Thunderbirds and Uncle

uncle rod’s sweater, vancouver island

uncle rod (roger) always hated his name. my tattooed merchant marine loved to cook italian food, traveled the world, and had on-going card correspondences with his brother, my father, in which they would send jokes via snail mail. they would banter and challenge one another for the most outrageous salutation.
‘you can call you know’, connie would say.
‘yeah, or go visit’, eye roll from Mary.
‘this is funner!’ said my dad.
in uncle’s advanced emphysema (he loved to smoke, many packs per day, for many years), when his body was so frail and thin, and he could hardly eat, as taking breath and chewing are at odds with one another, he gifted me this beautiful sweater (1940s, vancouver island).
‘i never knew why i kept this for so many years’, he said. ‘now i do’, as he tossed it on my lap.
‘oh uncle!’
i am in love with this sweater as it is my uncle, his days on the docks and on the ships.

Thunderbird lives.

Thunderbird, Condor, appear here, to fix, to make all broken, all right, now and forever.

frozen flowers

hello my heart, here in a window box, outside this restaurant.
how did all of this begin?, i ask my sadness.
the black road, as smooth as glass, promises distance. my beloveds hold me up and i am grateful.
the road reminds of the Missing and Murdered Women’s Memorial March, every Valentine’s day, and how people ended up, so alone.

everyone has their day of understanding. when was it, dear sadness, when i first thought of the Indian residential schools (irs)?
was it in the classroom, when i was teaching? or the times when one or two students would angrily cry out, ‘you are making this up!’; ‘this never could have happened!’; ‘the U.S. did this, not Canada!’; and ‘Canada would never have done this!’

i have a gentle hand. i try to speak carefully, mindful that what i say about the iron fist upon NDN people is necessary to know, and, is often met with the equally iron will of determination that ‘no, this can not be.’ how to speak and teach of such true truths?
those more active activists, more in-your-face f-you-ers, hate me. they say i am not hard enough, angry enough, with my words.
don’t worry my dear friends and allies, i am hurt and angry enough for the both of us.
i say what i must say, and how i must say.
no guilt, no shame, no blame.
with an iron weaver’s painter’s teacher’s hand of my own, my ‘lay down for no one’, ‘come with me and let’s build’ stubborn ancestors, let’s go.
history is. just is. like the sky. or, more accurately, in this instance, like a sky with a chemical trail.
time to fix. time to put back together what has been purposefully broken apart.

first bark ever purchased and it feels strange but what can you do?

from a friend

first hat give away

abalone cedar bark

black bear meets hello kitty

gifts

raven came to lunch and shared my crackers

raven rain cape (raven said). 2013. tapa cloth, wool, thread. on display at UBC 2013.

at UBC MOA
we sat out in the gorgeous sun, after freezing all morning in a room as cold as hell. you can’t scare me with heat.

Raven came by, so shy, it seemed, hopping along the far wall, as if his feet were too hot to land for more than one second.

‘hi pal’, i said, holding a cracker so he could see, and placing it on the ledge across the courtyard near a rhododendron. he played scared, and then, on seeing another raven close in on the cracker, food jealousy overrode his pretence. as they bickered, close enough to pet, i set my stack down, between their legs, lucky to have this lesson.

a lady said, ‘don’t feed the wild life’, looking at me like i just emerged from a cave.
another said, ‘now they are going to poo all over’, as she shrugged her shoulders to protect from these imaginary droppings.
Raven said, ‘who you calling ‘wild’?’, grabbed his crackers, tried to talk with them in his mouth, and flew away.

so dear Ravens, this tapacloth ‘raven rain cape’ is for you.

coast to coast on tea and toast

strawberries

it is not that i don’t want to eat. i just run out of time, or i get busy, or i think, ‘i really don’t like anything right now’.
except toast. mmm toast!

tapa hat in the shape of a lotus; tapa cape in the shape of grasses

hat and cape

auntie said

maria emma

oh my little emma…..

she is 91 now. i want her to live here with me, but she says she will be too bored, as all i do is work.

i found a mystery. photographs of her and my mother, years apart, as girls. each in the same pose, kneeling on the same kneeler, holding the same white candle, wearing the exact same dress. they don’t even look like cousins.
’emma, how come?’ i have asked.
she ignored me.
’emma, how come?’ i kept pestering for a few years.
nothing.
’emma, where were you in this picture?’
‘it was the orphanage where your mother and i went to school’, she finally said.
‘the nuns treated some of us very badly.’
i knew better than to say anything at all. not one word.
‘it was terrible. Jesus tells us not to remember such things.’

emma and mom went to school to the equivalent of US 3rd grade. they learned to sew, embroider, and write, a little bit. she thought she’d be a maid for a wealthy family some day, sweeping, eating scraps, as her grandmother had.

Missy

girl friends