been overseas, I had this nagging guilt that I wasn't really doing anything. I was just livin' the dream, seeing the world and accumulating some gorgeous and heart wrenching lessons along the way. Somehow, I genuinely hadn't noticed that in the past year and a half I'd published two magazine articles, an anthology essay, organized an anti-racism training, a Dec 17 event, performed 4 or 5 times (in three different towns), volunteered and networked with sex workers in two countries, attended conferences, demos, lectures and festivals, completed a painful 10 day meditation retreat and started a daily practice. Plus, lived the dream and accumulated some gorgeous heartwrenching lessons along the way. (boy did I learn some exciting things about the anti-trafficking “rescue industry”, anarchism, squatting, indigenous issues in majority-white organizing, how to bake with coconut flour and ride side saddle on a tippy motorbike. Oh, and nearly throw up from homesickness.)
I think this “doing-ness” is because I've internalized capitalist ethics around productivity. Do! make! produce! more! now! What if I'd just been sitting on a beach for 18 months? And that is one my lessons: yes, if I wanted to, I could “produce” sweet nothing and still be a valuable, deserving person. What I want to do though, is to continue to agitate. Specifically, with sex workers.
Anti-Racism for the crusty of heart
And that's how I find myself sitting in a very little room in San Francisco, reading about indigenous women's resistance, making plans to go into the Critical Resistance office this week and learn how to write responses to prisoner mail. I came to SF for the four month long Anne Braden Anti-racism training for white social justice activists and I am so in the right place.
Going more deeply into understanding racism and white supremacist history has been like peeling the lid off a yogurt cup. The lid is all the bitterness and cynicism that just sits there like a crust everytime I notice some new horrible manifestation of white supremacy (let's just say, oh, the way the canadian gov't delayed sending supplies needed to combat swine flu to the hardest hit communities: first nations). Now, peeling that lid back, I find a wellspring of pain and grief. I've rarely been able to articulate why I'm anti-racist or feminist etc because the reasons are far from my theories about justice. They are in my heart. I don't have any language to talk about this. This is my fumbling attempt.
No one deserves this more than you
Why do we want to make change? Why do I? It's something about how I know that we are all equally precious and “there is no such thing as the not-deserving”*. Every one of us is dear and inequity, that paltry word, is cruel. I still don't really understand this but it seems that cruelty towards you hurts me. Every time I remain complacent in my ignorance or deem someone an enemy (and ohhhh, it's tempting), I haven't just injured you, I've injured myself. I dunno. Why is it painful to read about uranium poisoning on navaho reservations? Or hate crimes against young black transwomen? I don't understand it but there you go. That pain is what's pouring out right now.
In a practical sense, I am simply learning tactics for building an irresistibly powerful multi-racial and international sex workers movement that united, will KICK ASS and WIN. But anti-racism is also about returning what was stolen from me: an awareness of my shared humanity with people of colour, who I and all white folks, have been systematically taught to view as less valuable.
So I have cried every session. And if I'm not crying, I'm outraged. My instructors are generously calling me “passionate”.
And it's great. When I'm done, my heart feels a hundred pounds lighter and I know I've left some of that sorrow behind. The yogurt cup of despair is emptying.
Deep Thoughts
I have already learned heaps. I have a list entitled “major intellectual revelations” (like how prisons are a capitalist extension of slavery and alternatives to punishment as a way of redressing harm. Damn!), I learned that I need, desperately, a community of allies (not just a few friends) who are dedicated to this process, and that I was so used to cringing when white people talked about racism that I never developed the skills to have those conversations myself. I already feel clearer about my political goals and more confident talking about race and racism. This isn't going to mean I am “not racist”. That assumes racism comes down to the personal attitudes and behaviours. That's part of it but it's hella more than that. I can however, be a conscientious objector to racist capitalism and become more human in the process.
The gossip
Everyone wants to know 1. what do we do in class and 2. are there babes?
The short answers are:
1. classes are 4 hours/week and run like a (well-oiled) workshop on a different theme each week. There are also substantial readings and a volunteer placement in a racial or economic justice organization in the bay area. Finally, there is a mentorship with another white anti-racist ally (I will be meeting her next week)
2. Hell yeah. Remember, I'm GAYLANDIA. But it's mostly in that comrade-y way where you just wanna talk about strategic decarceration. Or at least I do.
I'm a bit in love with the “leadership team” (there are like, nine of them) and each week I debate who I have the biggest political crush on. They offer a model of anti-racism that looks to me to be sustainable, kind, self-respecting, accountable, fierce and rigorous. They are good people, though at this point, still an amorphous heap of “good people”.
And I'm tentatively making new friends, asking folks out on friend-dates and nervously wondering if anyone will like me. Of course I bake cookies and ride my bike and this makes me super happy. I am still though, homesick and will always be for as long as I am out of Toronto. I accept that.
Good night from San Francisco.
* My classmate A said that. She also said “(we fight because) systems of domination cause suffering”. Basically, she says things that handily summarize entire ethical and political philosophies in ten words or less. Awesome.
"Catalysts for change are everywhere." (Guest presenter, chicana organizer Betita Martinez)
But before I get to that, let's dispense with the recent past: I went home to Toronto, and it felt like home and I felt loved and grounded and happy with intermittent deep stress about moving stuff around so much. The comfort I felt was so sweet, it was almost excruciating. I hadn't felt that in 18 months.
Perhaps because it was so nice to be home, I know I am not going back too soon. My connections, my history, my safety net have not disappeared, though yes, my relationships have changed. I feel blessed with this incredibly supportive network around me, one that I relied on to love and nourish me—to a degree that sometimes felt smothering—and now that I have it, I can leave the nest.
I may be back in Toronto next year or in five years. The point is that I'm giving myself license to go where my passions and curiosity take me. Plus, I learned early on that there will always be ways for me to make a living and support myself. I'm not, it turns out, dependent on Toronto or Canada (who said I had to stay Canadian?). Why wait to find out what else there is to learn? “Do it now!” as my pa says.
What I Did On My Summer Gaycation
While I've been overseas, I had this nagging guilt that I wasn't really doing anything. I was just livin' the dream, seeing the world and accumulating some gorgeous and heart wrenching lessons along the way. Somehow, I genuinely hadn't noticed that in the past year and a half I'd published two magazine articles, an anthology essay, organized an anti-racism training, a Dec 17 event, performed 4 or 5 times (in three different towns), volunteered and networked with sex workers in two countries, attended conferences, demos, lectures and festivals, completed a painful 10 day meditation retreat and started a daily practice. Plus, lived the dream and accumulated some gorgeous heartwrenching lessons along the way. (boy did I learn some exciting things about the anti-trafficking “rescue industry”, anarchism, squatting, indigenous issues in majority-white organizing, how to bake with coconut flour and ride side saddle on a tippy motorbike. Oh, and nearly throw up from homesickness.)
I think this “doing-ness” is because I've internalized capitalist ethics around productivity. Do! make! produce! more! now! What if I'd just been sitting on a beach for 18 months? And that is one my lessons: yes, if I wanted to, I could “produce” sweet nothing and still be a valuable, deserving person. What I want to do though, is to continue to agitate. Specifically, with sex workers.
Anti-Racism for the crusty of heart
And that's how I find myself sitting in a very little room in San Francisco, reading about indigenous women's resistance, making plans to go into the Critical Resistance office this week and learn how to write responses to prisoner mail. I came to SF for the four month long Anne Braden Anti-racism training for white social justice activists and I am so in the right place.
Going more deeply into understanding racism and white supremacist history has been like peeling the lid off a yogurt cup. The lid is all the bitterness and cynicism that just sits there like a crust everytime I notice some new horrible manifestation of white supremacy (let's just say, oh, the way the canadian gov't delayed sending supplies needed to combat swine flu to the hardest hit communities: first nations). Now, peeling that lid back, I find a wellspring of pain and grief. I've rarely been able to articulate why I'm anti-racist or feminist etc because the reasons are far from my theories about justice. They are in my heart. I don't have any language to talk about this. This is my fumbling attempt.
No one deserves this more than you
Why do we want to make change? Why do I? It's something about how I know that we are all equally precious and “there is no such thing as the not-deserving”*. Every one of us is dear and inequity, that paltry word, is cruel. I still don't really understand this but it seems that cruelty towards you hurts me. Every time I remain complacent in my ignorance or deem someone an enemy (and ohhhh, it's tempting), I haven't just injured you, I've injured myself. I dunno. Why is it painful to read about uranium poisoning on navaho reservations? Or hate crimes against young black transwomen? I don't understand it but there you go. That pain is what's pouring out right now.
In a practical sense, I am simply learning tactics for building an irresistibly powerful multi-racial and international sex workers movement that united, will KICK ASS and WIN. But anti-racism is also about returning what was stolen from me: an awareness of my shared humanity with people of colour, who I and all white folks, have been systematically taught to view as less valuable.
So I have cried every session. And if I'm not crying, I'm outraged. My instructors are generously calling me “passionate”.
And it's great. When I'm done, my heart feels a hundred pounds lighter and I know I've left some of that sorrow behind. The yogurt cup of despair is emptying.
Deep Thoughts
I have already learned heaps. I have a list entitled “major intellectual revelations” (like how prisons are a capitalist extension of slavery and alternatives to punishment as a way of redressing harm. Damn!), I learned that I need, desperately, a community of allies (not just a few friends) who are dedicated to this process, and that I was so used to cringing when white people talked about racism that I never developed the skills to have those conversations myself. I already feel clearer about my political goals and more confident talking about race and racism. This isn't going to mean I am “not racist”. That assumes racism comes down to the personal attitudes and behaviours. That's part of it but it's hella more than that. I can however, be a conscientious objector to racist capitalism and become more human in the process.
The gossip
Everyone wants to know 1. what do we do in class and 2. are there babes?
The short answers are:
1. classes are 4 hours/week and run like a (well-oiled) workshop on a different theme each week. There are also substantial readings and a volunteer placement in a racial or economic justice organization in the bay area. Finally, there is a mentorship with another white anti-racist ally (I will be meeting her next week)
2. Hell yeah. Remember, I'm GAYLANDIA. But it's mostly in that comrade-y way where you just wanna talk about strategic decarceration. Or at least I do.
I'm a bit in love with the “leadership team” (there are like, nine of them) and each week I debate who I have the biggest political crush on. They offer a model of anti-racism that looks to me to be sustainable, kind, self-respecting, accountable, fierce and rigorous. They are good people, though at this point, still an amorphous heap of “good people”.
And I'm tentatively making new friends, asking folks out on friend-dates and nervously wondering if anyone will like me. Of course I bake cookies and ride my bike and this makes me super happy. I am still though, homesick and will always be for as long as I am out of Toronto. I accept that.
Good night from San Francisco.
* My classmate A said that. She also said “(we fight because) systems of domination cause suffering”. Basically, she says things that handily summarize entire ethical and political philosophies in ten words or less. Awesome.
Jun 17, 2009
Woah
Gemini (May 21-June 20)
It is said there are only two stories: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town. And when you’re the one on the journey, you’re likely the stranger in someone else’s town. So who do you want to be? The huckster selling the monorail? Or the hero chasing out the horse thieves? Considering your role in other people’s stories will help ensure a happy ending for your own.
--Sid Skye, Eye Weekly
Who do you wanna be in other people's stories? Me, I'm not really down with the idea that protecting private property from theft would make me a hero but I'm interested in the question.
It is said there are only two stories: man goes on a journey, and stranger comes to town. And when you’re the one on the journey, you’re likely the stranger in someone else’s town. So who do you want to be? The huckster selling the monorail? Or the hero chasing out the horse thieves? Considering your role in other people’s stories will help ensure a happy ending for your own.
--Sid Skye, Eye Weekly
Who do you wanna be in other people's stories? Me, I'm not really down with the idea that protecting private property from theft would make me a hero but I'm interested in the question.
Jun 16, 2009
I've been in Toronto for 18 hours and I want you to come for dinner. Like, now.
Hey all,
I'm home. Or in someone else's home in my adopted home town. It feels bizarrely familiar. I could *swear* I just left for the weekend. It's been less than 24 hours since I got in from NYC (and my awesomely awesome birthday with Loralee) but nothing seems out of place. I can navigate the transit system with one eye open (thx to Roxanna for the bus station pick up and escort home!), the prices are all what they should be ($1 for water, not $3) and the bank tellers are unreasonably perky. Yep. It's Canada.
I did cycle on the wrong side of the road twice this morning and was a bit amazed by Canadian money but otherwise, same-same. I'm staying in the apartment of a special-friend who is away right now. How perfect. I spend 18 months totally working through longing only to come home and sleep in the bed of someone who's smell makes me a bit achey. Of course! It's so delightful though. I rode down King st West today and yelled out "I love it here!" to the street.
I'm totally overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to take care of while I'm here and that mostly makes me want to curl up in bed and disappear into a book. So I might be a little slack in getting back to you. I would however, love my TO friends to come join me for dinner this Wednesday night, say 7 ish. 28 Temple St (2 blocks south of King, west of Dufferin). Bring whatever, something to share. I'll make a big soup or somethin'.
Toronto lives inside me. When I would cycle around Sydney I was constantly mis-guessing how long things would take. Of course, I just hadn't been there long enough and so the city wasn't engraved on my heart. Toronto is. I have a memory of each and every neighborhood. Today I cycled about five blocks and in that time, I went by a pub where a friend propositioned me one cold winter night. The apartment of an old colleague who gave me a bag of apples the last time I saw her. The apartment where a friend took me to lie down after I got dizzy from wine during dinner. I discovered this friend was genius at silence. We lay there for an hour, not speaking.
I like the fact that I know where to find things. I like the sun today. I like this heatbox of an attic apartment. I like dialing local. I like that I'm about to hop on a fixy, cycle down one of my most storied streets and go meet a cherished ex in the very neighborhood where we fell in love. I'm sentimental and getting to indulge in my sentiment every minute of the day is delicious.
I love being here but I'm also glad it's relatively brief--I leave in mid-July for 4 months in San Francisco. I need a slow re-introduction to my life here. It was hard to leave and I packed away alot of my love for it/you. I'm kind of wary about staying again because...because it feels like a bloody marriage. I've been married to TO for over 13 years. My whole adult life. And in that time, I'd never left for more than two weeks at a time! For the first time, I left to go have flings with other cities and communities and now Toronto is looking at me asking: So Chanelle, are we going to make this real or what? I'm not saying that you can't go away whenever you want. It's not that. You can have all the freedom you need. I just need know: will you be with me for the long haul? Will I be the one you come home to?
And I don't want to answer because, well I can't commit yet! I'm looking at the life I had--was that gonna be it? Is this what I want from my life? I come back here and I start to do the exact same kinds of things I did before I left. I want to organize saucy anti-racist feminist cultural events, build radical networks and community, have friends over, picnic in the sun, write, theorize, bake, bike, advance the ho and homosexual agenda. Make the world more awesome and less cruel, without going crazy in the process. I have traded dating in for meditation but otherwise, I am the same girl I always was. And guess what? I still have the same question I left with: Is this the life I want?
I don't know if I can settle down again till I can answer that. Or maybe I'll be a terminally indecisive Gemini, return and wake up every godamned morning asking that question until I die. (and that's the problem. Death, I mean. It is my fear of it that sparks all this angst). I'm hoping I get to wake up and know that I'm living the right life. Experimenting with everything in my life has been one good way to explore that question. So is silence and stillness. Speaking of which....time for meditation. Hope to see you Wednesday.
yours,
cg
I'm home. Or in someone else's home in my adopted home town. It feels bizarrely familiar. I could *swear* I just left for the weekend. It's been less than 24 hours since I got in from NYC (and my awesomely awesome birthday with Loralee) but nothing seems out of place. I can navigate the transit system with one eye open (thx to Roxanna for the bus station pick up and escort home!), the prices are all what they should be ($1 for water, not $3) and the bank tellers are unreasonably perky. Yep. It's Canada.
I did cycle on the wrong side of the road twice this morning and was a bit amazed by Canadian money but otherwise, same-same. I'm staying in the apartment of a special-friend who is away right now. How perfect. I spend 18 months totally working through longing only to come home and sleep in the bed of someone who's smell makes me a bit achey. Of course! It's so delightful though. I rode down King st West today and yelled out "I love it here!" to the street.
I'm totally overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to take care of while I'm here and that mostly makes me want to curl up in bed and disappear into a book. So I might be a little slack in getting back to you. I would however, love my TO friends to come join me for dinner this Wednesday night, say 7 ish. 28 Temple St (2 blocks south of King, west of Dufferin). Bring whatever, something to share. I'll make a big soup or somethin'.
Toronto lives inside me. When I would cycle around Sydney I was constantly mis-guessing how long things would take. Of course, I just hadn't been there long enough and so the city wasn't engraved on my heart. Toronto is. I have a memory of each and every neighborhood. Today I cycled about five blocks and in that time, I went by a pub where a friend propositioned me one cold winter night. The apartment of an old colleague who gave me a bag of apples the last time I saw her. The apartment where a friend took me to lie down after I got dizzy from wine during dinner. I discovered this friend was genius at silence. We lay there for an hour, not speaking.
I like the fact that I know where to find things. I like the sun today. I like this heatbox of an attic apartment. I like dialing local. I like that I'm about to hop on a fixy, cycle down one of my most storied streets and go meet a cherished ex in the very neighborhood where we fell in love. I'm sentimental and getting to indulge in my sentiment every minute of the day is delicious.
I love being here but I'm also glad it's relatively brief--I leave in mid-July for 4 months in San Francisco. I need a slow re-introduction to my life here. It was hard to leave and I packed away alot of my love for it/you. I'm kind of wary about staying again because...because it feels like a bloody marriage. I've been married to TO for over 13 years. My whole adult life. And in that time, I'd never left for more than two weeks at a time! For the first time, I left to go have flings with other cities and communities and now Toronto is looking at me asking: So Chanelle, are we going to make this real or what? I'm not saying that you can't go away whenever you want. It's not that. You can have all the freedom you need. I just need know: will you be with me for the long haul? Will I be the one you come home to?
And I don't want to answer because, well I can't commit yet! I'm looking at the life I had--was that gonna be it? Is this what I want from my life? I come back here and I start to do the exact same kinds of things I did before I left. I want to organize saucy anti-racist feminist cultural events, build radical networks and community, have friends over, picnic in the sun, write, theorize, bake, bike, advance the ho and homosexual agenda. Make the world more awesome and less cruel, without going crazy in the process. I have traded dating in for meditation but otherwise, I am the same girl I always was. And guess what? I still have the same question I left with: Is this the life I want?
I don't know if I can settle down again till I can answer that. Or maybe I'll be a terminally indecisive Gemini, return and wake up every godamned morning asking that question until I die. (and that's the problem. Death, I mean. It is my fear of it that sparks all this angst). I'm hoping I get to wake up and know that I'm living the right life. Experimenting with everything in my life has been one good way to explore that question. So is silence and stillness. Speaking of which....time for meditation. Hope to see you Wednesday.
yours,
cg
Jun 8, 2009
Off
Hi lovely friends, remember how I was all like "It's great that I'm leaving! I need a new challenge!"
mmm. Yes, well.
Of course immediately after that it became a heartbreaking series of goodbyes, whirlwind race to divest myself of a year and a half of accumulated things and agonizing decisions over where to head next.
Yes, as of last week I hadn't yet decided where to go after San Francisco. SO!
Here's what happened...
1. I'm in San Francisco seeing friends and going to the Sex Work Film Festival
2. I'm flying to NYC on Monday June 8 to spend a few days with Loralee and celebrate my 35th birthday. Yessssss!
3. I'm returning to Toronto for a few minutes!
After Toronto: Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, then back to SF in late July for a road trip with Loralee AND I will be living in SF doing this program. I'm so thrilled and honoured and excited to have been chosen for a program I respect so much.
Ok, borrowing a computer! Late to meet everyone! Love you lots!
xx
cg
p.s. props to Sunny Drake for pointing out that staying in Australia and Sydney in particular simply offers *different* challenges than leaving--the ones related to staying free and flexible when I start to get comfortable, in a familiar place surrounded by folks who know and care about me. Deep.
mmm. Yes, well.
Of course immediately after that it became a heartbreaking series of goodbyes, whirlwind race to divest myself of a year and a half of accumulated things and agonizing decisions over where to head next.
Yes, as of last week I hadn't yet decided where to go after San Francisco. SO!
Here's what happened...
1. I'm in San Francisco seeing friends and going to the Sex Work Film Festival
2. I'm flying to NYC on Monday June 8 to spend a few days with Loralee and celebrate my 35th birthday. Yessssss!
3. I'm returning to Toronto for a few minutes!
After Toronto: Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, then back to SF in late July for a road trip with Loralee AND I will be living in SF doing this program. I'm so thrilled and honoured and excited to have been chosen for a program I respect so much.
Ok, borrowing a computer! Late to meet everyone! Love you lots!
xx
cg
p.s. props to Sunny Drake for pointing out that staying in Australia and Sydney in particular simply offers *different* challenges than leaving--the ones related to staying free and flexible when I start to get comfortable, in a familiar place surrounded by folks who know and care about me. Deep.
May 2, 2009
Leaving Australia
I've been in Australia for nearly a year and in about a month—on June 5, I leave. My next stop is the States but so far I only have about two weeks planned out. Beyond that I’m not sure and I don’t yet know when I’ll be coming to Toronto. I’m pretty sure it will be in 2009 but can’t say exactly when yet until I hear back from a training program I’ve applied to in San Francisco.
The reason I'm leaving Australia and not coming to Canada are the same. Well actually, I have to leave Australia because my visa is expiring but even if it wasn't, I'm ready to go. This country has been very good to me (as it often is for white folks) but I've gotten comfortable and I'm not really challenged anymore.
I've slept on a thousand beds, in truck cabs, cars, buses, planes, trains, floors, vans, backyard tents, grimy hostels, the couch of friends-of-friends', swags, a teepee and a wildly rocking sail boat. I've slept drenched in sweat, freezing in three layers of clothing, with my toes peeking over the end of a nine year old's bed, in a few farmhouses, a luxury resort, under the stars in the middle of the desert, in beachfront bungalows and my most memorable: in the Northern Territory, crammed into a back seat of a hatchback piled on top of my luggage with about a foot of space between my head and roof. I got around.
But the worm turned for me a few weeks ago at the launch for the book Femmes of Power. It was exactly what I'd be doing in Toronto. I mean, as if I wouldn't be at that launch. At the end of the night I had a slightly strained interaction with an acquaintance so I walked over to Pike and my friend Rachel and asked for reassurance "It's okay if not everyone likes me right?". "Of course! But you are liked! blahblahblah" they exclaimed. But something twigged inside. I knew that night that I'd been in Australia too long—I've started worrying what people think of me. And that, my friends, is the end of the fun.
I get all cozy when I’m in community surrounded by folks I’m connected to and share some kind of history with. So despite my efforts to remain on the margins, I slowly recreated major facets of the best parts of my life in Toronto: I made great friends, started to feel connected to the queer community and increasingly involved in community organizing. Oh, I fell in love too.
While that’s all very happy-making, those are not the best conditions for experimenting with life. When I feel comfortable, familiar and connected, there's a strong incentive not to keep taking risks that might result in negative effects on the relationships that have become to so important to me. Essentially, I become complacent, living my life in an everyday way and deepening my friendships instead of growing and challenging myself. I didn't cross the bloody planet to worry about whether Sydney queers will like me. Booooooring! So it's time to go. It's time to be strange and uncomfortable, lonely, liberated, homesick and new again. I want to put myself back on a steep learning curve and I need to create a heap of space so I can focus on a couple of writing projects that are dear to me.
So while I’ve started to get excited about visiting Toronto again, it’s not necessarily the best idea for me right now. It took me months of heartbreak to deal with my homesickness too so I’m not keen to re-open all those wounds when I know I’m not done travelling yet. I will keep you updated though.
OH! Some bizness to attend to!
I will write again later about what I got from Australia but for now, some bizness I need to attend to. First, my friend has been storing a bunch of my stuff in her basement for me but she is selling her house and I need a new storage solution by May 31. Does anyone have space I can use for a heap of boxes? I have been paying a monthly fee and am happy to continue doing so. Alternatively, is anyone willing to volunteer to move my stuff to a new storage space? It's a big favour and I can either pay, barter or thank profusely and bake for anyone who can.
Second: I have a mobile phone that a friend has been using while I've been gone. She no longer wants to keep using it and I could disconnect it and pay out the rest of the contract but it's a very good plan for cheap. Does anyone want to take over my cell? The cost is $45 for unlimited calls anytime day or night within Toronto. With taxes and assorted bullshit, it works out to $61/month. Your only responsibility would be to pay the bills on time and not wreck my credit rating as the phone stays under my name.
Thanks for your love and support peeps.
The reason I'm leaving Australia and not coming to Canada are the same. Well actually, I have to leave Australia because my visa is expiring but even if it wasn't, I'm ready to go. This country has been very good to me (as it often is for white folks) but I've gotten comfortable and I'm not really challenged anymore.
I've slept on a thousand beds, in truck cabs, cars, buses, planes, trains, floors, vans, backyard tents, grimy hostels, the couch of friends-of-friends', swags, a teepee and a wildly rocking sail boat. I've slept drenched in sweat, freezing in three layers of clothing, with my toes peeking over the end of a nine year old's bed, in a few farmhouses, a luxury resort, under the stars in the middle of the desert, in beachfront bungalows and my most memorable: in the Northern Territory, crammed into a back seat of a hatchback piled on top of my luggage with about a foot of space between my head and roof. I got around.
But the worm turned for me a few weeks ago at the launch for the book Femmes of Power. It was exactly what I'd be doing in Toronto. I mean, as if I wouldn't be at that launch. At the end of the night I had a slightly strained interaction with an acquaintance so I walked over to Pike and my friend Rachel and asked for reassurance "It's okay if not everyone likes me right?". "Of course! But you are liked! blahblahblah" they exclaimed. But something twigged inside. I knew that night that I'd been in Australia too long—I've started worrying what people think of me. And that, my friends, is the end of the fun.
I get all cozy when I’m in community surrounded by folks I’m connected to and share some kind of history with. So despite my efforts to remain on the margins, I slowly recreated major facets of the best parts of my life in Toronto: I made great friends, started to feel connected to the queer community and increasingly involved in community organizing. Oh, I fell in love too.
While that’s all very happy-making, those are not the best conditions for experimenting with life. When I feel comfortable, familiar and connected, there's a strong incentive not to keep taking risks that might result in negative effects on the relationships that have become to so important to me. Essentially, I become complacent, living my life in an everyday way and deepening my friendships instead of growing and challenging myself. I didn't cross the bloody planet to worry about whether Sydney queers will like me. Booooooring! So it's time to go. It's time to be strange and uncomfortable, lonely, liberated, homesick and new again. I want to put myself back on a steep learning curve and I need to create a heap of space so I can focus on a couple of writing projects that are dear to me.
So while I’ve started to get excited about visiting Toronto again, it’s not necessarily the best idea for me right now. It took me months of heartbreak to deal with my homesickness too so I’m not keen to re-open all those wounds when I know I’m not done travelling yet. I will keep you updated though.
OH! Some bizness to attend to!
I will write again later about what I got from Australia but for now, some bizness I need to attend to. First, my friend has been storing a bunch of my stuff in her basement for me but she is selling her house and I need a new storage solution by May 31. Does anyone have space I can use for a heap of boxes? I have been paying a monthly fee and am happy to continue doing so. Alternatively, is anyone willing to volunteer to move my stuff to a new storage space? It's a big favour and I can either pay, barter or thank profusely and bake for anyone who can.
Second: I have a mobile phone that a friend has been using while I've been gone. She no longer wants to keep using it and I could disconnect it and pay out the rest of the contract but it's a very good plan for cheap. Does anyone want to take over my cell? The cost is $45 for unlimited calls anytime day or night within Toronto. With taxes and assorted bullshit, it works out to $61/month. Your only responsibility would be to pay the bills on time and not wreck my credit rating as the phone stays under my name.
Thanks for your love and support peeps.
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