Travellin’ Roots
I’ve got travelling roots. The kind that seem to need only a jar of water and a good dose of sunshine. They come from my grandparents, displaced during or after the second world war, and the community of Latvians that managed to find each other and gather together in Southern Ontario. They started schools and credit unions and folk dance groups and published cookbooks, holding onto the culture of their homeland while far, far away.
Sunflower Fairytale
Once upon a time, I was just a little girl. Born under the burning summer’s sun into a teeny, tiny town where I lived for years and years and years.
In this little town of mine, there were rivers and lakes and streams. There were fruit trees and bushels and all of the raspberries, peaches, cherries and pears any little girl could dream of.
Attack the Roots
The time is coming in which we will need to begin to seriously consider enhancing efforts of resistance to systemic injustices that are rooted within society. The time has come to ‘attack the roots’ of capitalism and the ills that it brings and reinforces throughout society. It is time to consider community-supported forms of struggle and resistance against the very system that has, for too long now, been predicated on oppression and injustice so a few may benefit. This is the time to resist.
Untitled
It has taken me twenty-three years to come to the realization and acceptance that my identity has experienced trauma. It has been hard; hard to accept and even harder to heal.
I am First Nations and I am Cree. I moved to Waterloo in the fall of 2008 and it was by being here, living away from my friends and family and away from my comfort zone, that being First Nations first took hold of my identity.
Disconnected Roots
I have a photocopied handout of my family’s origin that was passed around at a 1994 family reunion: The Borutski family reunion. I didn’t attend because I was so small and unaware of where they—my family—came from. They came from Round Lake; that is all I ever needed to know. In this handout, something of which I have poured over many times since it was given to me a year or so ago, reading and re-reading it, I discovered the origin of my family on my mother’s side. I saw the first house built by my great-great-great-great grandfather and his dozens of sons.
Untitled
My actions are not definitive. My existence is fluid. When you think you can look at my life in pieces, reductions, fragments-single moments of action—you forget that I, like you, am a system and despite aging I do not exist in a sequential pattern based on my past, or future. There are times when I am moving because of my past, and there are also times when my currentness would not dictate the movement of my future.
Roots and Wings
Roots and wings. It’s a phrase we’ve heard in graduation speeches, teen films and parental heart-to-hearts, all stressing the importance of preserving your past while flying the coop and following your dreams. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s difficult, and sometimes – despite our best efforts – it’s not done at all. So what’s the big deal? Isn’t it easy to break with the past and throw caution to the wind? (Any traditional movie hero would have you think so).
These Are Your Neighbours
In January of this year, I began writing a weekly column for Imprint, the University of Waterloo’s student newspaper. Called These Are Your Neighbours, my column focuses on progressive community organizing and collective action in Kitchener -Waterloo. Each week, I interview a local person who is involved in mobilizing members of our community around a common issue and who works together with these people to develop creative ways of addressing and responding to the issue.
A Radical, Rooted Musical
I’m sure your attention has been brought, throughout this issue, to the connection between the words “radical” and “rooted”. Rooted: A New Musical was created in the space where these two words overlap and diverge. It emerged ‘from the roots’, rooted in our own lives and communities and experiences, but stretching beyond these, and seeking to become rooted again in the new community that grew around it, and to spread seeds of change.
Good Genes
She looked haggard and tired, like she’d lived a hard life. A veteran and hero of the great war that had been her life. She would have gotten a Purple Heart. She sauntered, defiant and proud in her old age, to the front of a classroom, leaning heavily on her crutches, where she would deliver the same speech as she did every time a teacher asked her to introduce students to the marvels of her library. She stood behind her podium, waiting for everyone to get back into class and resume their seats.
Love
A man of good stature leaves the CEO’s office, closing the door behind him to end the day. In a fine suit, younger than his newborn daughter, he makes his way out of the office building and to his car.
“Going home to meet the flowers,” he sings to himself.
The flowers in tune are the multi-coloured roses that were delivered to his wife this morning.
ROOTS for the Interview of
Blueprint Correspondent here! I was afforded the rare opportunity to interview the prolific writer Arthur Rousseau, who is best known for his memoirs (remarkable, considering the market is oversaturated with memoirs) and non-fiction.
“Ode” To Garlic
Clove by clove
you grow,
a white flower blooming into a
SHOWER PUNCH (POW!) of Pazzah
in my mouth.
Dear William
When I turned eleven, they found me in the orphanage. My orphanage.
They found me and took me and they proved with their science that I’m your descendant. Your “direct” descendant. Your great grandson, eighth generation.
“My God,” they said.
Ex
Last night I saw you in the field outside my window.
It was light out, although I knew it was nighttime
when I saw you, and I could tell that you had been
laboring at something.
The Big Rooted Tree
In my elementary school playground
there was a great, glorious tree.
I dubbed it ‘The Big Rooted Tree’.
Beholder VI
In a distant land, a dryad weeps for her sister, lost to a careless man-made fire that destroyed her binding tree.
My Radical Body
News, everyone. Big news. My thighs are beautiful. Not beautiful like the lifeless two-dimensional Photoshop thighs. Those are, well, like I said: lifeless. That set of thighs has no character, no qualities that would distinguish them from the two-dimensional Photoshop set of thighs on the next page.
Battlescars
It may cause confusion. It may alter your sense of taste. It may cause nausea or vomiting. With prolonged use, it may cause modest weight gain.
But it will also make you happy, maybe, with the right dosage, for some people, did I mention it might also cause a worsening of symptoms, might increase suicidal feelings? The list of side effects goes on, it’s especially long when you’re taking up to seven different psychiatric medications. Oh and the “modest” weight gain worked out to be about 30lbs, and I already had body image issues.
Trans Story
I came here to tell you a story about being a trans person.
I have a hundred stories to tell you.
I have stories about the looks of revulsion, anger, shock and naked confusion I get when I use a public washroom.
About the men on the bus who undress me with their eyes, like my identity is a puzzle they have a frantic need to put together.
