Mitigoog Call Me Home

This essay was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize; news articles about the piece can be found here and here.

–

My white grandma has a photo of me at four years old. Blue butterfly on my t-shirt, feet planted on a branch. One hand steadying myself against mitig’s trunk, the other on my hip. I have the kind of wide-toothed smile only an abinoonjiinh can have, the kind that makes it clear the world has not gotten to me yet. 

–

I am six when we move to the old house. We are renting, nimomma and I, from my white grandparents. They bought this house as a rental property; it was built in the 1970s, and thirty years later, it retains the same russet cupboards and peeling yellow linoleum. 

I did not could not understand why we were moving four hours away from dad to live here. There were kids to play with and elderly neighbours serving me warm chocolate chip cookies on my old street. Here, the houses do not touch and the neighbour kids do not play with me. 

Nimomma says this is home now. I affix princess stickers to my bedroom wall and make friends with the mitigoog in my backyard.

–

I feel the eyes of my new classmates on me before I speak to them. I do not have to say anything to know that I am different. I am mixed-race, and do not have the kind of house or family that everyone else in my class seems to. 

At Christmastime, I ask my teacher if I can make separate gifts, one for my dad and one for nimomma. They live in different houses, I explain, and I do not know when dad will visit ours next. 

The boy next to me asks, “So is your dad dead, or did your parents get a divorce?”. He flashes me a cheshire cat smile as he emphasises his first syllable. Dee-vorce. 

“Neither,” I tell him, “my dad never married my mom.”

“Then he must not be your real dad,” he replies. When I ask nimomma where my real dad is, she scowls.

–

My classmates and their nuclear families have backyards enclosed by white picket fences. My house is enclosed by two rows of azaadiwag and oziisigobiminzhiig.

I may not have a nice house, but I can have a nice treehouse, I think. Determined, I find the two sturdiest mitigoog in my yard and decide that these will form its foundation. I forage for wood scraps, forming a pile at the trees’ base so I remember which ones I have chosen. This will make it easier for dad to build, I think to myself.

My father never builds the treehouse.  

–

Nimomma assures me that my father loves me, the mitigoog just aren’t sturdy enough for him to build a treehouse with. I’ve climbed them before, and I know they can hold me. She kisses my forehead for foraging the wood scraps, tells me she will use them as kindling for this summer’s ishkode.

At my white family reunions, relatives spend an afternoon peacocking their children’s accomplishments while playing organized games. When my Anishinaabe family gets together, we spend weeks laughing, crying and telling stories around ishkode while NCI ‘friends on Friday’ plays in the background. 

Each year, a new cousin is assigned to babysit me. I know this is not really for my benefit: nimomma is reprieving her siblings of putting food on the table for a few weeks, and paying my cousins an allowance to support their families. When my aunties and uncles visit, we squeeze everyone wherever they can fit: mattresses in the basement, tents in the backyard, cots in the garage. 

Summers are a source of tension between my parents.

“Can’t I get some damn peace and quiet?”, yells my father.

“They’re my family,” replies nimomma, “I won’t say no to my family”.

–

In September, our new teacher asks what we did during the summer. Most kids in my class have gone on vacation or to sleepover summer camp. I envy the summer camp kids, but I remind myself that I already live amidst mitigoog and tell stories by ishkode.

That year, I have a grand idea: I am going to start a soccer league with all my classmates, so they can fall in love with mitigoog too. 

At show and tell, I share my plan. We will play on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and my dad, who can do anything, will coach us. I don’t have a net, not yet, but the mitigoog are spaced out perfectly in my backyard for us to practice with. I know, because I have been practicing.

I do not remember anyone signing up. I do remember my father’s outburst at me for proposing the idea. 

“Are you insane?” he asks. “I thought you just wanted to have some friends over for an afternoon. I can’t drive three and a half hours to be there twice a week.”

But you could be here, I think but do not say.

–

I am fifteen when we move to the new house, the one my parents own. This one is lined with mashkiigwaatigoog and gaawaandagoog, and there is ceramic tile in our kitchen instead of linoleum. 

My parents get engaged as the leaves turn colour. I ask nimomma how she could marry my father when he has spent so much time leaving us.

“You will understand when you fall in love,” she tells me. “When you love someone, you never stop loving them, no matter the time and space between you”.

–

At eighteen, I move to Algonquin territory, where the land is full of ziinzibaakwadwaatigoog and aniibiig. Here, I go for runs under canopies of mitigoog near my campus and break away to the mitigwaaki of Outaouais when I can. Here I am the keener in all my university classes, except one.

In statistics sits a boy I often have my eye on but rarely the courage to speak to. In our tutorial together, my heart flutters; I watch him laugh with his friends instead of running the software for our assignments. He is all from that class I remember.

Years later, I work up the courage to ask him to be my senior gala date. Covid cuts our formal plans short, and we promise to keep in touch as we move across the country from each other. Separated by thousands of kilometres, he tells me, “People do a talking with little action, but I felt the need to not be that person and let you know in the least friendship-ruining way possible that I am crushing on you”.

His text makes me melt, but I’m not ready to commit to a long-distance relationship and neither is he. We spend the next year joking about meeting up and making vague international plans for our respective futures. I want to study in Aotearoa. He wants to study in England. “Let’s keep each other posted on our international contenders,” I tell him, “Maybe one day we’ll end up abroad together”.

I call him one night to toy with the idea of seeing each other in person. Mid-conversation, I hang up the phone, book a two week trip, and send him a screenshot of my tickets. “Holy shit”, he texts me. “Holy shit is right”, I reply back, breathless at my own bold move.

People do a talking with little action, I think. I want to be the one who takes action in the most friendship-ruining way possible.

—

We start dating three weeks later. I tell statistics boy that I adore him. He jokingly points out to me that adorer means “to love” in French. I already know I love him, I’m just too nervous to say it.

On our call that night, I open up to him about my biggest fear: losing him when we go away to do our Masters. He tells me he wants to find a way to make us work, even from different continents.

“Hypothetically speaking,” he says, “If I were to say the L word, would you want me to wait? Because I’m ready to take the leap now”.

I know exactly why he is offering me the L-word. It is his assurance that this is going to work. That we are going to be the lucky ones who beat the odds and survive long-distance.

“Say it”, I plead.

“I love you, Taylor”, he says for the first time.

“I love you too”, I say, words melting effortlessly out of my mouth.

In that moment, my beloved and I become an ishkode, adamant to burn bright no matter the time and space between us.

—

We call for hours every night, fly back and forth every month. Every trip spent together is a romance movie I never want to end; he makes me feel as at home among the ziinzibaakwadwaatigoog as I do for him among the χpey̓əɬp. Nimomma is right; at twenty-two, I am in love, and I never want it to stop.

Four months into our relationship, my beloved and I are in Lək̓ʷəŋən territory, lingering in a restaurant doorway as an oziisigobiminzh sways beside us. It is here that I have the conversation I have been dreaming of my entire life.

I tell him I have something important to say. As he hovers above me, the words “You’re the love of my life, and I want to be with you for a very long time, if not forever” tumble recklessly out of my mouth. I speak my words so close together they nearly touch.

With a knowing laugh, he replies with surety. “You’re the love of my life too. I’ll take the leap and say I for sure want to be with you forever.”

He leans in. We kiss, and the entire world stops.

Forever, I think. He is mine forever.

—

I am twenty-four when I read about the wild conifers invading Tāhuna Hill. “These may look like alpine trees fit for skiing,” reads a Department of Conservation sign, “but in reality, they are an introduced species, growing in the wrong place”.

I too am an introduced species in Māori territory. Three months prior, I left my beloved to pursue a coveted Research Assistantship in Aotearoa. The night before being separated by fourteen thousand kilometres, we promise not to let long-distance come between us.

One hundred and three days later, the strain of time and space on our relationship is palpable. I know now that I, like the conifer, have been planted in the wrong place.

–

That August, my beloved breaks my heart against an oziisigobiminzh. The willow tree, a symbol of mourning across cultures.

“A willow would make for a perfect wedding arch,” I think out loud, staring up at its billowy branch curtain. 

“This is not the time,” he replies, releasing his grip on my hand as he ducks underneath it. 

You’re right,” I resign. I just don’t know how to imagine a future that does not have you in it, I think, but do not say. I reach for his hand again, knowing he no longer wants to hold my own.

–

Neither “Giga-waabamin miinawaa” nor “Au revoir” have a direct translation to goodbye, so we agree upon a see you later. Reluctantly separated by time and space, he moves to England and I do not follow him.

The willow tree, a symbol of rebirth and the endurance of love. I comfort myself with a promise that my beloved and I will return to one another when we are ready. For now, it is time for me to return to the mitigoog that raised me.

–

I am twenty-five and devastated. I move home because I do not know where else to go. I collapse into nimomma’s arms on airport carpet and she folds me into an asemaa-scented embrace.

“My girl,” she coos, the way mothers do. “Remember that you are a strong okitcitakwe. Your father and I will strengthen you until we get you back on your feet.”

I was a teenager when I last lived here. The first step of this healing journey is relearning how to live with my parents as an adult. I practice with my father while he is watching television. 

“You are not allowed to yell anymore,” I state, “At me or at mom. Or else I will leave. Understood?”.

“Understood”, he replies.

He has not yelled at me since. 

–

I relearn how to be my father’s daughter amidst the mashkiigwaatigoog and gaawaandagoog. In the seven years I spent away from home, my father has groomed a trail to walk our animosh, and every evening calls for another lap around the yard. 

Over the autumn months, we overcome our mutual mistrust. One afternoon, he finds me crying in my bedroom. 

“How did you forgive yourself for leaving?” I ask, as the one who has left and been left behind.

“I still wish I had a reset button to take my mistakes away,” he whispers.

My father breaks stoic character, if only for a split second. I do not tell him then, but it is the moment I forgive him.

–

“What are you processing in therapy this week?”, nimomma asks. 

“The last time dad yelled at me,” I tell her. 

Every time my memories threaten to engulf me, my therapist reminds me I have already survived the worst. I will only find freedom if I am brave enough to confront the past, she tells me.  

That night, nimomma writes me an apology I have been waiting years to hear: 

“I am sorry that you didn’t have a dad that was stable in your early life and teenage years. I understand how this led to anxiety for you. Even though I tried to give you safety, it should have been more.”

Her text makes me cry more than therapy does that week. Knowing it is not my fault, was never my fault, sets a small part of me free.

–

As the weeks between my being home and moving away again close in, I decide to tell my father I forgive him. I read somewhere that difficult conversations are made easier when two people are facing the same direction. I broach the subject while we are driving.

“I am sorry for harbouring anger against you all these years,” I say, facing forward. 

“Love you, kiddo,” he says back, also facing forward. “I’m glad you’re home. We should hang out more.” 

It is an imperfect apology between two imperfect people, and it heals us both.

I remind him that we only have two more weeks together to do that. He reminds me that we still have the rest of our lives.

–

Back on my feet, I move out of my parents’ home and into my own in England. Nimomma and I promise to write each other. I do not tell statistics boy. I’m not sure he wants to know.

Nimomma sources her first card from a responsibly managed forest. On it, she writes, “One little interesting tidbit I have learned: Storms make trees grow deeper roots. Trees react to stress by building mass to stand even stronger.”

I stare up at the wiigwaasaatigoog outside my window in their rangy, mottled glory, and know this to be true, about them and about me too. I smile, knowing that no matter where I am in this big, blue world, mitigoog are there, reminding me that I am never far from my roots. 

My beloved and I were separated by time and space before we got the chance to grow deeper roots. But I hope that wherever he is on this big, blue earth, statistics boy is looking out at an oziisigobiminzh, knowing my love is never far from him too.

–

Translations:

Words below are in Anishinaabemowin unless otherwise noted.

Abinoonjiinh - Child.

Mitigoog - Trees (plural).

Mitig - Tree (singular).

Nimomma - My Mother.

Ishkode - Fire.

Azaadiwag - Poplar trees (plural).

Mitigwaaki - Woods/Forest.

Ziinzibaakwadwaatigoog - Maple trees (plural).

Aniibiig - American Elm trees (plural).

χpey̓əɬp - Red Cedar tree (singular). *hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (Musqueam)

Le:y̓əɬp - Douglas Fir tree (singular). *hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ (Musqueam)

Oziisigobiminzhiig - Willow trees (plural).

Oziisigobiminzh: Willow tree (singular).

Giga-waabamin miinawaa - Until I see you again.

Au revoir - Until we see each other again. *French

Asemaa - Tobacco.

Okitcitakwe - Warrior woman.

Mashkiigwaatigoog - Tamarack trees (plural).

Gaawaandagoog - White spruce trees (plural).

Animosh - Dog.

Wiigwaasaatigoog - Birch trees (plural).

Je ne t'oublierai jamais, silly goofy French summer camp

It is just before midnight on July 6th when my taxi drops me off at Pavillion Alphonse Marie-Parent, the student residence headquarters of Université Laval. Having scraped by on broken French in the cab ride, I am admittedly nervous about my decision to move to Québec. I take a deep breath in, remind myself that if I was brave enough to spend a month solo backpacking through Europe, then I am brave enough to be here too.

—

I joined the Explore program not because I had university credits to fulfil, but because I genuinely longed to learn French. I was never a French immersion student (I didn’t even know immersion was an option until eleventh grade) but from fourth grade until my first year of university, I was ever the keener in my French classes. Then in second year, my progress stalled because I never made it off the waitlist for my 200 level course. I took gender studies 101 instead, a course that changed the trajectory of my life. I don’t regret the way my university path unfolded - I never would have come out as bisexual or started advocating for comprehensive sexual education without it. But for seven years, I let my second language slip away from me, and that part I have always regret.

Last year, my declining language abilities came to a head at a café in Montréal. I couldn’t remember how to order my breakfast; words coming out wrong, I had a full-blown, very public panic attack. I was deeply disappointed in myself; I was in love with a Francophone I badly wanted to be bilingual for and felt I had failed us both. “Learn French for your career”, he would plead, and I would insist “But this is for you first”. Soon after, I put my name in a lottery draw for five free weeks of French immersion classes - for me, for him, and what I thought would be for us.

—

A year later, I was begrudgingly single and dreading the summer I was about to spend at French camp. I loved the language, but with an entirely Anglophone circle of loved ones, I now had no one to speak it with. Learning a language alone felt pointless. I was travel fatigued and homesick after a month on the road, kicking myself for not resting between adventures. I was also judging myself hard for my decision - most of my friends had taken this program in their early twenties, and at twenty-six, I felt behind the rest of my peers for prioritizing a language program over my career progress.

All my reservations were amplified by the summer camp atmosphere of the program: the coloured bracelets we had to wear at all times, the “cartes vertes” we would receive from our animateurs/animatrices every time we spoke French, the excursions (field trips, basically) they guided us to. “Vous êtes capable”, they would say to me when I instinctively broke into my mother tongue. Whenever they weren’t looking, I rolled my eyes like an angsty teenager; but deep down, I knew they were right. I was capable. I just needed to commit.

Living in Quebéc and committing to speaking French - not just in class or on our excursions, but in all of my day-to-day interactions - felt like the most nerve-wracking French exposure therapy that I could think of. But I knew I wanted to show my old perfectionist self that I could make mistakes and keep going. That no matter how many years had passed, I still retained more than I thought. That pushing through this could make me fall in love with learning a language for the sake of learning it again.

—

I was more capable of thriving in this environment than I was giving myself credit for. But to make the most of my summer, I had to stop trying to beat the program, and start joining it. In came an invitation from one of the girls in my class - “Shaker tonight?” she offered. Shaker was a restaurant-turned-student bar that all the early twenty-somethings partied at on Wednesday nights. I mulled over whether to go. I had class the next morning, and I felt immature for prioritizing going out over studying. But I also knew that an important part of falling in love with the French language was experiencing local Quebécois culture - so who cared if some of those experiences were a little juvenile?

“I’m in”, I texted, and met the girls on a residence balcony. We shared our life stories, and I opened up to them about the book I was writing. They promised me they would each order a copy one day. A few drinks and giggles later, we grabbed our rental vélos and biked to Shaker. Inside was an atmosphere straight out of my undergraduate days: girls toting wine bottles, smokers huddled on the patio, pop music videos projected on the walls. “Let’s dance,” I declared, leading our quad to an empty spot on the dance floor. We made friends with a trio of locals who laughed at us for not knowing any French songs. Before any of us could get into any true mischief - we all had class in six hours, after all - we snuck around the corner to a greasy pizza joint and shared our communal garlic dips in generous girl fashion.

A few days later, another girl from my class invited me to Bar Ste-Angèle, a jazz bar that would grow to become one of my favourite places in Quebéc. No matter the night, it was a vibe; moody dim lighting, musicians electrified by their passion, fairy drawings strewn around the room. Our group spoke broken Franglais to a sweet server, and though my cocktail was awful, the pictures we hyped each other up for made up for it. Walking out after a melodic set, one of my friends went back to ask for a local’s number. I gave them their space while the other girls watched obnoxiously through the window. When she got the number, we all cheered.

The following morning, I headed out on one of our program’s planned excursions, a white water rafting trip down the Jacques-Cartier River. After a lengthy safety demonstration, everyone kitted up in wetsuits and paddles and set off. Every time we rowed over a rapid, our group piled into our raft in a fit of giggles. We made stops along the way for swimming and cliff jumping. When it started pouring rain, we parked ourselves on a flat rock to eat granola bars, drink juice boxes and admire the petite grenouilles that hopped around us. When my teeth started chattering, my guide took note and wrapped me in an oversized fleece sweater for the rest of my journey. I left feeling like a little kid on a field trip in the most lighthearted of ways.

—

Midterm week marked the start of my birthday celebrations. Truth be told, I was dreading my twenty sixth birthday; I had spent the past three summers throwing larger-than-life themed parties with the Francophone; without him to grow older alongside, I felt like I didn’t have anything to celebrate. “I wish I could skip the day entirely,” I told my therapist, and made a vow to myself not to expect anything more than a medium-feeling day. Fortunately, the girls in my program had other plans for me.

I was lucky enough to share a birthday with one of my closest classmates, and we threw not one but two girls nights out together. The first brought us to jjacques, a speakeasy hidden behind a nondescript doorway in Saint-Roch. I made the mistake of biking (and getting lost on the way) there, so I was the last of my party to arrive. The girls didn’t bat an eye at my lateness and simply placed a cocktail menu in front of my plate as I settled in. One of them wore a shirt that matched mine - both definitely purchased at the Aritzia sale in the mall nearest our dorm rooms. We shared a laugh about it, then dove deep into a group conversation about collaborating on a book together (one girl would tell the story orally, I would ghost write it, and two others would design its front and back covers - see how girls get shit done!). We luxuriated our small plates of octopus and oysters and sauntered into the street to start our soirée.

We headed to Phoenix, a jaunt with two incredibly different vibes. Up top was a mostly empty dance floor, decorated by a single acoustic guitarist playing French cult classics. In the basement was a rave-y nightclub, obnoxiously flanked by shutter shades and lasers. I laughed at the juxtaposition of it all. We each grabbed a pair of shades and hit the dance floor until overstimulation got the better of us. Back on the streets of downtown Quebéc, we ran into one of the local Quebécois trio members, who led us to a club flilled with edgy, well-dressed techno lovers reminiscent of my early summer nights spent in Berlin. I was keen to stay, but the girls made an executive decision for us to head home - we had energy to conserve for our next night out, after all. I spent the bus ride back to campus chatting with our peers as they returned from their respective nights out. Quebéc was a city small enough to run into people everywhere I went; a quality that made it quickly feel like home.

—

Saturday began with a zip-lining group excursion. The girls and I boarded the mid-morning bus with anticipatory chatter about night out number two. Upon our arrival, we geared up in carabiners and harnesses, and headed out on an obstacle course tucked into Boreal forest. A huge fan of heights, I navigated the afternoon with ease, shrieking joyfully as I launched myself off of zipline platforms hundreds of metres above the river below.

The girls convened on the back of the bus to begin plotting what we would need for the night ahead: cake, candles, wine. I got myself ready (which devolved into a lengthy solo karaoke dance party), and bussed to the Hilton, cake and candles in hand. I cut to the hotel bar to kindly request a knife and brought the goods up to our room. We turned our cake into a photo prop and our hotel beds to a dance floor. As Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” played in the background, I stared at my friends in admiration, thinking, This is the epitome of girlhood, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

The rest of the night was silly goofy fun spent at Dagobert, the infamous Quebéc club and subject of most memes posted around our animateurs’ office. The birthday girls (myself included) strutted in party hats as everyone in the club said some variation of “Joyeux anniversaire!” and “Quel âge as-tu?”. We bumped into our other friends in the program as house remixes blared and foam poured from the ceiling - the Quebécois really do know how to party. Sitting on the patio for a donair and debrief, the girls and I detailed our dating lives, declaring “We all deserve the best” before getting each other safely home in shared taxis.

—

Sunday was a solo day. I took my vélo downtown, making a pit stop in Montcalm along the way. The sweet baristas at Olive Café told me I spoke French very well, which made my heart melt. I went vintage shopping and bought myself an iconic red lace jumpsuit in preparation for Osheaga the following weekend. I dedicated the rest of the afternoon to writing, the ritual that fills my cup most. I fuelled up for the afternoon with drinks and snacks at de Terroir Café and Carrotte Joyeuse Épicerie Santé, then settled into a seat at Bibliothéque Claire-Martin and wrote until close. On my vélo ride home, I played a little game with myself, challenging myself to pull over and take a photo every time I saw something beautiful. I had to pull over four times.

Monday brought me to Montréal for a whirlwind visit. I caught the bus after class to reconnect with a friend I hadn’t seen in years but never stopped feeling close to. I was incredibly nervous to practice my French with him (a native speaker), but he pushed gently past my nerves and pointed out that my ability to pick up the language after a seven year hiatus was something to be proud of. We caught up on our lives and lovers, and he didn’t flinch when I teared up sharing my hard chapters. When the server surprised me with a candle-adorned passionfruit pavlova (something he told them to bring out when I wasn’t looking), I nearly cried tears of joy. He got me back to my bus and stayed awake until I got home to my dorm room safely; a much needed reminder of the caring circle that surrounds me.

—

The celebrations continued through to Tuesday, my actual birthday. That morning, I let myself sleep in and brought cupcakes to share with my classmates; something special for my summer baby inner child who never got the opportunity to growing up. In the afternoon came a canoe expedition, another planned excursion with the program. My group paddled down the Saint-Charles River, admiring Hurons and gushing in French about our favourite books along the way. When we got to shore, I showed one of the animatrices my website and mentioned that I’d written a new post about turning another year older. She ducked away to whisper something to the other animateurs, and I instantly knew what was coming next.

“BONNE FÉTE TAYLEUUUUUUR” sang a chorus of people around me, followed by “Chanson Quebecoise d'Anniversaires”, a birthday-ified version of the Quebécois anthem “Gens du Pays”. I smiled big while eating my birthday cake (a two-bite brownie). We loaded back into our canoe and paddled toward a perfect summer backdrop; sun glimmering golden on the water, cicadas humming in the distance. My group got deep into a discussion about “fréquentations”, arriving at the same conclusion all girls do - we deserve better than “u up?” texts and being left on read for days.

Getting off the bus, I got ready and bussed downtown to catch the last jazz set at Bar Ste-Angèle with my girls. I knew better than to order a lousy cocktail this time, and sat in a booth soaking in the music instead. When the other girls finished theirs, we got the check and headed toward home. None of us were dressed properly to ride a vélo - we were all in skirts and heels, not helmets - but we did it anyways. We got honked at but not pulled over, which we declared a success. “Bonne nuit!” I sang out as we parked our vélos in their charging stations. “À bientôt!” they called back, waving as we walked back to our respective residence buildings.

I felt sad that my birthday was drawing to a close, something that surprised me considering the complicated feelings I’d been holding in its anticipation. I checked my phone and mailbox, surprised with an outpouring of love from friends and family all over the world. Some had eagerly texted me before midnight. Some wrote me paragraphs to tell me what my writing meant to them. Others called and sent voice memos because a text didn’t feel big enough to celebrate me. One recorded a video with their dog and mom to show me I was a part of their family. And my own, very Anglophone family wrote me a card in French to tell me how proud they were of my language journey.

The Francophone did not text me. I cried about that. And still, I went to sleep with a full heart, reminded that I was deeply loved and worth a celebration all my own.

—

Week four was marked by Soirée chic, my program’s prom night equivalent. I put on a long black dress, my hair up in a bow, and headed to the bleachers with a bottle of orange wine in tow. A group of us had “girl dinner” together: charcuterie and cherries, mostly. We spent the evening talking about the places we came from and what we planned to do with our newfound language skills next.

Prom night itself was a bust; I caught the last hour of terrible music on a mostly empty dance floor. My favourite animatrice was there; we shut the event down together, laughing in Franglais about the ridiculousness of our silly goofy summer French camp. Bust aside, watching the sun set over a football field before going dancing was the embodiment of a high school movie I never got to star in but always wanted to. If bringing cupcakes to class was for my inner child, then Soirée chic fulfilled the desires of my inner teenager.

—

Saturday morning brought with it a cidery tour, another one of the program’s planned excursions. Whoever planned for it to be at ten in the morning was playing a cruel joke on us, I think; every cider we tried tasted sickly sweet. However, the grounds of Cidrerie Verger Bilodeau, a tiny quaint barn nestled on the back of a sprawling orchard, more than made up for it. I could see rolling hills in the distance that reminded me of my own, back home in Riding Mountain. Wandering toward them, I noticed one of the guys in the program doing the same. We chatted about our respective career paths in French and the cultures we belonged to in English. As I began sharing about Anishinaabe ceremonies, I saw my first ashkibagoog of the summer, fluttering on swaying milkweed. Ashkibagoog, a symbol of my ancestors. “Boozhoo, nookomis!” I greeted her, giggling. I explained their significance to my family, and he told me my history was beautiful. “How can I learn more about your culture?” he asked. I told him to hit the Powow trail and watch us dance.

—

The rest of my afternoon in Île d'Orléans was split between eating ice cream and visiting Parc de la Chute-Montmorency. I was heading to Montréal again that afternoon, and one of the girls was kind enough to provide me a comprehensive list of recommendations from her perspective as a local. The Montmorency waterfalls and flora around them were beautiful, albeit buzzing with tourists. I had just long enough to snap some photographs before calling an Uber to my next adventure.

Montréal was one of the highlights of my summer. I was lucky to stay with a friend I reconnected with during my time in Barcelona, and she showed me all the best places. We ate at Bar Bara, danced at Bar Baby and thrifted at Marché Underground. Our Osheaga day was spent watching Tyla, Hozier and Sza in awe and sneaking into VIP sections we had no business being in. On Monday morning, we strolled through the fruit stalls of Marché Atwater and admired the flowers of Daisy Peterson Sweeney Park, where two older women told us that the positive energy of our spirit guides were emanating around us (a little woo-woo for me, but I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless). It started raining shortly after that, which could onlly mean one thing: indulging in comfort carbs from St-Viateur Bagels. Belly and heart full, I caught the bus back to Quebéc for my last week of the program.

—

Tuesday was a solo day packed with all my favourite things: vintage shops, cute cafés, art exhibits. Café Pekoe was a dream with its tall ceilings, sublime matcha and great gay barista vibes. Limoilou was super cute, adorned with neon picnic tables, spiral staircases and grand murals. I drooled at the interior of José Fleuriste, a hanging plant store with an iconic red and checker aesthetic. After buying my afternoon caffeine (an almond cherry iced latte from Café Saint-Henri), I made my way to Nina Pizza for a solo dinner date; there was something deeply gratifying about knowing my French was better than that of the local beside me. In the evening, I wandered the McNicholl exhibit of the Musée National des Beaux-Arts de Québec to ponder the feminist subtext of women’s art in the early twentieth century. The museum was filled with other moving artworks too: commentaries on capitalism and climate change, Expo 67 relics, a residential school embroidery piece so powerful it brought me to tears. My creative cup full, I caught the bus home - I had to fit in studying at some point.

—

Thursday night marked the silliest, goofiest memory of them all: our program talent show. For weeks, our professor made us practice the song “La Bohème”, which we sang in unison to an audience of two hundred program participants. Did we have any raw talent? No. But we had stage presence, and that’s all that mattered. When we won the competition for garnering the most cartes vertes, we erupted into cheers and a group huddle on stage. It was then that it hit me: I would really, really miss this place.

Friday was our last day of class, which we spent staging improv sketches in small groups. Every single one was cringeworthy; but as our professor reminded us, our colloquial French interactions in the future would all be improvised, so we may as well get used to it. That night, I trekked through a rainstorm to attend my last party of the program. I, like most people, arrived so dripping wet that I had to borrow clothes from the host. The girls and I had (a digital camera-documented) fashion show in our oversized borrowed sweatpants and laughed our way through rounds of Flip Cup (often interrupted by impromptu dancing). I went home early to get a decent sleep for my final exam, but smiled at the younger twenty-somethings, whose night would carry on without me into the early morning.

My final exam was easy, thankfully. I didn’t know what to do with myself when it ended - I couldn’t believe the program was coming to an end. I made my way to the Animateurs’ office for the last time, filling up my mug with free coffee and hugging my newfound friends. “À la prochaine,” we all insisted, none of us ready to commit to a final goodbye. That night, I went to Chez Tao with one of my closest friends from the program, someone I got so deep with that we both teared up at the table. Grappling with where I would work and live after this, she reminded me that going home was nothing to be ashamed of - that sometimes, it is exactly the thing we need.

I spent my final full day biking the little city I had grown to love, stopping to enjoy its beautiful scenery along the way. My closest friend and I were the last of our cohort to leave Quebéc; having the extra day to process was something we both needed. We went on a long walk and mused about what would come next.

As I hugged her, she said, “I think I’m ready to go now”.

“Me too,” I replied, squeezing her tight. This chapter had gifted me everything I needed from it, and could now come to a close. Knowing that, I set off again: to Montréal, to Ottawa, and finally, back home.

—

Looking back, I’m so grateful I had a group of vibrant younger girlfriends to pull me out of my trepidatious shell and into the fold of their silly goofy adventures. Together, we did it all: hiking, biking, rafting, canoeing, dancing. With their support, I released my grip on being a grade A student, and let myself buzz with genuine excitement and enthusiasm in class. I took myself on solo dates to practice colloquial French in shops and restaurants. I earned my cartes vertes, and wore my silly little bracelet religiously, and even made friends with some of the animatrices. By weeks four and five, I was actually excited to partake in prom and the talent show. And by the end? I was crushed to leave. 

I still rehearse my coffee orders in French before I say them. I still feel sheepish speaking around my fluent friends. I still have a long way to go before I can say I’m completely bilingual. But I am proud of myself for putting myself out there, over and over, and growing ever more comfortable laughing at my mistakes along the way. 

I’m glad I didn’t rush to grow up this summer, because everything meant for me found me when I was ready. I still have an entirely Anglophone circle of loved ones, but that will change when I start my next French class later this fall. The homesickness and travel fatigue that plagued me at the start of July dissipated as soon as I made it home to Winnipeg. As for the career I was so worried about? I sorted out my next job within two weeks of the program ending.

When I began tending to my playful inner child and allowing myself to live in the present moment, the other pieces fell seamlessly into place. Maybe that, more than French grammar, was the lesson I needed to learn this summer.

Learning French still carries grief with it, and I am sad not to share my reinvigorated love for my second language with the Francophone I thought I would spend my life with. I don’t know when we’ll speak again, but whenever we do, I know I’ll be proud to tell him how far I’ve come - both in learning French and letting go of my anxiety around it. And should he ever ask why I decided to pursue French after he left me, I’ll tell him he was right:

C’était toujours pour moi d’abord.

—

Translations:

Je ne t'oublierai jamais - I will never forget you.

Cartes vertes - Green cards.

Animateurs/Animatrices - Animators/entertainers (in my case, camp counsellors).

Vous êtes capable - You are capable.

Vélo - Bicycle.

Petite grenouilles - Little frogs.

Soirée - Evening or party (both, in this context).

Joyeux anniversaire - Happy birthday.

Quel âge as-tu? - How old are you?

Épicerie Santé - Health food store.

Bibliothéque - Library.

Bonne fête - Happy birthday.

Chanson Quebecoise d'Anniversaires - Québec birthday song.

Gens du Pays - “People of the country”. The unofficial national anthem of Québec.

Fréquentation - Someone you see frequently but aren’t dating (think situationship).

Bonne nuit - Goodnight.

À bientôt - See you soon.

Soirée Chic - “A chic evening” (in this case, prom).

Cidrerie - Cidery.

Ashkibagoog - Monarch butterfly. *Anishinaabemowin

Boozhoo - Hello (Formal). *Anishinaabemowin

Nookomis - Grandmother. *Anishinaabemowin

À la prochaine - Until next time.

C’était toujours pour moi d’abord - It was always for me first.

I have lived a lot of life

Today, I am twenty-six, and in those years, I have lived a lot of life. I’ve been the goody two-shoes and the party girl and the free-spirit and the career woman; I’ve existed as so many versions of myself that sometimes it’s hard to believe they all belong to me. 

In high school, I was my every teachers’ favourite pet, the student council president, the girl “most likely to succeed”, but never the prom queen. I was the abstinent-until-marriage epitome of innocence, listening to my favourite boy band and pinning photos of girls far cooler than me. Back then, my biggest dreams were working with the United Nations and getting a track and field scholarship to university. 

Little did I know then that I would share the stage with the United Nations by twenty, or that the lead singer of that boy band would later shake hands with me. And while I turned down the track and field scholarship, I made the podium at all three of my races recently. At twenty-six, it’s safe to say I’ve become the person I once pinned to my mood board; the world’s coolest cool girl to the sixteen-year-old version of me.

At nineteen, I found the antidote to boredom in a wild child streak. I got tattooed after brunch and pierced in the back of a hair salon. I cut bangs on a whim and dyed my hair every colour under the sun. I saw the back of a cop car and lived out of my vehicle for a summer. I became the girl who gave no f-cks and tried everything once.

I’ve run free across festival grounds and wove through crowds to the front row of my favourite artists. I’ve booked last-minute cross-continental trips and couch surfed with strangers. I’ve ripped down mountains and scrambled up summits and backpacked overnight off-grid. I’ve bungee jumped and mountain biked and sparred in boxing class, and I’ve loved every discovery I’ve made about the ways my body can move. 

I’ve lived in six cities across three continents and made unforgettable memories in twelve different countries. I’ve sailed on a pirate ship and plunged off cliffs. I’ve stolen the show at karaoke and crowd surfed my living room and seen the world’s most infamous clubs for myself. Once in a while, I worry about what others will think of all these daring decisions; but it’s a small price to pay for some of my life’s greatest stories.

And yet, all my rebellion has not made me unprofessional; I bring the same authenticity to the party as I do the board meeting. I am organized, and well-spoken, and always fight for the right thing. Nine year old me wrote that she would be Prime Minister in her diary; ten years later, I was making waves as a student politician demanding change from my university. Much of my adulthood has been actualizing my inner child’s dreams.

I tried the administrative thing, but the standard 9-to-5 was not for me. At twenty-two, I travelled the country with the army to aid communities through humanitarian emergencies. At twenty-three, I was publishing reports for national nonprofits and moving motions to reform my country’s welfare system. At twenty-four, I lobbied politicians for better sex-ed and moved across the world to conduct climate research. At twenty-five, I wrote a book and finished my master’s degree. I’ve grown up, and I still don’t know what I want to be - but I like the way my evolution is unfolding.

I have always felt more deeply than most. For a long time, it made me the misfit, the outcast, the bully’s favourite target. I’ve never been the popular girl, though I’ve been kicked out of enough sororities to say I gave it a good shot. I’ve learned that I can throw my own frat parties, that the misfits and outcasts make for better friends, and that I’ll always choose blazing my own trail over fitting anyone else’s expectations. I’ve never been the popular girl, but my life’s adventures have certainly made me the cool one. 

My life has not always come easy. I have built tenacity through trauma of all kinds - you name it, I’ve probably been through it. I’ve had my body stolen from me and been called a sl-t, a liar, and a b-tch for fighting to get it back. I’ve been rejected for my identities and shamed for my suffering. I’ve grieved loved ones I never thought I’d live without. I have lost everything to the hellish depths of mental illness, convinced that sunlight would never find me. 

And then, time and time again, I have stuck around long enough to watch my life grow far bigger than the sum of my most difficult experiences. I have found the strength to dig myself out of every hole I’ve fallen into. I have forgiven and I have sought forgiveness. I have worked hard to repair relationships and rebuild burnt bridges. I still have some walls up, some roughness around my edges, some deep-rooted wounds; but I have learned to seek wisdom and softness from those places too. 

I am the woman unafraid to take on the world, and the vulnerable girl, deeply afraid to get hurt. I’ve been the one who gave no f-cks and the one who cared too much. I’ve done the single thing, the situationship thing, the relationship thing and the celibate thing. I have been madly in love and devastated by its bittersweet, incomplete ending. I’ve kissed tough men and soft women, and stumbled into a sexuality big enough to see the beauty in every being.

I could spend a night with someone and write a poem about them. I could fall in love with someone and fill a book about them. Despite surviving hardships that would harden the hearts of most people, I have chosen deliberately to stay soft. I’ve tried to suppress it, but as I embark on my twenty-sixth year of living, I’ve come to accept that this is just how my heart is - forever on my sleeve. Sharing my inner world has made me a damn good writer, speaker and activist; one nationally recognised for my words, one whose voice has already graced international stages. 

I am twenty-six, and I am still standing. I am twenty-six and just getting started. At twenty-six, I have experienced so much, and still I am hungry for more. I am twenty-six and while I haven’t gone skydiving or driven a motorcycle or had my writing published yet, I have no doubts I’ll cross off those things soon. I am twenty-six and have lived enough life to write a book or two about, which is exactly what I plan to do. 

Postcards from Europe 💌

I land and the first thing I do is send myself up the side of Arthur’s Seat. My best friend lovingly calls me crazy for hiking on three hours of sleep. But I’ve hit the ground running, and I don’t want to waste a second of this whirlwind European adventure.

I do three hikes in three days, awestruck by Scotland’s lush landscape. It is just as green as I imagined. My friends text me to meet them at the meadows for a charcuterie-centred picnic, a perfect post-hike reward.

“Have you ever been to a Ceilidh?” asks one of the girls. I have not. I follow them to the bar for an irn-bru vodka and some rowdy dancing on a sweaty, kilt-filled floor. We hit a dive bar with a university crowd that gives me flashbacks to a life I lived a half-decade ago. It is pure silly goofy fun, completed by post-club fries topped with a ketchup heart.

I take the train to Glasgow to meet one of my London girls. We spend our entire weekend sharing small plates and French wine neither one of us can afford. We’re each other’s hype girls, taking outfit pictures in the taxi and flash food photos at the dinner table.

We spend our days musing over art galleries and cathedrals. “Are you religious?” I ask. “Only when God answers my prayers,” she replies, and we both laugh. Most people won’t admit that this is how they view God too.

She heads home, and I spend a Sunday evening exploring Glasgow’s west end; Billie’s newest album serving as the perfect soundtrack for meandering through a botanical garden. On my final morning, I squeeze in a museum and brunch with a friend. This is living deliciously, and I can’t wait to savour what comes next.

—

I start my time in Berlin with a late night long walk. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s my favourite way to see city landmarks - lit by streetlights, without the chaos of bustling tourists. I’m immediately struck by how masculine the architecture is. Twirling in front of Humboldt, I picture my life in an alternate timeline - one where I did my master’s in Europe instead of Aotearoa. The air buzzes with the energy of the Euros, and I am enamoured.

The next day, I wander Spandauer Vorstadt and pause for lunch on a lush green patio. I take my time getting ready for the most infamous club in Berlin, which does not live up to its reputation (though serves me right for going on a Tuesday). However, I can’t complain about the atmosphere - tattooed queer bodies fill the drag show dance floor and I fit right in. I’m glad to check things out for myself, and I’m equally as glad to be in bed with a full belly by one.

I spend my third day exploring the city’s monuments - I almost miss the Fraternal Kiss, but snap a picture in the cab in the way to my next destination. That evening, I float in a thermal spa that plays music underwater, and remark at how grand this grand adventure is shaping up to be. That night, I try my hand at another Berlin club, making friends in the metro along the way. “You’re going by yourself?” they ask. “Obviously,” I retort, “I do everything by myself.” I accept their offer to escort me to the doors - because while I can do everything alone, I’ll never complain about the accompaniment of new friends.

It’s a long night fuelled by techno music, followed by a life admin morning. I catch the train to the airport and romanticize the German countryside the entire way. I think of my father’s ancestors, who came to Turtle Island from here as migrants fleeing religious persecution. I wonder if these were the lands they farmed. In the station attendants, I see my grandfather - finally, I can piece together the source of his stoic exterior.

—

My flight to Ibiza is delayed by a few hours, which means the night is ready to start by the time I get there. I laugh at the scene unfolding in front of me - the same woman who checked me in is working double duty pouring shots for everyone at the hostel bar. I revel in the accents around me; how lucky I am, to meet this many people from around the world.

The next morning, I pull up to my pre-boat cruise brunch and immediately scan the crowd for new friends, hoping that whoever I meet here is going to Calvin Harris and David Guetta too. I find my rave match in two Edmontonians. We spend the entire day cracking inside jokes with each other; our shared humour a comfortable reprieve from the constant newness that backpacking brings. Eighteen hours later, we collapse into our respective beds, exhausted and exhilarated from a full day of dancing. Over the next morning’s brunch, they ask me whether I’m planning to replace them. “Obviously not”, I promise them, and keep my word.

I make friends with Americans and Australians, sharing deep conversations over lagoon swims and on pizza shop patios. There are goofy memories too - like the “guestlist” that cost €40 and a lifeguard rescue from a rogue paddleboard. These girls ooze so much sweetness and sincerity that I wish I could hang onto them a little longer. I add their hometowns to my travel list, making note to one day see them again.

After a full weekend of socialising, I spend my last evening in Ibiza’s old town. I stumble into my trip’s best views off the side of a castle; the Mediterranean Sea to my left, a sunset-lit city backdrop to my right. Gold tones glaze the sky, and it is perfect; my life stills, if only for a moment, before I fly to Barcelona.

—

Barcelona’s Gaudi architecture drips intricacy, details nearly microscopic in nature. There are art museums to be seen and tapas to try around every corner. I admire the city’s skyline from hotel rooftops with carefree, self-loving friends whose paths are crossing mine from home. Their presence reminds me what life is about: the people and places that make it colourful.

On my fourth + final day, I go on a kayaking and cliff-jumping excursion in Costa Bravas. I meet a Toronto girl while waiting in line; we instantly become two peas in a pod, gossiping on the back of our bus. When we make the same offhand joke in sync, I ask, “Did we just become best friends?”. We both nod feverishly and burst into giggles.

That night, I go on a photo walk around the city centre. When my group wraps, everyone agrees to go to a jazz bar. I have a flight to catch in six hours, but this sounds like an adventure I can’t say no to. I’m awestruck by the singers, rappers, and saxophone players on stage, all buzzing with creativity. “I’ll stay for one drink” soon turns into a cocktail bar, a dance club, and a severely underslept me, forced to cut my night short to make it to Mallorca.

I arrive and immediately crash. Post-recovery nap, I explore Palma, and enjoy a slow evening in a cosy vegetarian restaurant. While meandering through town, I spot a woman alone on a patio with an iconic haircut. “Are you solo travelling?” I ask. We spend the next hour getting to know each other’s life story.

My lovely London friend arrives, and we have the sweetest weekend catching waves and sunsets. We laugh our way through a tacky tourist cave tour, swim in ocean blue, and admire lemon trees in the countryside. It is every bit the tranquility I need before continuing on to my final country.

—

“Bestieeee!” I sing-song as I enter the Airbnb and embrace my Vancouver best friend in a hug. Our first order of business is grabbing the last table at a nearby mezze spot. “We’re swapping stories, you start”, she says. We spend hours filling each other in on our respective European adventures.

The next day, we wander cobblestone streets, making stops to buy ginjinha and pastel de nata. “It’s like a cross between a butter tart and crème brûlée” I comment, knowing she’ll understand my reference. We’re different people, awestruck by the same things: peacocks in the street, buskers playing acoustic covers, colourful clotheslines billowing in the breeze.

I go off on a solo venture, and she hangs my clothes to dry; a quiet act of care that reminds me how deeply I am loved. That night, we walk through Chiado, where men with Cheshire Cat smiles try to coax us into their restaurants. Tired and hungry, we settle into a place where neither the food nor the music is memorable - but at least the conversations and company are.

We board an early morning bus to the Algarve; I drop my best friend off at a co-working space and spend the whole day making note of places to tell her about. Albufeira is much like Niagara Falls; natural beauty set against a tacky tourist backdrop. We can’t beat it, so we make plans to join it and see the strip for ourselves. Pre-drinking on the beach, we alternate between laughing so hard we cry, and crying so hard we can’t help but laugh. As going out usually goes, our quality time together is better than any dance floor we step onto.

I spend my last day in water, on a boat. As dolphins bob beside me, I catch myself squealing; nature never failing to mesmerize me. That night, my friend and I marvel as the sun fades into hazy purple over the beach horizon. We love the view so much that we return for sunrise. The beach is near empty, save for the seagulls; arriving there before almost anyone else makes us feel like we’ve stumbled upon a well-kept secret. An older couple, epitomizing lifelong love, is play fighting in the ocean; watching them with admiration makes the most peaceful end to my packed European adventure.

Reflections on grad school: the truth about my time abroad

CW: Anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, suicidal thoughts. For mental health support, please see a list of resources here (Canada), here (United States), here (United Kingdom) and here (Aotearoa New Zealand).

As part of my graduate school journey, I’ve been keeping an honest record of my experience in academia; my previous writing on the subject can be found here, here and here.

—

If you’re a close follower of mine, you may have noticed that I suddenly stopped writing in 2023. My social media presence made it look like I was too busy having fun to put pen to paper; behind the scenes, I was navigating a work and research nightmare unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

I never wrote about my time abroad because the pain of what happened was so big it escaped words. My Aotearoa chapter is the most traumatic thing I have ever been through. As someone who comes from a long history of complex trauma, I don’t say that lightly. For many years, I thought no trauma would ever rival the experience I had fighting a sexual assault investigation while in university.

Aotearoa proved me wrong. What was cruelly painful about experiencing earth-shattering trauma this time around was that there was no one event, no one person to blame; what happened was a series of compounding traumas that I didn’t recognise until they had already left their devastating mark on me.

—

The story starts here: January 14th, 2023, at the Tāmaki Makaurau airport. After an incredible few weeks of travelling Te Ika-a-Māui, I was scheduled to fly to Ōtautahi, my new home for the next six months. A bright-eyed master’s student, I was thrilled to be starting what I thought would be the most rewarding experience of my life: a research assistantship conducting interviews about Māori water governance in partnership with a local iwi (tribe).

As I walked the lengthy green arrow-lined path separating domestic and international flights at the Te Ika-a-Māui airport, the realisation that this was no longer a vacation, but my whole life, kicked in. I stared at that green line, shedding tears onto it the entire way. I cried because I sensed intuitively, at that moment, that I was making the wrong choice.

If I could go back and change one moment in my life, it would be this one; I would have listened to my intuition, abandoned my project, and returned to Turtle Island. At the time though, I was twenty-four and deeply unsure of myself. For over a year, I’d been told by my research team that this was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”, and thought I would be ungrateful to turn down the investments others were making in me. So, I said yes to someone else’s project, and no to my innermost desires.

I cried the entire 90-minute flight to Ōtautahi. That afternoon, I sat on the empty floor of my new bedroom, 14,749 kilometres away from home, feeling empty inside too.

—

That January, three challenges became clear:

• I had arrived unprepared for all the nuanced cultural differences of my new country;

• I lived on the far outskirts of the city, which made commuting laborious and time-consuming;

• Living in Aotearoa entailed a 16 (and later 18) hour time difference, which strained all of my interpersonal relationships.

Case in point: one January afternoon, I was reprimanded by a lifeguard for swimming at the wrong part of the beach, and then later, by a cashier for not bringing my passport as ID to buy 0.0% alcohol mocktails. Embarrassed by my self-perceived incompetence, I burst into tears at the grocery store.

Another day, fed up with 90-minute bus rides to the city, I made an appointment with a “car dealership”; upon arrival, I discovered it was one man selling beat-up, uninsured cars out of his driveway. Feeling duped and frustrated, I boarded three buses home.

I didn’t know where to find housing when I sourced my flat. No one told me which neighbourhoods to look in, or how to find students to live with. I did the best I could, and am immensely grateful for the flatmate I had and the home we shared. But being a 30-minute drive/90-minute bus away from the city heightened the isolation of my entire experience.

These inconveniences were minor, but they shook my confidence to succeed in a new country. With no local family or friends to teach me the nuances of this unfamiliar place, I felt alone; and with my loved ones asleep for most of my day, I was far too often completely on my own.

As a lonely knot grew in my stomach, I tried to stay positive; as I wrote in one January journal entry: “I didn’t realise how much I was living for tiny kindnesses until I wasn’t given them. I guess when you’re lonely, these are the things you hang onto. Being away from everyone I love remains difficult. I know I’m in the worst of it. But that means from here on out, things can only get better.”

I wish I had been right.

—

February 2023 started with my becoming ill. 

Two years earlier, I was diagnosed over the phone with an anxiety disorder and prescribed an SSRI that did not work. After a year with no improvement in my symptoms, I requested a new medication. I began taking it on February 1st; on February 3rd, I woke in the middle of the night, violently shaking and throwing up.

At first, I chalked it up to food poisoning or a stomach flu. Time went on, and I remained sick. I researched my medication and found that its side effects included nausea, sweating, headaches, dizziness, insomnia and constipation; risks that my doctor had never mentioned to me. I sensed that I should lower my dosage or change medications; but with no access to the doctor who had prescribed my medication, and no idea how to navigate the medical system in Aotearoa, I felt stuck.

I called a telehealth line, and was told my symptoms weren’t bad enough to be taken seriously. I was prescribed what I thought was medicine - only to go to the pharmacy and realise all I had been “prescribed” was an over-the-counter laxative. The doctor had heard only one of the symptoms I described to them, and suggested a band-aid fix for it.

For weeks, I was bedridden by my medication’s side effects. Fed up with its debilitating effects on my body, I decided to stop taking it, which made me feel even worse. My physical symptoms remained for weeks afterwards, while my anxiety spiked. 

In the midst of this was the First Nations Futures Program, my only opportunity to network with other Indigenous scholars. Being as ill as I was completely detracted from my being able to participate in the program. While everyone around me made connections, I left sessions early, unable to make it through them without throwing up. 

Not knowing what was happening to my body while lacking access to medical care was terrifying. Eventually, my medication-related withdrawal settled, but my mental health struggles and medical issues continued to worsen.

—

A few weeks before moving abroad, I fell down a set of concrete stairs. At the time, I brushed the injury off as a bad bruise; as time went on, however, my pain worsened, and by mid-February, I was struggling to walk. Hours of waiting and $150 later, a doctor gave me an osteopath referral and an X-ray requisition.

The osteopath did nothing for me, and I quit after two wordless appointments of having my head probed. The treatment didn’t match my injury, and I knew I needed more care than what I was being offered. I sought the care of a chiropractor instead, but soon realised that I would not find the care I needed there either; unlike back home, chiropractors in Aotearoa are not doctors, just people with BSc degrees.

When I went for an X-ray, I discovered that the requisition I had been given was faulty. I was immensely frustrated; to this day, I don’t understand why a doctor would give me a false requisition. At every turn, the Aotearoan medical system made me feel crazy for the pain I was experiencing. I spent thousands of dollars while living abroad in search of medical care, and every insurance claim I made for my health was rejected.

It would be another seven months until my pain was taken seriously - when I finally did receive a valid X-ray, I learned I had been living with a tailbone fracture the entire time.

—

My graduate program also proved increasingly difficult. Not only was I an ocean away from my classmates, I was the only one writing their thesis. While the rest of my cohort laughed together over budding inside jokes, I sat quietly on the other side of a Zoom screen, thinking grad school was supposed to be more than this.

I knew that structuring my degree to write my thesis early would come at the cost of my peer relationships. At the time, I was convinced that these were necessary and worthwhile sacrifices for my research. They weren’t; especially because the “once in a lifetime opportunity” I was promised was smoke and mirrors. 

—

As Biin et al. (2021) identify, research alongside Indigenous peoples necessitates a lot of careful steps - ones that I wanted to take seriously. What no one shared with me was how impossible it would be for me to do this work ethically. For my thesis, I was expected to:

• Move and adjust to a new country;

• Build community connections in a new context;

• Earn the trust of research participants;

• Become trained as an interviewer;

• Gain ethics clearance from multiple universities;

• Conduct 10-15 interviews;

• Make field visits;

• Protect data under community ownership;

• Write my thesis;

• Present my findings per ceremonial procedures; and

• Build a relationship that spanned beyond the project.

All within the timeframe of a six-month visa. My supervisors and research team should reasonably have known this would be impossible to accomplish. I didn’t. I moved abroad willing to do it all because I believed I had a fulsome support network to catch me on the other side.

For over a year, I was told that I had:

• A Māori supervisory committee member to guide me through the process;

• A network of Indigenous community members eager to work with me; and

• A nation-to-nation partnership-based project.

That February, three things became evident:

• No one wanted to supervise my research;

• The network of community members did not exist; and

• There was no project I was wanted for.

After investing my time, energy and money into moving across the world to work with them, my supervisor notified me via an email in February that they were now “too busy” to help me.

I asked for a replacement and scheduled a meeting with who I was told would be my new supervisor. During said meeting, this individual did not ask about my research. When I raised the possibility of working together, I learned that they were not employed by the university. Even if they had wanted to supervise me (which they did not), they were in no position to. I was frustrated and confused that my time had been so mindlessly wasted.

I went back to my would-have-been supervisor for a third option. They suggested one of their colleagues, whom I emailed with the hopes of connecting to the iwi I had been invited to work with. This colleague was Pākehā (of European descent) and did not have the connections I needed. Running out of time to find someone to work with, I accepted their offer to be part of my committee anyway.

Doing so twisted a proverbial knife into my stomach. Conducting research on Māori people with an entirely non-Māori committee felt extractive and morally wrong; I knew that if someone non-Anishinaabe were facing a similar dilemma in my homelands, I would expect them to respect me enough not to tell my story for me.

Locked into my research assistantship contract and indebted to thousands of dollars in scholarship funding, I felt trapped. With no other plausible choice, I agreed to a project that I fundamentally disagreed with; it would be the first of many occasions where my work and research forced me to cross my core values.

—

In addition to writing my thesis, I had also been hired as a Research Assistant. The position sounded groundbreaking in theory; part of my work entailed organising a net zero transition conference. However, the position was nothing like the opportunity that had been described to me.

Isolated an ocean away from everyone I loved, my boss was the only person I knew within a six-hour drive. This was a person I had a strong foundation of trust with; years of close collaboration had taken us abroad for research together and integrated our families into each other’s lives. When our relationship unravelled, the pain was searing on both a professional and personal level. 

March 13th, 2023, began as a good day. That morning, my colleague and I met with one of our invited youth panellists. We considered young people’s voices included in climate discussions integral and were confident in the speakers we had selected.

In my second meeting of the day, things took a disparaging turn. As my colleague and I shared our work on the youth panel, we advocated to start the day with their voices; a suggestion that seemed sensible considering that youth are inheriting the consequences of climate change. For the next half hour that followed, everyone else in that room degraded our idea and demographic.

“If we invite youth, they’ll just boomer bash,” said one person, “We have to train them on how to speak beforehand.” 

Another said, “It’s not a good strategy.” 

A third said, “If the youth speak at the beginning, the business people will walk out.” 

Every adult in that room suggested moving the panel later and later through the day until it was off the agenda. The entire time, my boss sat in silence. 

Finally, they said, “Taylor, I can tell you’re getting upset. Why don’t you share your thoughts with the group?”

What I wanted to say at that moment was, “You’re going to let some ageist individuals ruin the work we’ve been doing on a project that you asked us to organise? And you’re going to sit in silence, letting them tear down a demographic I belong to? If these comments were made about any other group, would you be sitting here, okay with it?”.

I said none of these things. Instead, I sat shaking in quiet rage. I replied meekly, “I can feel myself dissociating, so I am going to excuse myself for another meeting.” I ducked out of the room, closed the door in another, and sobbed.

—

I returned for a meeting with my boss the next day. I was terrified to open up to them, but I knew I needed to honour my feelings no matter how vulnerable it was. I shared that the events that had transpired the day prior had made me feel mentally and emotionally unsafe at work. I asked why they had stayed silent during these comments, and what their plan was to establish a safer environment for myself and my colleague.

They insisted that their silence during my mistreatment stemmed from a place of “just listening to other perspectives.” They, a tenured professor in their fifties, stated, “We aren’t that far apart in age,” and that they had, “only recently stopped feeling like a youth” themself. They then shared their own advocacy mistakes with me, instilling a point that I was too young to know what I was talking about.

I left that conversation feeling so, so small.

—

That afternoon, we drove to a farm so I could shadow my boss’ work. The extractive nature of my research continued to gnaw at me, and I asked how the project would benefit my community back home. I had been promised a nation-to-nation partnership, but the reality was that I could not see my work in its current form benefitting Māori or Anishinaabe people.

My boss responded, “It won’t connect linearly. Imagine the people here are your community, and journal the question as you go along.” It was a paltry answer, and I was livid. To pretend that Māori were my own nation, when a core element of Indigenous peoples is our distinctive relationship to place, was an affront to both groups.

That evening, I journaled, “I don’t feel cared for by the adults who asked me to make the sacrifice of moving across the world for their project. I feel duped and apathetic - like I just have to get through this and graduate. I’m being shoved into a project I do not want, and it’s the only way for me to get the resources and support I was promised in the first place.”

—

The next day, I called the three people whose advice I trusted most, desperate for advice on what to do about my job. 

The first tried guiding me toward my intuition. I broke down to them. 

“I just want to come home,” I cried. 

“Then come home, Tay,” they replied, “this is not worth it”.

The second pumped my brakes and reminded me that to abandon this project would burn all the academic bridges I had built. They pointed out that dropping out of the project would only reflect poorly on me.

They were right: I had research assistant expectations to meet, scholarship funding to merit, future earnings potential to consider, and the time, energy and money of eight months already sunk into the process.

The third echoed the second’s comments, and encouraged me to “bad bitch” my way through it. I resigned to stick it out, convincing myself that I could overcome the obstacles in my way if I just pushed myself harder.

The problem with this approach was that blaming, shaming, and hating myself for the unfolding situation happening to me came at the expense of my mental well-being.

I stopped writing for pleasure and forced myself to work on my thesis every single day. I began waking up at 5 am and working out seven times a week despite my fracture. I kept an onerous list of “wellness” tasks for myself, and shamed myself whenever I failed to perfectly execute said list. From the outside, I was doing all the things I was supposed to, but on the inside, my habits felt like punishments. 

—

During a rare night out with friends in mid-March, I came to an important realisation: I could not compromise on my core research values. I realised I needed to stand up to those who had conditionally supported me; doing so meant I would need to come up with a new topic on my own, now more than two months in.

Doing so late in the process closed my window to conduct interviews and forced me to write a literature review-based thesis instead. It was a decision that came with immense grief. My research was turning out so differently, and so much worse, than I had ever expected it to.

—

The events of the week prior still hadn’t settled well with me. I coped by writing my boss a letter. I tucked it into my bag as I drove to their house for another work trip, memorising the four requests I wanted to assert to them:

1. Agency and support on a project to help the local iwi I was working with and my own community;

2. Someone Māori to connect with and ensure my research was ethical;

3. An apology from those who had demeaned me or to no longer engage with them as part of my Research Assistantship; and

4. My boss to empathise with me, listen to me, take accountability for minimising my feelings and ensure a safer work environment going forward.

My boss refused all four of my requests, and chided me for even suggesting I come up with a new project idea of my own. We argued about it for a long while, and then, after a good cry, I holed up in his house to scrap together a joint presentation for a faculty audience. I worked on it until the last minute before we took the stage, and presented it without time for a proper run-through. 

Sharing a half-formed project I had no support for to a crowd of strangers was difficult, and I felt ashamed of myself for not having better-rounded arguments. Following the presentation, my boss and I spent our afternoon in a break room, receiving mixed feedback from those who had listened in. During a lull between visitors, my boss told me to give up on getting any kind of apology; they told me they would not stand up for my colleague and I. Shortly afterwards, I was shut out from conference planning entirely.

—

I was told that the conference I was planning would be groundbreaking; stakeholders from all sides of the political spectrum were convening to collaborate on solutions to the transition challenge facing agriculture and the environment in Aotearoa. I was thrilled to lend my support to tribal leaders, government representatives, academics, agricultural industry stakeholders and civil society organisations on this issue. Agriculture may not be my passion, but I deeply care about the major contributions it is making to the climate crisis.

After the youth panel was rejected, the conference began falling apart in other ways. Those organising had never checked to see if a similar conference to ours existed - and it did, in the same city, on overlapping dates. My boss, and my colleague’s boss, started meeting with the organisers of the other conference to strike a compromise. They made an intentional choice not to include us in any of those discussions.

We went from playing an integral role in the conference to not having one at all. Why? Because they wanted to show us that as youth, we were not to be taken seriously as conference organisers - even though we had been hired specifically for that purpose.

—

My online classes continued. During one of them, a guest lecturer asked everyone about their thesis topics. When it came time to talk about mine, I broke down and cried. I couldn’t make sense of my feelings and felt intensely ashamed and embarrassed for not “handling my emotions” better.

My breakdowns were proof that I was crumbling under the weight of odds impossibly stacked against me. My thesis supervisors, hired to help me navigate all of this, were nowhere to be found. Each time I asked for feedback, they each took more than two months to reply - something that never would have been acceptable in a workplace. I believe it should not have been acceptable treatment towards a student under their purview either.

Being an ocean away from their offices, I couldn’t show up demanding support in person. Nor was complaining to their supervisors an option - I had spent so little time on campus that I didn’t even know who they were. I was alone without options. As I wrote about it in a journal entry from April 4th:

“Things have been all-consuming tough lately. Thesis writing is harder than I ever thought it would be. Every day, I sit down and feel viscerally uncomfortable with what I have written. I doubt the direction I’ve taken, and resent the way things have transpired here. I worry that what I write won’t be significant enough, and I feel a responsibility to get it right for my community. I feel ashamed too, of how I’ve failed so far, and that shame keeps me from reaching out to anyone.”

With no one to share my concerns with, I turned the blame on myself. I deemed myself a failure for not overcoming every challenge in my way. I hated my circumstances, and I hated myself. My internalised self-hatred caused me to spiral into a dark hole.

—

Later that day, I received a call from my boss, who wanted to check in on how I was doing. I risked vulnerability again, this time to let them know that I was struggling deeply with anxiety and depression. I asked if they could help fund my mental healthcare for the remainder of my time in Aotearoa.

“I’m afraid I don’t have funding for that,” they said, “but you should pick up this book I’m reading on internal family systems so you can love your parts. We all have firefighters and managers inside of us. Sometimes I have to remember to be a parent instead of a manager at home.” 

As you can imagine, their advice did not resonate.

“I need to move home early,” I replied. “I am so unhappy here.” 

“That’s your choice,” they told me, “but I can’t cover the costs of changing your flight.”

“Can you cover the cost of my going home then?” I asked. “Even just for a week or two?”

“Again, that’s outside of my budget,” they said, “but if you want to go home, you can pay for it and come back for the conference.” 

They reminded me that they were not my thesis supervisor and therefore unable to support me, but considered themself my friend. With that, they hung up on me.

Friends don’t let friends suffer alone, I thought, setting down my phone to cry.

—

On April 7th, I journaled, “It feels agonising to sit in front of my computer and commit to working on a thesis that feels wrong, in a country that feels wrong, in a program that feels wrong, in a school that feels wrong. Where am I supposed to summon the energy when my whole body screams no? I feel stuck in a steep hole without a ladder. I know sunlight is up there, but I don’t know how to climb up to it when the earth keeps crumbling beneath my fingers.” 

Reading that entry makes my heart ache; the damage this chapter wreaked on my mental health was not worth it. At the same time, dropping out would have financially crippled me; I was trapped in my circumstances until June.

—

I started looking at flights home. It would be $2,100 round trip. Had I been making what my colleague (who was paid $25,000 for the same work) was, a loss of $2,100 wouldn’t have impacted me so significantly; but because I was only paid $10,000, this constituted a fifth of my total salary as a research assistant. Desperate to improve my mental health, I no longer cared what leaving would cost me.

I started paying out of pocket for a therapist. My first session came with a lot of validation, both about my time in New Zealand and other traumas I had experienced throughout my life. “You have one of the most difficult histories I’ve ever heard,” she told me. It was comforting to hear, and it hurt, too, because it didn’t change my situation.

That week, I received a call from my colleague’s boss, who rattled off a list of individuals I could interview for my thesis. Their offer came too late; my non-refundable flight had already been booked, and there was no way I could conduct the interviews before leaving. The ethics board application alone would take weeks to be approved.

Here was the opportunity I so badly wanted, dangling just outside my reach.

—

After being shut out from conference planning for weeks, I finally received this email from my boss:

“For the youth you’ve invited, I think the message is we would still really hope to have their participation. We only have room for about 15 speakers in total. I do hope the youth can join us, though we are not asking them to ‘speak’. As we move forward, we’ll work out the process for June 21, bringing diverse voices to the fore, youth included.”

Four months of planning and advocating were in one email reduced to nothing. The youth we were tasked with inviting were not just pushed to a later or irrelevant time slot in the event programme; they were removed from the agenda entirely. I wondered what the purpose of my position had ever been.

—

May brought with it financial stress; between spending $2,000 on a Visa application, $2,000 on summer tuition, and $2,000 on my return flights, my scholarship funding was quickly running dry. With my research assistantship ending in June, I was set to spend my summer unemployed, and my impending financial precarity scared me.

I tried hard to get myself unstuck; I booked online meetings with my program chair, a professor on my research team, my research centre manager, some library staff, and an archivist. I shared openly the struggles I had faced throughout my time in Aotearoa; everyone I reached out to offered resources that they never followed through on.

“You know, this is not the first time the Centre has failed an international student,” said my research centre manager. I asked what happened, and he told me that another researcher had struggled through similar circumstances. “I was hesitant to invite you after what happened with our last student,” they elaborated, “once bitten, twice shy, you know?”.

I did know, now. I wondered why no one had ever shared this information with me; if they had, perhaps I would have said no to the opportunity entirely.

—

My meetings with the library staff and archivist went well; they understood why I cared so deeply about my research and showed me relevant archival and library materials. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make much use of their materials, as they were all stored in Ōtautahi. Like the call about potential interview subjects, these were resources I needed months earlier.

I spent my last day asking my program chair to help me find more committed supervisors for my thesis, a promise they agreed to but never followed up on. I packed my things and had my colleague drive me to the airport.

As I wrote in my journal: “I can’t wait to get out of here and onto something else. I have mixed, bittersweet feelings about my time abroad, but they’re muted now. My excitement to go home is much stronger. In that sense, I suppose I did make the right choice.” 

My heart ached as I left. It was not at all how I had imagined my time abroad would go.

—

I made a stop in Tāmaki Makaurau on my long trek home. I bought tickets to the Auckland Writers’ Festival, hoping that immersing myself in creativity would pull me out of the rut I was stuck in. However, my sense of confidence disintegrated in Ōtautahi, and it showed.

I shook with anxiety during book signings and shamed myself for mishandling social interactions with my favourite authors. I went home early from the festival because I believed I was too ugly and worthless to be seen in public. I was trying to do what I loved, but my internalised self-hatred continually stole from the experience.

That week, I started summer classes. While I didn’t have the capacity to take on my coursework, I didn’t have the luxury of choice, either; unless I moved back to Vancouver, online summer classes were the only way out of my degree. Desperate to graduate, I forced myself through them.

—

Finally, I came home. I was relieved, and hopeful that being surrounded by loved ones would heal what had happened to me.

It worked, for a few days. I surprised my friends, and hearing their shrieks of joy about my early return was one of my highlights of the year. As the weekend wound down and everyone returned to work, however, my real life kicked back in.

I had left Aotearoa, but the trauma of my work and research followed me home. I had months of unprocessed trauma from New Zealand to talk through, as well as the ethical dilemmas I was still struggling with about everything I was working on. With no one around me who understood what I was going through, I slid further into an anxious, depressed state.

—

Knowing that I was not well, I tried hard to secure mental health support for myself; I hoped that a diagnosis and being put carefully back on a better-fitting medication would help me feel like myself again.

Unfortunately, everywhere I turned for help came up empty; the earliest doctor’s appointment I could schedule was for mid-August, and every clinic I reached out to quoted me $4,000 to undergo mental health testing. As I wrote in a journal entry one day, “I wish I had the mental healthcare I need - the medication, the testing, the counselling - but I don’t. I don’t know what else I can do for myself to make it okay.”

Without the mental health support I needed, I hit my breaking point. When the thought “You should kill yourself” followed by “I know” came to me, I panicked. I had been in a months-long fight with my own worst thoughts, and I could sense myself losing the battle. I finally shared what was going on with a loved one that night.

“Sometimes it just feels like my own thoughts want to kill me,” I said, and we both cried as they held my broken pieces together. They reminded me that together, we would kill them first. Sitting on their kitchen counter, we closed our eyes and imagined me, ten years into the future, healed from all of this. Through tears, they reminded me that they would be devastated if they lost me. I promised them that no matter what, I would not act on my thoughts to hurt myself.

—

The next morning, I groggily dragged myself out of bed and to work. One of the professors taking part in the conference was retiring, and my boss asked me to volunteer for the day to support them.

I burst into tears the moment I saw my boss again; their presence was a painful reminder of the worst chapter of my life. When they noticed and inquired about it, I told them, “I’m just so nervous to return to New Zealand. I really don’t want to.”

They gave me a side hug and told me to hang in there; “It will be a great trip, with helpful conversations for your thesis.” I wanted to ask to back out of the conference, but I bit my tongue, knowing my Research Assistantship funding was precarious enough already.

—

Later that week, I flew back to Ōtautahi. My work week began at the Global Food and Fibre Systems conference - an agricultural conference tackling the same themes as the conference I had helped plan. I got to the Ōtautahi City Council building, hopeful for productive discussions about the net zero transition. Instead, I was subjected to microaggressions.

“Is your name missing a few letters?” a middle-aged white man asked.

“No,” I said, “It’s German.”

He asked what I was doing here. When I explained my work, he questioned, “Oh you’re German, living in Canada, and working with Indigenous peoples? Why?”

I explained that in addition to being German, I was also Anishinaabe, and from Turtle Island. He continued to interrogate me about my identity, and as soon as I found an opportunity to escape, I fled to the bathroom and cried.

Later that morning, I relayed the story to my boss outside the venue doors.

“Don’t let him get to you,” they said, giving me another half-hearted side hug, “It’s still going to be a great day.”

It was, for them.

—

The next day, while on a marshlands tour with the research team, I started feeling sick with a sore throat, headache, and congestion. I stayed in bed for the first day of the conference. My boss did nothing to accommodate me; thankfully, one of the conference presenters, a stranger to me, was kind enough to buy me medicine.

On the second conference day, I wore a mask to work. The opportunity I was long told would “shape the future of Aotearoa’s net zero transition” had devolved into little more than a classroom discussion. Nearly all thirty people in the room were professors and students already working and learning in the climate sector. When it came time to share our ideas, all that came forth were platitudes like, “We should have more community gardens.”

Community gardens are important; but five of us had flown here from Canada for this conference, and based on our emissions alone, I felt immensely frustrated by the lack of fulsome solutions discussed. Everything said in that room could have been shared over Zoom or email.

In the middle of our discussion, my boss asked me to present my research to the entire room. Frozen, I croaked out two sentences and excused myself. Sickness and stress were wearing on me, and I cried to my colleague outside the conference room. I cried again when one of the research team members asked how my thesis was going. Emotionally and physically exhausted, I went home after work and slept the rest of the day.

—

When I awoke the next morning, I tested positive for Covid-19. I felt awful that I had gone to work the day prior and put others at risk. I texted my boss to let them know I would not be coming to work in person the rest of the week. They asked me to attend via Zoom to make up for it.

Not wanting to risk the health of the research team I was staying with, I asked my boss to cover my isolation accommodation. I checked into the cheapest place I could find on short notice - a dinghy garage-turned-studio Airbnb where I isolated myself for the next four days. At one point, a colleague came by to drop off groceries and commented, “I can’t believe your boss is letting you live like this.” Meanwhile, my boss had wished me well and moved on to another conference in Australia.

Feeling physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally depleted, I made it home for good; finally set free from the worst chapter of my life.

—

I wish I could say that going home healed me; I certainly hoped it would. The truth is, my spirit completely collapsed while I was abroad, and it took a long time for me to recover myself from the wreckage. A year has passed since I returned home, and while my body and mind have healed in many ways, I admit that I am still recovering.

In How to Know a Person, the author shares an excerpt from an esteemed religious leader, who discusses immense growth in the aftermath of grief. After sharing the extent of his newfound knowledge many could only dream of possessing, he states: “I would give it all up for the return of my son.”

My circumstances may be vastly different, but my thoughts around graduate school are much the same; I would do anything to exchange this degree for the life I had before I began my studies. 

I wasn’t the only one who got hurt in this process - trauma begets further trauma, and those caught in the crosshairs of my mental illness had their psyches damaged too. To this experience, I lost parts of myself - and those I love most - that I might never get back.

That is the part of all this that still crushes me most.

—

I graduated on May 24th, 2024. It was a day I had been dreading for a long time. Convocation represented an extraordinarily painful time in my life, one I had no desire to celebrate. But my parents wanted to watch me cross the stage, so I went.

It was a rainy day in xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) territory. Three hundred of us gathered to graduate in UBC’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Our valedictorian shared a powerful speech calling upon academic institutions such as our own to end its complicity in colonialism and climate change. 

A few minutes later, a senior administrator took the stage. In their speech about Indigenous peoples, they referred to “missing and endangered Indigenous women”, a misnomer for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S).

The word endangered refers to plant and animal species at risk of extinction; as the stewards of Turtle Island since time immemorial, Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people are not going anywhere, no matter how hard colonial governments try to disappear us. This individual did not even try to learn the proper terminology behind a devastatingly painful epidemic of violence; to me, it signalled that they do not see us as human.

–

Universities love to be seen as though they are working for the benefit of Indigenous peoples; submit a research proposal with the words “Indigenous,” “decolonial,” “sustainability” or “climate change,” and you’ll garner academic funding for it; even if you are non-Indigenous, even if you have no deep commitment to what those words mean. Rarely ever are universities doing the deep work it takes to actually decolonise.

They will give land acknowledgments but fail to recognize us as human in the same speech. They will invest millions of dollars into “Indigenous” buildings but not tuition or counselling for Indigenous students. They will fund non-Indigenous researchers to conduct “Indigenous” research around the world, instead of paying and enabling communities to do it themselves. 

As Māori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith articulates it best in Decolonizing Methodologies: universities “tell us things already known, suggest things that would not work, and make careers for people who already have jobs.” 

My acceptance into my master’s program had little to do with my brilliance or research interests; if it did, I would have been supported in the ways I deserved by the three institutions that promised me the world.

Instead, I served as a mere token for my professors, faculty and program; a nice profile to spotlight on their website, a convenient checkbox to make it look like they care about Indigenous students. If my experience demonstrates anything, it is that universities have a long way to go before they can claim that they do.

—

Those I’ve shared this story with tell me I should complain, that what happened to me was awful and that my university’s administration should know about it. I agree.

At the same time, I know intimately the experience of fighting with a university administration to receive any semblance of justice; it is a fight that almost always comes up empty. Launching my sexual assault investigation five years ago took nearly everything out of me. Healing from all that happened to me last year was another fight, one that has required me to find every ounce of tenacity I have.

While I consider myself an okiticitakwe (“warrior woman”) to my core, I do not have a third fight in me right now. Even if I did, I am terrified that said fight would come at the expense of losing my references. In the academic world, connections are everything. I still have a lot I want to accomplish, and I cannot let a bad reference steal my future from me. Maybe one day, I’ll feel comfortable enough to come forward.

For now, I wrote this piece, knowing that while it can never give back to me the things that trauma stole from me, at least it is proof that it happened. I remind myself that despite what I went through, every day brings me closer to the version of me I want to be - someone who, ten years into the future, has healed from all of this.

New year, new country, new chapter

I started this year by making another one-way plane ticket decision. This time, I’ve moved to one of the most ubiquitous cities in the world: London, England.

Living in a city I’ve never been to, knowing only a handful of people, without a job lined up (yet) is pushing me way out of my comfort zone. While moving with a lot of uncertainty isn’t exactly new for me (see blog posts here and here), this is by far the most uncertain move I’ve ever made. That’s why I’m doing it.

—

When I was seventeen, I almost moved to Europe. After a few of my summer camp friends shared their life-changing semesters abroad, I wanted in on the experience. I printed off a stack of visa paperwork, begged my mother’s permission, and began putting the pieces together for my new life in Belgium. The Paris attacks happened. My mother promptly pulled the plug on my grand idea.

At twenty-one, I scrounged up enough scholarship money for a two-week trip. A friend from home was living in Wageningen and offered me a place on her couch. Her kindness allowed me to tour most of the Netherlands and a little of Spain; each city I visited was packed with centuries of culture and history that extended beyond anything I had ever experienced. Enamoured, I promised myself a longer visit the following summer.

Three friends and I made a group chat, designating me as the ‘yes man’, another as ‘the one who would get us thrown in jail’. For months, we swapped itineraries and the cheapest red-eye flights we could find. The day I was ready to solidify my plans, my mother called to inform me of a pandemic spreading throughout the continent. “You can’t go, Taylor,” she pleaded, “This is serious”. I started crying. Of course she would cancel Europe on me. Moments away from picking up a crush for a first date, I blinked hard, praying my date wouldn’t notice (he did) or ask about it (he did, but thankfully years later).

At twenty-three, I fell in love with a big city. After an incredible weekend spent in New York, I was convinced that my life would not be complete until I did a writing stint in a brownstone apartment. I figured it was a pipe dream; I had one friend there, the rent costs were out of reach, and New York didn’t fit my other life plans.

I continued on with my non-big city, non-Europe existence. With graduate school starting, I tucked both ideas into the far recesses of my mind - maybe one day, I dreamed, but not anytime soon.

—

Then, graduate school threw me a curveball.

On perfectionist paper, I had done everything right: gotten into a program with a 4% acceptance rate, maintained a 4.3 GPA, and secured a “once in a lifetime” research assistantship in Aotearoa.

My brilliance, however, was no match for the compounding traumas I came up against during my time abroad.

I was abandoned by those who had promised to support me, while isolated an ocean away from those who actually could. I was disparaged at my work, and forced into research that violated my values. Without access to mental healthcare or restitution, changing my circumstances was impossible; and because my scholarship funding and job were inextricably linked, I could not leave the country without facing severe financial and personal consequences.

By the time my body made it out of the country, my spirit had collapsed.

For months after returning home, the traumas I had experienced followed me everywhere. Because I hadn’t seen the unspeakable coming, my brain overcompensated with hypervigilance; any reminder of academia, Aotearoa or living abroad set off my internal alarm system.

In time and with therapy, I began healing. I exposed myself to academia and Aotearoa by chipping away at my thesis every day until it was finished. Never getting to do the type of research I dreamed of still pains me, but I wrote the best decolonial thesis I could under deeply colonial conditions.

However, all the thesis writing in the world could not change having my psyche damaged in another country. To prove to myself that the events of Aotearoa could not define me, I needed to be brave enough to embrace the uncertainty of living abroad again. This time, I would do it in circumstances of my choosing.

—

London came to me as an intuitive nudge. A sense that if I let it, this was the city that could provide a backdrop for my creative coming-of-age, and the literary community I needed behind my first book.

I made moving the light at the end of my graduate school tunnel; a promise to myself that soon, I would flip the page to a new chapter of my life. I bought the plane tickets before I could second-guess myself.

In the months between buying the tickets and putting them to use, I questioned everything about this decision: Was this the right call? Did I have to move this far? Could I be a writer and embrace uncertainty elsewhere?

I considered other places. My hometown felt stifling. Toronto lacked green space. New York, by nature of being American, entailed sacrifices (gun safety, healthcare) I wasn’t prepared for. Montréal and Vancouver spoke to me, but did so with reservation; I sensed that those chapters would come another time.

London kept calling. So although I was terrified to commit to this great big uncertain decision, I made a Google Doc titled “OPERATION BIG BEN” and started researching. I bookmarked neighbourhoods, job leads, and places I could make friends. The more I learned, the more my intuition proved me right.

I came to love London’s seemingly endless supply of things to see and do. There are 48 neighbourhoods here and 600 high streets to explore; people say you can live here for years without seeing it all, which is something I’ve never experienced but always wanted to. There’s a community for everything here; I have no doubt I’ll find my writing people, my running people, and my environmentalists too.

The other thing I came to love was that, unlike most big cities, London is surprisingly full of green space; 40% of the greater London area is composed of parks and nature, in part because of a green belt permanently encircling it. Since 2016, renewable energy and sustainable mass public transit, pillars of the city’s 2030 Net Zero Carbon plan, have helped to cut the city’s air pollution by half. Amidst a world so desperately in need of climate hope, London provides an inspiring example for cities around the world to learn from.

—

London is not a perfect city, and it certainly sits within an imperfect country; one need only look to the streets still named after slave exploitation to find evidence of colonialism. And while it may be one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, it does not change the fact that the only place I will see my own culture reflected here is through stolen artefacts. For that reason, I already know that London is a temporary stay, not my forever home.

Instead, I’ll think of this era the way one of my friends described it in a voice memo sent to me during an airport layover: “I think of your life as a series of short stories. This is the beginning of a new story you’re about to enter. We don’t know how it’s written yet, or what the plot is, or how it’s going to play out. But I’m excited to hear every detail of it, whenever I see you again next.”

I’d never thought of it that way, but it’s true; many of my past stories culminated to bring me here. I dreamed up my big-city Europe plans at seventeen; eight years later, I’m finally making them happen. I yearned for a brownstone apartment two years ago; now, I live in one.

Last year was the hardest short story I’ve ever had to write; at times, my circumstances felt so bleak that I was not sure how I would make it to the next one. But I survived my thesis, and have turned the page on graduate school.

I’m writing a different story now; one filled with budding friendships, meaningful climate work, creative writing and continued healing. I do not know how long this story will last, or what its title will be, but I do not need to; this move has always been about braving uncertainty, and trusting that my intuition will catch me on the other side.

Cheers (as the Brits say) — to new beginnings in London, and the extraordinary stories of a life forming between this chapter’s pages.

The monarch and the matriarch

This essay was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize; news articles can be found here and here.

—

Aashkibagoog, the monarch butterfly.

They represent change and transformation, strength and endurance, hope and resilience.

Monarch butterflies have a north-south migration pattern; a multigenerational migration, which takes four generations to complete.

–

I am a collision of two opposite worlds: one upper-middle-class white Canadian, the other working-class Anishinaabe.

My mother grew up in a small municipality in rural Manitoba, went to university and met my father in towns hardly any larger, and raised me outside the city. Her siblings, and now my cousins, are strewn throughout cities and towns in Treaty 1, 2 and 5 territory. 

Nookomis (my mother’s mother) is the most beautiful woman I have not met. She was forty six years old when she passed. She should still be here. 

I miss her often, though I don’t often tell anyone that. Missing a person I have never touched is an ache that evades language. 

–

Nookomis grew up on the reserve of the First Nation now listed on my status card. 

Her grandmother, probably due to starvation and forced colonial imposition, signed Treaty 4 and relinquished our family’s ancestral lands to what would later become a white person’s playground, today called Riding Mountain National Park. 

Last summer, I visited Wasagaming, a townsite in my ancestral territory. Though I grew up a four-hour drive away, I intrinsically knew these were my homelands. By becoming a national park, these lands were kept intact - something my mother told me I should be grateful for - but the great presence of my people, interconnected with and interdependent on Mother Earth, was absent. Confronted with this reality, I crumbled and wept. 

The violence of my ancestors’ displacement extends beyond linear temporality. Four generations later, my body remembers.

Colonialism was designed, intended, to make us forget who we are and where we come from. If left unresisted, it can assimilate who we have been for thousands of years in the span of a lifetime. 

–

Aashkibagoog resist.

Monarch butterflies travel in swarms, and group together to rest. Many of these sites have become tourist destinations, spectacles of trees temporarily blanketed by black and orange. 

What tourists don’t know, though, is that the most remarkable part of a monarch’s journey happens far from shore.

Flying over Gichigami - Lake Superior - Aashkibagoog fly south, make an abrupt turn east, then continue south again. Considering they must travel over the lake in one unceasing flight, this extension of their journey seems bewildering.

Lake Superior was once a looming mountain over North America; one that tiny monarch butterflies could not climb nor fly above. They used what they had - their tiny solar compasses - and persisted east, making their way around the mountain.

Mountains, often seen as an ageless, concrete structure, have long crumbled into the earth. 

Still, the monarch’s flight pattern continues.

–

Aanikoobijigan (my great-grandmother) was a member of one of many proud Anishinaabe communities in Saskatchewan, though I don't know if she would have seen it like that; Canadian borders are a colonial construct that my people have never fit neatly within.

She went to residential day school in Kamsack, maybe. My family’s kinship has survived, but many of our stories have been muddled by colonisation.

What we can agree on is that whatever happened to her and her siblings, it was bad. No one abandons their language for that of their oppressor unless their tongue is forced. 

Three generations have now been separated from Anishinaabemowin; If we aren’t careful to do the work of revitalising our language, the missionaries and governments who sought to erase our very being will win.

But I am learning Anishinaabemowin, even if it is a stretch to call it speaking. I joined an online class last autumn and was delighted to see my aunties and cousins learning it too. 

Together, my family will bring our language back. My great-grandmother has long crossed over to the spirit world, but I bet she’s looking down on all of us, beaming at our breakthrough.

–

There is no migration journey compared to that of the Aashkibagoog.

They are tiny, with a four-inch wingspan, weighing less than a gram. Despite this, they are the only butterflies with a north-south migration pattern, travelling a path otherwise reserved for birds.

Neither the larvae, nor the pupae, nor the adults can survive cold winters; so every year, monarch butterflies make the four thousand kilometre trek from Canada to Mexico. 

Each butterfly lives a mere two to six weeks. No generation lives long enough to see the fruits of its own labour. Yet each one flies, mates, lays eggs, and ultimately dies, in the pursuit of a softer landing place for her children.

–

Nookomis would later marry a third-generation Ukrainian-Canadian. He was a gruff man who always kept a pack of cigarettes in his front shirt pocket.

My maternal grandparents met when she was fourteen and he was twenty-five. My mother thinks they met at a party, but considering Nookomis was in the eighth grade, we cannot be sure. 

Hearing about their age gap makes me squirmy, but in those days, what choice did she have? She was barred from attending high school under the Indian Act, and already pregnant with a baby she never consented to. 

He provided an escape from the poverty life had cruelly handed her. And so, they wed. 

–

My mother and her siblings were raised on a homestead near our reserve. Her father operated equipment, and sometimes Nookomis worked in the post office, but mostly, they lived off the land.

In the best of times, Treaty 2 brimmed with the foods my family needed for nourishment; deer, moose, elk, pickerel. During hard times, my family settled on jackfish or trapped muskrat. They picked wiingashk (sweetgrass), mashkode-washk (sage), and miskwaabiimizh (dogwood), the last remnants held onto from the medicine bundle of our ancestors. 

Though they were fortunate not to have been forced into the residential school system, the siblings endured systemic racism. In high school, my mother was barred from joining the other students on university tours. “You’ll never go to university”, her teachers snided, “you’ll always be a poor Indian.”

My mom, ever the scrapper, started teacher’s college later that year.

–

Aashkibagoog are adaptable, finding homes on every continent except Antarctica.

Across the world from Anishinaabe aki (territory), Aashkibagoog flutter through Māori territory, known by a different name. In te reo Māori (the Māori language), they are called kahuku. 

Two months ago, I made my own north-south migration journey to Aotearoa. I am spending six months here, alone, in the pursuit of mātauranga Māori (Indigenous Māori knowledge) and mātauranga taiao (Indigenous environmental knowledge) on how to better protect our precious planet.

My journey is worthwhile but lonely. In solitary moments, I look at my garden. There is always a kahuku present, nourishing itself on sweet floral nectar. It is a tender reminder that no matter where I am on this big blue earth, Nookomis and Aanikoobijigan will always find me.

–

My paternal grandmother's parents emigrated from Prussia in the 1920s. At the time, the Prussian government was stealing its people's land, sustenance and dignity. Knowing they had no future, my great-grandparents left for Canada in search of freedom to practise their religion, live a good life, and raise a family.

—

My paternal grandfather’s parents were German, though they emigrated from Poland. His father learned eight languages as a member of the Czar’s army.

But guarding the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was not enough to shield the family from religious persecution. My grandfather’s parents fled Europe at the turn of the 20th century, under the promise of a free existence in Canada.

My paternal grandfather was born and raised a farm boy. He finished high school, and later an economics degree. At that time, white people could work their way up the corporate ladder; so he did, amassing wealth, land and a family along the way.

–

My father’s ancestors had to persevere in order to make it here, I cannot deny that. 

Yet, their history sits uneasily with me; no matter how perilous the migration journey of an immigrant, they are welcomed by Canada upon arrival. 

While those new here are granted the freedom to be who they wish to be, nestled under a cosy flannel blanket of multiculturalism, it always comes at a cost; the original multiculturalism of Turtle Island is at risk of forever being lost. 

This, of course, was by design.

–

My grandparents raised my father and his brother in a small town outside of Winnipeg. They were everything you would expect from a white Canadian nuclear family: my grandfather worked his corporate job in the city, my grandmother stayed home, and the boys spent their free time playing hockey. 

My father grew up with the privilege of being surrounded by everything he could have materially wanted: a big yard to play in, organised sports, and a fancy car to drive.

—

My parents met searching for friends they had lost at a house party in the nineties. They bonded over a mutual love of fishing and country music. Within three months, my father declared that my mother would bear his children. 

These days, my mother works a meaningful job, mortgages a nice home, and spends her evenings in the backyard, tending to her garden and feeding the nenookaasi (hummingbirds) who pay her a visit. 

In some ways, she has reached mino-bimaadiziwin, the good life. The resources she has are certainly better than what her mother, and her mother before her, had access to.

In exchange for these things, she had to make sacrifices no mother should have to. I love my mom, more than anyone, and I think she deserved better.

But I cannot make her want better. I can only take our journey further, and want better for myself.

–

In the settler mind - the mind of my father’s family - land is property and capital. But to my mother’s family, aki is everything. Anishinaabe aki provides us our sense of identity, our connection to the spirit world, our plant medicines, our interconnected relations with all living things.

My ancestors oppressed, and were oppressed. Caught in the middle of two opposite worlds, I am their collision. 

–

When I was younger, I used to walk through thick prairie fields, picking Wiingashk strands carefully so my mother and her coworkers could braid them. These natural beings, so much taller than I, held me with a scent as comforting as my mother’s touch. Sweetgrass, my medicine and my relative.

Through no fault of my own, I have inherited a responsibility to reweave the frayed ties of my family. It is a task fraught with thankless toil. Despite this, I feel fortunate; my walk may be long, but I can still make it home.

I cannot undo the legacy I come from. I can only act in the spirit of dabadendiziwin (humility), and do as Anishinaabekwe (Indigenous women) have done since time immemorial: providing, protecting, teaching, healing and leading our way towards mino-bimaadiziwin, the good life. The soft landing place.

In doing these things, I reconcile my family’s past, present and future.

It may not be perfect, but it is progress, and it is how I stay true to my Indigeneity.

–

Every four generations, there exists a ‘super generation’ of Aashkibagoog. These monarch butterflies are able to live much longer, and travel much further, than their preceding relatives. 

I come from a long line of strong women, who began and persevered through our multi-generational migration. 

I am the fourth generation. The super generation.

Guided by the ancestors who tenderly watch over me, I open my beautiful wings and fly.

References:

Justice, D. H. (2022). Narrated nationhood and imagined belonging: Fanciful family stories and kinship legacies of allotment. In Daniel Heath Justice, & Jean M. O’Brien (Eds.), Allotment stories (pp. 17). University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctv2j56zf0.6

Kimmerer, R. W., & Ebooks Corporation. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants (First ed.). Milkweed Editions.

25 things I know at 25

1. People are rooting for your success more than you know.

2. The person you wish you knew better feels the same way about you.

3. Feelings - even the big overwhelming ones - always pass.

4. Life is more fun when you go all out for the occasion.

5. The patriarchal gaze is overrated.

6. Great ideas flow through us all the time; it’s our responsibility to take note of them.

7. You make a unique contribution to the world when you dare to be creative.

8. Constant vigilance won’t protect you from getting hurt.

9. Love is a worthwhile risk.

10. Don’t ask “What are we?”. State what you want, and ask “Are you on board for that too?”.

11. Peace and passion can coexist.

12. An ‘us vs. the problem’ approach can get you through just about anything.

13. The only way to close the gap between your taste and your work is through steady effort.

14. If mediocre people can make it to the top of their industry, so can you.

15. Not every place will be your best environment to thrive; don’t stay somewhere you hate longer than you need to.

16. You can gain insight from an awful experience and still deserve better.

17. Healing is a spiral, not a straight line. Life brings us back to lessons to heal them even deeper.

18. It’s okay if the current chapter of your life isn’t figured out yet. The title will come later.

19. There is enough time for you to make both mistakes and masterpieces.

20. Something good is always on the way.

21. Reflecting on past mistakes is a sure sign you’ve grown.

22. When you live a life you love, you won’t look for ways to escape it.

23. The only person who can decide who you are is you.

24. Make what you stand for known.

25. When faced with a difficult choice, always choose to do the brave thing.

Living deliciously 101

This post is inspired by the season two finale of the podcast Exactly with Florence Given! Full credits to her and her audience for kicking off my own list of delicious ideas. I’ve paraphrased the ones she shared to the first list below:

1. Finding your signature scent. Bonus points if: you wear it to bed when only you can smell it.

2. Drinking a coffee slowly, quietly and intentionally as you hear birds chirping. Bonus points if: it’s at sunrise with a gorgeous view.

3. Drinking a glass of wine in the bath and watching your legs glisten in the water. Bonus points if: you bathe with essential oils.

4. Covering lampshades with coloured paper or fabric to change the aesthetic. Bonus points if: said material tints the light pink.

5. Leaving home every single day to take in fresh air and be inspired by your surroundings. Bonus points if: you allow your mind to wander without music.

6. Choosing to sit in the most aesthetically pleasing part of the room you’re in. Bonus points if: that part of the room matches your outfit.

7. Buying flowers when you pass a florist, and carrying them around with you for the rest of the day. Bonus points if: the shop is a locally owned one.

8. Making an intentional choice to walk in the sun. Bonus points if: you cross the street to do it.

9. Listening to the soundtrack of a movie that pairs perfectly with your scenery. Bonus points if: you’re traveling through the location where the film was made.

10. Plaiting your hair with velvet ribbons, placing stickers all over your journal, or buying the candy you enjoyed as a child; basically, anything that brings out your inner playfulness. Bonus points if: you share your childhood nostalgia with your mom.

11. Scrolling through Pinterest instead of social media. Bonus points if: you use it to envision exactly what you want all aspects of your life to look like.

12. Making an indulgent sandwich with like 9 ingredients, the kind you would normally only buy from a fancy cafe. Bonus points if: you use sourdough bread to make it.

13. Going to an art gallery or museum in a cute outfit and allowing yourself to go wherever the day takes you. Bonus points if: you end up somewhere better than expected.

14. Choosing a favourite seat in your local coffee shop. Bonus points if: you become a regular and befriend your barista.

15. Applying a power lip in public. Bonus points if: you use a compact mirror to do it.

16. Drinking hot drinks exclusively from tea cups and saucers. Bonus points if: you hand-curate your crockery collection.

17. Cooking yourself a romantic dinner with slow music and a glass of wine. Bonus points if: you garnish your plate.

18. Walking in the park with your lover and creating storylines for the other strangers around you. Bonus points if: the stories you create are outrageous.

19. Standing in a hot shower and pressing your tits against the glass like you’re in a steamy magazine shoot. Bonus points if: you’re showering by candlelight.

20. Trying ‘masturbation manifestation’. Bonus points if: you do it with a vision board in view.

21. Staring up at the full moon. Bonus points if: you’re cuddled up with a loved one, sitting on top of a roof.

22. Planning a slumber party with your girlfriends. Bonus points if: cozy pyjamas and classic romantic comedies are involved.

23. Sending your friends voice notes as though you’re hosting a mini-podcast. Bonus points if: you’re spilling piping hot tea.

After hearing Florence’s list, I challenged myself to dream up my own. I landed on 101 ways to live deliciously, and it was far easier to think of than I realised it would be! Writing this list reminded me just how lovely and romantic life is - I hope it does the same for you.

1. Sending love letters. Bonus points if: you kiss the envelope and leave a lipstick stain on it.

2. Cold plunges, followed by immediate warmth. Bonus points if: you’re cycling between the pool and the hot tub.

3. Colour coordinating your lipstick, nails and accessories. Bonus points if: your colour of choice is a bold one.

4. Skinny dipping at night. Bonus points if: you’re the first to do it in a group, and everyone else joins in.

5. Watching a movie in the park on a big projector. Bonus points if: you bring your own pillows and blankets.

6. Jumping on the bed. Bonus points if: you’re in a hotel room and there are two beds to jump on.

7. Buying the quintessential second-hand find that sets you apart from everyone else. Bonus points if: the item is priced lower than it is worth.

8. Marking a new chapter of your life with different hair. Bonus points if: it involves a major chop, bright colour, or bangs.

9. Listening to an album all the way through on vinyl. Bonus points if: there are slight differences between the record and streaming versions.

10. Finding a drive-out parking spot. Bonus points if: the spot is right beside the doors of where you need to be.

11. Perfecting a parallel park on the first try. Bonus points if: you do the sexy hand on the headrest, look behind you thing.

12. Buying produce at the farmer’s market. Bonus points if: you talk to the farmer and learn the story behind their labour of love.

13. Texting someone a secret message in a crowded room. Bonus points if: the text says, “Want to get out of here?”

14. Planning a themed party. Bonus points if: the music, decorations, costumes and games are all coordinated.

15. Refusing to wear a bra if you’re in a setting where you can get away with it. Bonus points if: you can go commando too.

16. Making delicious, vibrantly coloured smoothies. Bonus points if: you drink it in a tall glass with a straw.

17. Capturing friends with a film camera or Instax. Bonus points if: your photos make a mundane night look dreamy.

18. Wearing a matching activewear set to the gym. Bonus points if: you work out to hot girl music.

19. Putting your jewellery on display in a cute ceramic dish. Bonus points if: you sculpt the dish yourself.

20. Applying a peel-off face mask. Bonus points if: you apply mini under-eye masks too.

21. Reading a book in a library or bookstore. Bonus points if: you can finish the book in one sitting.

22. Listening to emotional music on a nighttime bus ride home. Bonus points if: you’re alone and able to have a cathartic cry.

23. Hanging a beautiful decoration that reflects sunlight into your room. Bonus points if: said decoration is a disco ball.

24. Having one ridiculous, yet iconic pair of shoes. Bonus points if: they’re cowboy boots or mega-platform heels.

25. Pairing your flowers with a cute vase. Bonus points if: the vase is strangely shaped and colourful.

26. Curating a gallery wall in your home. Bonus points if: your art pieces are from places you’ve traveled.

27. Picking fresh berries. Bonus points if: you find them growing wild.

28. Choosing a favourite small animal or bug to notice whenever you’re outside. Bonus points if: you start seeing them regularly.

29. Changing your ringtones and alarms to enjoyable sounds. Bonus points if: the sound sets you apart from everyone else.

30. Finishing your shower as a song ends. Bonus points if: you perform a solo concert in the shower.

31. Naming your tattoos like they’re art pieces. Bonus points if: each name has a story behind it.

32. Affectionately naming your car or bicycle. Bonus points if: you name it something whimsical.

33. Making up catchphrases. Bonus points if: your friends start unintentionally adopting them too.

34. Taking photos in the vintage photo booth. Bonus points if: you can still find one in the mall.

35. Organizing your books and/or clothes by colour. Bonus points if: you have an item in every colour of the rainbow.

36. Journaling daily from a scenic spot. Bonus points if: your writing is a secret you keep to yourself.

37. Taking part in small-scale expressions of creativity, like poetry slams or stand-up comedy. Bonus points if: you try being an act in a show.

38. Joining workshops and classes to dedicate time to your hobbies. Bonus points if: you make new friends there.

39. Splitting a milkshake with two straws. Bonus points if: you drink it in an old-school diner.

40. Exfoliating your whole body with a homemade scrub. Bonus points if: you apply lotion to your whole body too.

41. Shaving your whole body to smoothness. Bonus points if: you crawl into fresh sheets immediately after.

42. Serving non-wine drinks (kombucha, cocktails, etc.) in a wine glass. Bonus points if: your alternative looks like wine.

43. Wearing a huge, long, fluffy scarf. Bonus points if: you wrap it around your head, babushka style.

44. Meeting your friends for picnics in the park. Bonus points if: you serve sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

45. Finding a signature wine or two to serve at home. Bonus points if: you cooly ask your guests, “Red or white?”

46. Batting your eyelashes slowly and softly to feel romantic. Bonus points if: you look up all doe-eyed at someone you love while doing it.

47. Sticking your tongue out at babies. Bonus points if: you can make them laugh.

48. Dancing when you get the teeniest bit excited about something. Bonus points if: you do it without noticing.

49. Writing a haiku. Bonus points if: you gift it to your lover.

50. Agreeing to be ‘vent partners’ with someone at work. Bonus points if: you gain a friend in the process.

51. Tying little notes to helium balloons. Bonus points if: you surprise someone with them for their birthday.

52. Reading at the beach. Bonus points if: you read a juicy summer novel on a hot summer day.

53. Letting someone else remove your shoes after a long night out. Bonus points if: they take some effort to get off.

54. Writing on planes. Bonus points if: you use your airplane mode time to dream about the future.

55. Feeling the soft touch of satin or silk against your skin. Bonus points if: you have a favourite silky dress.

56. Serving, or being served, breakfast in bed. Bonus points if: a cute serving tray is involved.

57. Admiring swans, ducks or koi fish in ponds. Bonus points if: you stop to really observe their behaviour.

58. Watching dogs get the zoomies at the dog park. Bonus points if: one runs up to you and lets you scratch their belly.

59. Sitting lakeside, sunning yourself on a dock. Bonus points if: you cannonball off the dock for a swim.

60. Riding a bike. Bonus points if: it has a basket in the front.

61. Watching the sun glisten over water. Bonus points if: it’s golden hour.

62. Wearing elbow-length gloves. Bonus points if: it’s for a fancy event you have no business being at.

63. Dancing on tables. Bonus points if: you can get away with it at the bar.

64. Painting BIG canvases. Bonus points if: you host a paint night with friends, and share a canvas together.

65. Standing on top of a mountain and staring out at the view. Bonus points if: you climbed it.

66. Warming towels and robes in the dryer. Bonus points if: your lover hands them to you as you finish your shower.

67. Making out in an elevator. Bonus points if: you pretend it never happened when other people get on.

68. Taking yourself out to dinner. Bonus points if: you say “table for one” with intent to your host.

69. Roasting marshmallows. Bonus points if: they come out perfectly golden.

70. Enjoying someone else’s boat or pool for a day. Bonus points if: you have regular access to it.

71. Having a go-to “airport uniform” that you don’t have to remove at security. Bonus points if: it’s comfortable loungewear.

72. Scented sunscreen. Bonus points if: the smell brings back memories of a certain vacation.

73. Vacation flings. Bonus points if: you return home with an incredible story and never speak to them again.

74. Wearing an everyday tote bag. Bonus points if: the bag is a conversation starter.

75. Locket necklaces. Bonus points if: you and your sweetie keep photos of each other inside.

76. Finding a food item you thought you could only get abroad at home. Bonus points if: you find the item in an international grocery store.

77. Buying a magazine subscription and allowing yourself to indulge in reading it each month. Bonus points if: the magazine is trashy.

78. Infusing your water with cucumber or lemon. Bonus points if: you keep a big jug to refill from throughout the day.

79. Curating a killer charcuterie board. Bonus points if: there are 3+ types of cheese and a salami rose on it.

80. Doing yoga to wind down before bed. Bonus points if: your practice increases your flexibility.

81. Regularly listening to a podcast. Bonus points if: the podcaster knows of your love for them.

82. Writing down inspiration as it strikes. Bonus points if: your good idea comes in handy later.

83. Walking around your house naked. Bonus points if: you do it without sexual intent.

84. Dangling an air freshener from your car’s rearview mirror. Bonus points if: it smells yummy.

85. Burning candles or incense in your home. Bonus points if: you pick up compliments on your signature scent.

86. Leaving the party on your terms. Bonus points if: you make it an Irish goodbye.

87. Saying no to a substance everyone else is taking. Bonus points if: you use "no” as your complete sentence.

88. Fresh squeezed juice. Bonus points if: you squeeze it yourself.

89. Assigning a storyline to a mundane task you’re doing to make it more interesting. Bonus points if: said storyline motivates you to complete the task.

90. Committing to your boundaries. Bonus points if: doing so clears a toxic person from your life.

91. Learning the ins and outs of your own pleasure. Bonus points if: you advocate for your needs and have them met.

92. Hosting dinner parties. Bonus points if: themed decor is involved.

93. Crowd surfing. Bonus points if: it’s at a music festival.

94. Taking photos of your neighbourhood flowers. Bonus points if: you send them to your mom and tell her they remind you of her.

95. Collage making. Bonus points if: the collage becomes your vision board for the month.

96. Allowing yourself to be a beginner at something. Bonus points if: the activity brings out your inner kid.

97. Curating a perfect Spotify playlist for the moment. Bonus points if: you’re complimented on your music taste when you play it.

98. Buying someone else’s coffee. Bonus points if you say “my treat”.

99. Laughing at the “kiss cam” at sports games. Bonus points if: you kiss the person next to you.

100. Blowing out candles on non-birthday occasions. Bonus points if: you use them to set your intentions for the season.

101. Fervently believing you have ‘lucky girl syndrome’. Bonus points if: it starts coming true.

Decolonizing the sexual and reproductive health rights movement

On February 25th, I was invited to speak at an Oxfam Canada event titled “Decolonizing the Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Movement”. As a panellist, I shared the ways the SRHR movement has reproduced colonial narratives and structures, its effects on Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals, and the actions we can collectively take to repatriate pre-colonization Indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality.

Q: Is there a ‘trap’ that Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movements and initiatives have fallen into in reproducing colonial narratives and structures? 

A: Absolutely. Colonization violently repressed our cultural understandings of gender and sexuality; as a result, those of us in the Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement remain under pressure to speak about these rights in line with puritanical, sex-negative values, or on scientific, biological terms. 

These two views are pervasive, and yet neither adequately speaks to the very normal, common, human experiences of gender and sexuality. I’ll give you a few examples:

• Diverse genders and sexualities have existed since long before colonization; for example, my nation, the Anishinaabe nation, has words such as agokwa (man-woman) and okitcitakwe (warrior woman) to describe gender. When Europeans colonized Indigenous peoples, they enforced binary gender roles through tactics such as forcing gendered hairstyles and uniforms within the residential school system. Though the last residential school closed 26 years ago, the same gender binary continues to dominate.

• When we frame Sexual and Reproductive Health rights solely in a biological, scientific way, we fail to resonate with people meaningfully. There’s a stark difference between the names for anatomy we’re taught in the classroom versus the slang terms many of us use in everyday life; this imposed pressure on us in the Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement to use scientific terminology to avoid pushing buttons results in our failure to equip sexual beings with the knowledge they need to be safe and protected from harm.

• Puritanical views of sexuality frame sexual and reproductive health  in sex-negative terms - for example, “Don’t have sex until marriage!” “Don’t get pregnant!” “Don’t catch a Sexually Transmitted and/or Blood Borne Infection!”. This imparts shame on all of us, ignoring the reality that people engage in sexual activity for pleasure, not procreation, the vast majority of the time. This approach also does not equip us with the knowledge of what to do if we do get pregnant, or how to manage living with an STBBI. 

• Sex-negative messaging imposes a burden (overwhelmingly on women and non-binary people) that it is one’s personal responsibility to ensure sexual violence does not happen to them. Assuming that dressing modestly, not going out at night, etc. will prevent sexual violence is a lie that ingrains rape culture. It blames survivors for living their lives, rather than examining why perpetrators choose to violate, or looking at the wider systemic issues that contribute to that choice.

Q: What are the impacts of this ‘trap’ on Sexual and Reproductive Health rights and access for Indigenous, Black, and People of the Global Majority?

A: The result of these two views (puritanical, sex-negative values, and scientific, biological terms) being the dominant norm is an erasure of diverse understandings of gender and sexuality held by Indigenous, Black, and People of the Global Majority. As the current Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement stands, many of us remain largely unable to define ourselves and be understood on our own terms.

As Indigenous people, we are too often reduced to racial stereotypes; Indigenous women are deemed hypersexualized princesses (think Pocahantas), while Indigenous men are branded as savage warriors (think Jacob Black in Twilight). Media portrayals of Indigenous peoples continue to “fuel the myths of conquest and glory”. The fallacy of Indigenous peoples having “already lost” to conquest denies us our rights to exercise our own bodily autonomy. 

This myth, combined with trauma (historical, multigenerational and intergenerational), social and economic marginalization, and a lack of institutional will, maintains colonial violence. As a result, Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit individuals experience violent victimization at a rate 2.7 times higher than non-Indigenous women, and sexual violence at a rate 3 times higher. 

Indigenous women are also at particular risk of being murdered by serial killers on the basis of our identity, and violated by transient workers in resource extraction “man camps” on our traditional territories. Furthermore, our access to justice is decreased because of racism, sexism, dismissal and victim-blaming that permeates the justice system. When these cases end up in the media, the coverage they get is often abysmal. 

To this day, there persists particular expectations on what a survivor is supposed to look and act like; for example, being thin, white, straight, and conventionally pretty, as well as having been violated by a stranger, fought back against our attackers, and immediately reported our cases to police. Those of us with marginalized identities or life experiences outside of puritanical expectations will continue to be failed by Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movements and initiatives as it stands because the justice system is incapable of bringing us the justice we deserve.

In short: we cannot build an effective Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement until we are ready to:

1. Reckon with white supremacy, colonization and extractive capitalism; and

2. Move away from puritanical, sex-negative values and an overreliance on scientific, biological terms in favour of a model rooted in a culture of consent, gender-equitable relationships, and proactive sexual health.

Q: What does it mean to incorporate decolonial lenses and practices into Sexual and Reproductive Health rights-related work? 

A: When I think about what constitutes decolonization, I want to ensure we are being specific. In their fantastic article, “Decolonization is not a metaphor”, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang drew attention to how quick those of us in social justice spaces are to adopt calls for decolonization in our workplaces, schools, and organizations. Decolonization, in their opinion, is not just the decentering of settler perspectives; rather, it “brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life”. 

With that in mind, I want to speak to the repatriation of pre-colonization Indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality, as I think it should be an integral objective of incorporating decolonial lenses and practices to Sexual and Reproductive Health rights-related work. 

Before colonization, Indigenous peoples did not see sexuality as shameful; rather, they saw it as a sacred ceremony and a gift from the Creator. Each nation has different stories and teachings about sexual health, which were passed onto children in the community openly; these included discussions about their bodies, coming-of-age ceremonies, moontimes, and sexual and reproductive passages. Sexual violence was not an element of Indigenous cultures, even when women were taken by enemy tribes during times of war. Rather, colonization, and the residential school system in particular, led to the violence we see against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals today.

Taylor and Ristock note that one of the most devastating results of the residential school experience was “the denigration of women and Two-spirit people in [Indigenous] communities” (306). Residential schools “did not make room for women to have roles equal to those of men”, erased a proud history of Two-Spirit people, and instilled homophobia and transphobia within society that persists today. 

As a result: 

• 78% to 85% of Indigenous Two-Spirit individuals have experienced gender-based violence;

• Sexual violence is 3x higher for Indigenous women than non-Indigenous women;

• 85 percent of queer Indigenous women have been sexually assaulted; 

• 78 percent of queer Indigenous women have been physically assaulted; and 

• The rates of violence we experience are higher than any other racial/ethnic group in North America, even when all other differentiating factors are accounted for.

Knowing these statistics, and being a survivor myself, makes it abundantly clear that we cannot end gender-based and sexual violence against our people until we end, and heal from, colonization. I agree with The Final Report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls which states, “An absolute paradigm shift is required to dismantle colonialism within Canadian society and from all levels of government and public institutions. Ideologies and instruments of colonialism, racism, and misogyny, past and present, must be rejected”.

In my opinion, decolonizing Sexual and Reproductive Health rights in an Indigenous context can look like:

• Denouncing all forms of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ individuals;

• Recognizing and honouring Indigenous women’s vital roles - as “teachers, leaders, healers, providers, protectors”, and more; 

• Revitalizing Indigenous nations’ gender and sexuality terms, in our own languages, to revere the sacred contributions of Two-Spirit and LGBTQQIA+ individuals;

• Treating our cultures as the “fundamental right, basic need and top priority to reduce risks of violence” that they are, and ensuring every Indigenous person has access to them;

• Restoring Indigenous legal orders and principles of justice, (these include the ways we keep each other safe, care for one another, ensure our rights are upheld and uphold our responsibilities);

• Funding Indigenous-led health and wellness practices, including ceremonial and health-based medicines, matriarchal teachings on midwifery, elder care, and others; 

• Creating culturally relevant and trauma-informed violence response services by and for Indigenous peoples; 

• Teaching comprehensive sexual education, including healthy sexuality, cultural competency, youth empowerment, reproductive justice, 2SLGBTQQIA+ identity, and sex positivity; and

• Ending extractive industries and environmental violence, and advocating for land back.

I also recommend reading the 231 Calls to Justice listed in the Final Report of the National Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and asking yourself which ones you can take action on. 

Q: How would you recommend aspiring youth leaders to meaningfully contribute to decolonizing Sexual and Reproductive Health rights?

A: When I began doing this work as a survivor in 2018, I felt completely alone and isolated in my experience. Knowing that there are aspiring youth leaders today who want to meaningfully contribute to the Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement thrills me. 

From an older youth to younger youth, here are my recommendations as you take on work in this space: 

1. Treat your lived experience as the valuable knowledge it is. 

   As youth, we often aren’t listened to by older adults, because they assume we can’t possibly have the knowledge or experience needed to be a subject matter expert. But if you have had an experience with Sexual and Reproductive Health - such as surviving sexual violence, or being unable to access contraceptive or reproductive services - then you probably understand how systems and institutions fail better than most people.

   2. Get involved in settings where you can speak truth to power and be taken seriously.

   Back in 2018, I became a representative on my university’s Board of Governors. Being in that position, where I had equal voting power to the President of my university and other senior administrators, which allowed me the unique opportunity to raise concerns about and influence change in my university’s sexual violence policy.

   3. You can’t build a movement alone.

   Connecting with other social justice organisations around you can allow you to gain a deeper understanding of how issues such as white supremacy, colonization and patriarchy intersect. It can also help you spread campaigns, raise funds, and find communities to lean on.

   4. Don’t underestimate the value of intervening with your peers.

   One of the reasons why our Sexual and Reproductive Health rights continue to be violated is because few people are willing to intervene with the perpetrators in their lives. The majority (73%) of sexual violence is perpetrated by someone the victim knows; this includes our partners, families, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and neighbours. Most perpetrators engage in multiple forms of sexual violence (‘rape jokes’, cat-calling, sending unsolicited nudes, etc), so it is crucial that we intervene (as long as it’s safe to) when we witness warning signs.

   5. Keep your activism sustainable.

   If you want to sustain your action in the Sexual and Reproductive Health rights movement, you have to prioritize your own healing and well-being. If you don’t, you run the risk of burning out and stepping away from the work altogether. It is crucial that you be honest with yourself about your own limits, and commit to staying within them.

Writing prompts to encourage creative confidence

On February 3rd, 2023, I facilitated a workshop called “Giiweyendam (‘they think of returning home’) to the Artist Within” as part of a Canadian Centre for Sexual and Gender Diversity (CCSGD) event called Queering ARTivism. The program, intended to teach 2SQTBIPOC youth aged 16-29 across Turtle Island about “the power of art as a form of activism and 2SLGBTQ+ history and storytelling” was a huge honour to be invited to. Younger, closeted Tay never would have expected to have an opportunity like this.

Leading up to the program, I felt major imposters syndrome; thankfully not about my identity, but rather, about my qualifications to lead a workshop. I have been comfortable with public speaking for as long as I can remember. I had shared my writing publicly for five years. But up until that point, I had never led anything more elaborate than a meeting. How was I supposed to lead a group of youth to make art, especially considering some of them would be older than me?

After a lot of perfectionist procrastinating, I sat in my neighbourhood coffee shop and vowed to myself not to leave until I had a fleshed-out idea. Hours later, I landed on my workshop’s core tenet: I wanted my participants to leave feeling comfortable seeing themselves as artists.

I knew from years of experience that believing in one’s artistic potential was a difficult task without experience, a fully developed personal style, or capitalist accomplishments. Which is absurd, because creativity is meant to be unbridled! As children, we embraced our creativity, and let our imaginations flourish. But somewhere along the way, we traded in these things for logic and pragmatism.

I was determined to shift my participants toward an understanding that they still housed creative gifts, even if those gifts felt buried deep within. We just needed to find ways, together, to uncover them. To return home to them.

I thought intently about the exercises I had done that instilled my own belief that I have always been a writer. I pieced bits of them together until I had seven writing prompts. Twenty slides and eight pages of script later, I had created an hour of creative confidence-building content.

My workshop garnered rave reviews. Now, I gift these prompts to you.

Grab a pen and paper (or your notes app), and get to it.

PROMPT ONE: Naming it

Set a one-minute timer, and write your answer to the following question:

What form of self-expression brings me the most joy?

PROMPT TWO: Owning it

Set a thirty-second timer, and write down the following sentence:

I am a [insert form of self-expression listed in prompt one].

PROMPT THREE: Valuing it

Set a one-minute timer, and write your answer to the following question:

What is a cause that I am passionate about?

PROMPT FOUR: Refining it

Set a five-minute timer, review these roles conceptualised by Deepa Iyer (find them on page six),

and write your answer to the following question:

Which of these movement roles do I see myself in?

PROMPT FIVE: Visioning it

Set a four-minute timer, and write your answer to the following question:

What is one creative thing I can do that ties my cause and my role within it together?

An example to help: If I were to do this exercise, I might say that I value building a violence-free world. I’ll narrow my aims a bit, and say that my role within that cause is to be a storyteller and visionary. And since I’m a writer, I might choose to write a poem envisioning what a world without violence would look like. 

PROMPT SIX: Coming home to it

Write down the words past, present and future. Space them apart so you can write a sentence beside each.

PAST: Write one example of you being creative when you were younger.

PRESENT: Write one example of how you are creative now.

FUTURE: Write one example of something creative you can imagine yourself doing in the future.

Set a five-minute timer to come up with the three examples.

PROMPT SEVEN: Finding kinship within it

Set a one-minute timer, and write your answer to the following question:

Who is my creative community?

Note: It does not have to be only fellow creatives in your life; your list can also include anyone who might be able to support you as you grow your creative gifts.

TLDR; A quick pep talk:

• You are a creative being.

• Your art and your activism are connected.

• You play an integral role in your community.

• Your creativity has always existed, and will always exist, within you.

• You don’t have to create alone.

How to: make love go the distance

I’ll start with this: Younger me was supremely underqualified to give relationship advice.

Being in my early twenties meant I was in the prime age bracket for emotional unavailability, ghosting and other fuckery. My early adult life made me an expert on unrequited love; after three failed, bruising situationships, I was convinced that my standards needed to be on the floor in order to be met.

Then, I met Keean. Keean is the picture definition of a cisgender straight man if it were written by the female gaze. He’s a devoted feminist, emotionally intelligent, undeniably charming, and (in my humble opinion) strikingly handsome. We admired each other throughout our undergraduate degrees from afar, only working up the nerve to talk when we each wanted to attend the other’s senior gala. We exchanged tickets, matched dresses to ties, and coyly flirted before what would be our big finale. Then Covid arrived, cockblocking our not-so-innocuous intentions.

To my surprise, Keean kept in touch with me, even after I moved back in with my parents and later, across the country from him. He describes this phase simply: “Talking to you always made me happy, regardless of where things were going”. While I was stumbling through my first steps in a new city, I had a long-distance crush who was steadfast and sure about me.

We called, FaceTimed and texted for over a year. We agreed that our feelings “weren’t going to end in a relationship”, swore off flirting with one another, stopped talking, and started talking again three weeks later. We were unable to help ourselves. Yet when friends insisted I liked him, I shrugged it off.

“So what?” I would retort.

“I’m not moving to Ottawa, and I am definitely not doing long-distance.”

I called him one night after getting back from a solo road trip; the details were too juicy to send over text, I rationalized. After catching him up on my recent adventure, we toyed with the idea of finally visiting each other in person. The way I saw it, this was a guaranteed two weeks of getting laid, and after unsuccessfully floundering through the Vancouver dating scene, I deserved a sexcation.

I sent him a screenshot of my booked tickets, telling myself that this would in fact be our big finale. In hindsight, my obliviousness is laughable. What we really needed was a push in the direction of a relationship. Once we realized we’d already built a solid foundation of friendship and communication, being in a long-distance relationship became easy. We started dating three weeks later, and have been falling for each other since. 

Keean and I started dating with no plans to move to each other’s respective cities; since then, Keean almost moved to Vancouver, I almost moved to Ottawa, we both changed our career and education trajectories and now I’m a 21.5-hour flight away from him. Neither of us would have expected this much change in our lives when we started dating, but love got us here anyway.

The vast majority of people we’ve told about our dynamic have responded, “I could never do long-distance”. I get where they’re coming from. Not knowing when you’ll see your person again is scary enough to make you disengage from the idea entirely. Still, I’m not convinced that long-distance is a futile endeavour. Call me naive, but I believe that if you have a healthy dynamic, care for one another, make each other happy, and communicate well, the other details can work themselves out in due time.

Of course, I know that’s a simplified justification, which is why I created a guide below on how to make love go the distance. These are the insights I’ve gathered based on my own lived experience, so take from it what resonates with you.

HOW TO MAKE LOVE GO THE DISTANCE:

1. If you are going to go the distance, do it with someone whose life vision, values and interests align with yours. Otherwise, what’s the point?

2. Long distance is a means to an end. You and your partner should be firmly interested, in moving to the same place at some point.

3. Strong communication is key to growing closer and easing relationship anxieties. The right amount of communication is going to look different for everyone, but daily or near-daily quality time goes a long way in making your partner feel closer than they may be geographically.

4. If something is bothering you, address it as soon as possible. Working through small problems together builds trust and makes good practice for working through larger issues.

5. The initial post-visit withdrawal is the time when being apart aches the most. But, you can get through it, by letting yourself feel, caring for yourself the way your partner would, and settling back into familiar routines. 

6. Try to always have your next visit (or two) planned. Countdowns give long-distance relationships a sense of security and something to be excited about. 

7. When it comes to visits, go back and forth, or meet in the middle; otherwise, effort will start to feel uneven, which is cause for resentment.

8. Romance is easy to keep alive, so long as you’re willing to invest thought into it. Send them love letters. Pay for their coffee. Curate a playlist for them. The possibilities are endless.

9. Long-distance and sex can be an awkward pairing, but it doesn’t have to be if you reframe it as an extended form of foreplay. Start a list of things you want to do to each other, have FaceTime sex, use partner-controlled sex toys. It may unlock ideas you otherwise would never have considered.

10. Deep breathing together and an ‘us vs. the problem’ approach can get you through just about anything, so long as you bring your problem-solving brain and unconditionally loving heart to the issue at hand.

11. Reuniting does not have to play out like a scene from the movies. It can feel nerve-wracking and unfamiliar and awkward. It’s okay. You’ll pick back up where you left off sooner than you think.

12. Assuming the worst of someone causes us to get defensive, antagonize them, and react out of anger; three things that can prolong and worsen fights. If you aren’t certain of your partner’s intentions, ask what they are.

13. During fights or big changes, get a trusted outsider’s perspective. Therapy, alone or coupled, is nothing to feel ashamed of. It can help you see situations clearly, prepare you for daunting adjustments, and above all, it’s an act of demonstrated dedication to your partner.

14. Long-distance does not mean you have to stop going on dates; it just means you have to get creative with planning them. Some ideas to get you started: share a Netflix series, cook the same dinner recipe together, or run a two-person book club.

15. Ethical non-monogamy and/or polyamory are options that can be explored during periods of distance; however, they are options that require open and honest communication, clear boundaries, and increased tolerance for jealousy. Reading books about it together, posing hypothetical scenarios to one another, and leaving room for change in your negotiations can make these structures more approachable.

16. Long-distance can leave some rules up for interpretation, since you may not always be able to ask your partner questions immediately. Are there unique boundaries that need to be set? New definitions of cheating? Hone in on those, and have clear definitions of the parameters to stick to within your relationship.

17. In the span of a lifetime, one/two/a few years apart is not that long. Reminding yourself of this fact, and of the future milestones you have to look forward to, can carry you through lonely periods.

18. Stop obsessing over whether your relationship is “worth it” or whether your partner is “the one”; they might be, or they might be a learning experience that forms part of your journey. Instead, ask yourself “Am I happy to choose this person today?” and if the answer is yes, carry on.

19. Long distance, like any relationship, is a two-way street. You deserve to receive back all the effort you’re putting in.

20. You are not “needy”. Everyone has things they need in a relationship. Either your partner will be able to meet your needs, or they won’t. If they cannot or will not, you always have the power to decide whether it’s a deal breaker.

Long distance may not be the path of least resistance, but it is worth it for the right person. As a formerly emotionally unavailable early twenty-something now in love, I would know.

Vancouver, I’ll miss you.

I came to Vancouver running.

It was June 2020. Amidst the pandemic, I had moved back into my parents’ basement and become tangled in a cycle of ruminating over past mistakes and fretting about the future. Being isolated gave me plenty of time to do both.

I was early in the process of figuring out how to define myself, on my own terms. I spent years in the public eye of the small pond I inhabited; having branded myself as my alma mater’s “girl boss” student politician, I had wrapped my own worth up in my ability to garner votes and change on campus. 

Three months into “unprecedented times”, I could feel myself slipping away from that persona. I now know that metamorphosis was the foundation that built who I am today. At the time though, it felt as though the stability I had known for years was giving out beneath me.

At the time, I knew a few of my core values that remain true: I cared deeply for Black and Indigenous lives, I hated police brutality, and despite my best efforts at denying it, I was bisexual. These values would go on to define my writing, public speaking and activism. They still do.

But living back in the predominantly white, straight, small town that raised me, I wasn’t always safe to express them. Time and time again, I found myself striving to overturn opinions on tenets of humanity that shouldn’t be a fight. As someone with light-skinned privilege, this was my responsibility to bear; and at the same time, I yearned to be surrounded by peers whom I didn’t need to justify myself to.

In came a FaceTime with two friends from university, both of whom were faring through COVID-19 better than I. “Come visit us here!” they insisted. I was wrapping up a couple of university classes online, so I figured a week or two-long visit couldn’t hurt.

Olive branch extended towards me, I came running to Vancouver.

—

A professor of mine once told me, “We survive this world because of acts of kindness”. 

Nothing could be truer of my time in Vancouver; I survived my first summer in, and my eventual move to the city, because of the unearned kindness I was given by my friends.

My friends allowed me to sleep on their couches until I could get my bearings. They took me camping and hiking to show me what “beautiful British Columbia” really meant. They showed me all the hidden gems I would need to know around the city. They celebrated my move into my first apartment with flowers. They showed up in droves when I held my own celebrations. Most importantly, they adopted me into their worlds, and loved me deeply as I learned to love myself.

Living through lockdowns in a new city also taught me to get comfortable with my own company, and become my own friend first and foremost. With every restaurant, coffee shop and thrift store I took myself to, I proved to myself that being alone does not mean you have to be lonely. As I raised the standards for how I treated myself, it became easier to ask those around me to meet those same needs.

The time and distance between myself and my dear friends is about to grow, and I feel as though a part of my being is missing. How lucky I am, to have experienced that kind of love.

How lucky I am, to carry my own companionship with me wherever I go.

—

I came out publicly the night before I moved to Vancouver for good; though if you’ve read The “Feeling”, you’ll know that I knew for a decade before that. I struggled to embrace my bisexuality for so long because I was held back by compulsive heterosexuality, as well as internalized and external biphobia. Being in a new city where hardly anyone knew me felt like a perfect opportunity to let my queerness bloom. 

However, there was one problem with my plan: I already had a candidate for a partner, who happened to be a cisgender straight man. A small, queer part of me felt disappointed that I would never have a girlfriend, especially after waiting so long to admit to wanting one. The rest of me, however, felt lucky to have an expansive sexuality that could encompass all genders. My wonderful Keean had all the long-awaited characteristics that I was looking for in a partner of any gender; I chose him and promised myself that I would not let him crowd out the wildflower sexuality I had only just begun nurturing.

What I didn’t anticipate was Keean’s support beyond my wildest queer dreams. Of course, this is something I could have expected, considering he was one of the first people I called for support after coming out. I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with my identity, but I wasn’t sure if, or how, he would include it as part of our relationship. Over the past two years, he has taken me to drag shows, bought me queer-signalling accessories, and encouraged me to branch out and find pockets of my own community. As a result, my queer presentation, friendships and identity have grown stronger than ever.

These days, I roll my eyes at him when he tells me to let women know that I find them beautiful; but I always smile to myself when he’s not looking.

—

In moving to Vancouver, I was sure of my values and deeply unsure about how I could shape them into a career.

Falling in love with the land my first summer ultimately aided my decision. The more I loved the land, the more I wanted to support its protectors. I dove into the deep end and made working for Indigenous peoples my full-time job. I worked two jobs before graduate school; they differed greatly from one another, but both challenged me and gave me much-needed clarity.

In my first job, I liaised between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in the emergency management sector. Supporting communities through climate and public health crises was rewarding. It was also exhausting; especially when my ideas weren’t taken seriously by superiors, when staff unloaded their racist opinions on me, and when I was put in unsafe working conditions. I later left because of these issues.

I am immensely grateful for the opportunities that my first job provided me to travel across the country. My time working on reserve was especially integral because it allowed me to bear witness to the conditions my kin live in. 

My second job took me from working on the ground to working at the policy level. The work wasn’t as thrilling on a day-to-day basis, but I understood that the portfolios under my purview were important to advance. I wrote resolutions, organized major events, and contributed integral insights to reforming a national income assistance program. 

I knew the day would come when I would have to leave the workforce to be a graduate student. I left my second job because the next chapter of my life required me to move abroad. I also left because of some organizational blind spots: our structure in some ways mirrored the colonial institutions we were trying to resist, I saw no upward mobility for my career, and I was taken less seriously than many of my peers.

I am lucky to be taking the next six months to reflect on what I want from my career. Two years ago, I would have said yes to any opportunity that came my way. I’m glad I did say yes to the opportunities that found me; there are things I learned from my first two jobs that no amount of reading could ever amount to.

And at the same time, I’m glad I learned that I can want more. The standards I’ve practised raising within my interpersonal relationships are standards I’m eager to apply to my career too.

—

I have always been a writer; though I have not always thought of myself as one. Yes, long captions were my thing, yes I performed spoken word, yes I scattered thoughts across journals and notes apps. But I thought I didn’t, couldn’t, think of myself as a writer, until I had produced something of substance, something that others deemed good.

Taking a long break from social media was one of the best things I did to shift how I thought of myself. My break freed up a significant amount of my time and allowed me to get back to doing the things I loved. I read more books, spent more time outdoors, and romanticized life more. By the time I returned online, I felt ready to be wholly, authentically and unapologetically myself; but it would take another push for me to shed my desire to people please enough to share my words with the world. 

Taking a writing course provided me with the push I needed. In our first class together, my instructor reassured me that writing was not a process that happened alone; rather, it was a process necessarily strengthened by those who could cheer us on and call out our blind spots. Of course, this was a lesson we had to put into practice by submitting our work to be edited by the entire class. 

At the time, this ask felt like a mortifying ordeal. What if I couldn’t submit the required ten pages in time? What if I did, and people didn’t resonate with what I had to say? What if they thought my writing was objectively bad, and they were about to tell me so to my face? I fretted and procrastinated on my submission date until the end of the course.

Eventually, I was forced to make peace with the possibility of being an amateur. I loosened my grip on my deep-rooted perfectionism and allowed my unbridled creativity to take the reins for the very first time. It paid off: the next class, my classmates made me tear up with their kind and constructive feedback on my work.

A few weeks after the course wrapped, my friend Vanessa texted our group chat, announcing that it was about time she added that she was a writer to her Instagram bio. My initial reaction was: why? How could we call ourselves writers when we had only submitted ten pages? That was hardly a product of substance, right?

I soon corrected myself, realizing that actually, submitting ten pages of writing to be edited by strangers was something only writers are eager enough to do. How could I not claim the title? I took a deep breath and added the word writer to my own bio. In the nine months since, I launched my website, have been published in the Puritan and the Tyee, and am planning my first book.

These days, I am producing things of substance, things that others deem good. But even when my work isn’t deemed worthy by anyone else, I feel proud of it, because I come to it wholly, authentically and unapologetically myself.

—

Now I am in the midst of a cross-continental shift, towards passion.

Life in Vancouver kicked this shift off. It was August 2020, and I was taking part in an outdoors-based youth program. On our last day, we sailed through the Salish Sea, where I blasted my Y2K hits playlist and led the group in a half-karaoke singalong, half-dance party.

Fond of our energy, our ship captains took us to a patch of ocean deep enough for us to rope swing off the boat. Summer sun on my back, I took a running jump and plunged into cool turquoise waters. Playfully shrieking upon impact, I fluttered through shimmering waters, eager for a second jump. In the midst of doing so, I smiled and thought about how glad I was to be alive. 

The simple pleasure of experiencing life had returned to me, after years of dimness in the chapter that preceded it. Through it all, the adventurous part of me remained intact, and I realized it was my duty to nurture her for good.

That is exactly what I plan to do over the coming months. There is truly nothing I would rather be doing than writing my thesis and memoir; both fill my cup to the brim with excitement so big that it overflows. Not to mention, moving to a new city, country, and continent means that I will be able to experience and revel in life around every corner.

Vancouver, now in my rearview mirror, has wished me well on my next move. 

I’ll miss this city. 

But Ōtautahi, I’m ready to run towards you.

Reflections on grad school: semester 1

Disclaimer: All thoughts shared below are my own. I do not represent my program, my university, or any other students/staff/faculty within it.

—

A few months ago, I was so excited to return to school again; at the time, I called my Master’s the education opportunity beyond my wildest dreams. As a queer feminist, studying Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice seemed like a perfect fit. My campus was beautiful, and as one of the chosen “lucky eleven” students, being accepted made me feel special. I knew going into my program that Indigeneity would not be a focus of the program, but I figured as long as my thesis research was Indigenous-focused, I would be fine.

It was foolish to ever think that I could shove my Anishinaabe self back into some figurative identity closet.

—

I shared with a faculty member that everything I do academically is in service of the communities I belong to. They remarked, “That’s an Indigenous worldview”. I shrugged off what she said and carried on with our conversation. Later that day, I clued in.

Whether to make more money in the workforce, gain tenure-track faculty positions, or become famous for their theoretical contributions, there are people in this world who go to university for their own personal gain. I’m not saying my decision to go to graduate school was entirely altruistic; but I will say that thinking of how I can best serve my ancestors, my communities, and my future kin was the most integral factor in my decision.

I cannot disentangle myself from this worldview I carry. And yet, I feel as though academia constantly makes that ask of me.

—

In my first month’s reflection, cracks were already starting to show. I admitted then that my journey was more emotionally draining and time-consuming than I expected. I stayed hopeful because I saw value in the connections I was making with my cohort.

We’ve grown closer than ever, to be clear. They even brought me a dessert tray (with candles for me to blow out) in celebration of my upcoming Aotearoa move. It is their support that has kept me going each week.

But, it is apparent to me now that universities are vehicles for the continuation of settler colonialism. As Leanne Betasamosake Simpson summarizes so well in Land As Pedagogy,

“My experience of education was one of continually being measured against a set of principles that required surrender to an assimilative colonial agenda in order to fulfil those principles” (150).

Most of the time, I am the only Indigenous person in the room advocating for the perspective of my nation, and Indigenous nations everywhere, to be heard. It is exhausting work that makes me feel as though I am up against settler colonialism at every turn.

As a result, I have grown increasingly jaded with “the academy” as an institution. After my experience thus far, I’m not sure I have it in me to continue onto law school or a Ph.D. But if I were to make a return to this school after graduating, here are the things I hope would change.

—

See the inherent value of every student.

In Ross Gay’s Dispatches From the Ruins (a chapter of his book Inciting Joy), he discusses the practices he’s implemented to foster a more meaningful learning environment. One of these practices includes only giving A’s to all of his students, which sounds radical (and perhaps it is). Here’s how he argues in favour of it:

“In [the] grading system, in which everything - approval, advancement, entry, reward- is based on the grade, the learning will inevitably be secondary to compliance or the ability to follow directions” (153).

I’ve been outspoken in my classes lately. Having said some uncouth things, I’ve asked those in supervisory positions whether my comments will negatively affect my grades. “You’re fine,” they tell me, explaining that “everyone gets As in graduate school”. The grading choices in my classes feel arbitrary.

If that’s the case, why do professors choose not to give A’s to their undergraduate students? Why are universities so selective about their graduate school acceptances? When the opportunity is there to see the inherent value in every learner, why are we so often choosing not to?

This scarcity mindset, of judging students by how well they adhere to university rules, stifles the joy and beauty that can be found in actual learning. I would much rather admit to being a beginner and making mistakes while being held by mentors who see the value my gifts hold to make this world a better place.

—

Make learning free and accessible to all.

This week, a group of students organized a protest against raising tuition fees at a UBC board meeting. They were met with swift dismissal, and the Board voted in favour of raising tuition fees anyway. They did so, knowing that this policy choice negatively affects students, and makes receiving an education even more inaccessible than it already is.

For reference, post-secondary education is a privilege few of us have access to while in “Canada”, 54% of adults have a university degree, this access is not equal for everyone; only 10.9% of Indigenous people have a university degree. This number drops to 5.4% for those who grow up on reserve.

While there are many factors that contribute to the lower rates of post-secondary education attainment for Indigenous peoples (including the burden of relocating from one’s community, lack of culturally relevant curricula, and intergenerational trauma from the residential school system), it cannot be denied that insufficient funding plays a large role in this discrepancy. Especially when Indigenous peoples experience the highest levels of poverty of any demographic in “Canada”.

While some post-secondary students receive some Indian band-provided education funding, this funding is not disseminated to everyone, and it often does not cover all of their expenses. Those of us left unsupported by our bands often rely on scholarship funding through organizations like Indspire, which receive much of their funding from corporate entities (Hudson Bay Foundation), fossil fuel subsidiaries (Suncor Energy Foundation), and big banks (CIBC), the very institutions that have harmed us for centuries.

Indigenous students shouldn’t be forced to accept the appeals of our oppressors to get an education.

“Canada” is failing to meet its obligations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call 10.I: “Providing sufficient funding to close identified educational achievement gaps within one generation”. However, the country could easily resolve this by providing free, accessible post-secondary education to everyone. They should take notes from countries like Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Iceland and others, who have already successfully done so.

—

Stop treating Indigenous peoples as an afterthought.

Every time I met someone with more power than I do to instil change, I arrived at a dead end. “Change is slow,” I’ve been told with half-hearted shrugs, “Maybe try going to an Indigenous event”.

I’m grateful for the Vancouver Indigenous Student Collegium and the First Nations House of Learning on campus; I did my best to make the most of visiting them this semester. However, these resources were introduced to me late in the semester, long after I began struggling.

Here are some things that should have been in place; for me, and for all Indigenous students:

• Someone to tell me about all the resources available to me, during my first week of studies;

• Peers to visit these spaces with, so that I felt comfortable in them;

• An Indigenous-specific counsellor, who could provide me with trauma-informed and culturally specific mental health support;

• More faculty, staff and students who looked like me and shared my life experiences;

• An administration receptive to the concerns raised by Indigenous students.

—

Learn from and with Indigenous cosmologies.

Something I have been immensely frustrated with over the course of this semester is the insistence of non-Indigenous scholars to pass off teachings originally held by Indigenous nations as their own, without giving credit where it is due. I wonder if perhaps this happens because “scholars are asked to become entrepreneurs, producing ourselves as brands and seeking stardom from the very first days of our studies, when we know nothing” (Tsing, 2015).

One example that comes to mind is quantum physics. I won’t pretend that it is something I can fully wrap my head around yet, but it has come up often in my classes. Some theorists echo many of the teachings that my nation has held since time immemorial: indeterminacy as an embodiment of "the great mystery" of all things, for example, and an interrelated connectedness to everything from plants and animals to the cosmos.

Drawing attention to these similarities, and asked my professor, “Why is it that the things I know intuitively had to be made into a philosophical academic commodity, learned, taught and disseminated by a non-Indigenous scholar in order to be listened to by us?”

They responded, “Oh it’s not the same. Quantum physics places man at the centre”.

But here’s the thing: It is wrong to cherry-pick Indigenous teachings to make your own point without giving credit where it’s due. To do so is theft of our beautiful, animatedly existent cosmologies. It is especially violent, given that these cosmologies were devalued for centuries through both Indian Act policy (e.g. Banning the sun dance and potlatch) and the residential school system. That needs to be acknowledged.

Seriously commit to decolonizing, and giving the land back.

When I first came to UBC, I was so impressed by its inclusion of a Musqueam elder in my graduate orientation, as well as the totem poles that decorate the campus, mainly because it was so much more representation than I ever saw at my alma mater. However, I have since learned the history behind this institution and realized that UBC is as complicit as every other university in Indigenous displacement and invisibilization.

University of British Columbia’s main campus is located on the unceded homelands of the Musqueam Nation. The university was provincially mandated through the 1907 Act to Aid the University of British Columbia by a Reservation of Provincial Lands and the 1908 Act to Establish and Incorporate a University for the Province of British Columbia. Point Grey was selected as the location for this 175-acre university because it was “close to, but not part of, Vancouver”. This UBC purported narrative of Point Grey as an undisturbed, waiting-to-be-developed plot of land is an example of Terra Nulius doctrine that attempts to obscure a much darker truth: the Crown made these decisions about Musqueam land without Musqueam consent.

How can we even begin to decolonize this institution when to this day, it sits upon stolen land? As Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s oft-cited essay declares, “Decolonization is not a metaphor”. Rather, decolonization requires “the repatriation of Indigenous land and life”; when the university does anything short of this, they are continuing to uphold their own colonial legacy.

The logistics of dismantling UBC and returning its lands to the Musqueam nation are complex, I know. But in the midst of a world headed towards (and already experiencing) an unprecedented, existence-altering climate catastrophe, isn’t it time to decolonize and radically rethink the way Indigenous lands are treated; especially when it is Indigenous peoples who hold the much-needed knowledge to restore our relationship with mother earth?

—

I am cognizant that making these asks on my personal blog will not result in the change I seek. Maybe it would make more of a statement to leave this institution. I have considered it. But I will stick it out, because I refuse to lose out on my cohort, scholarship funding, thesis research, and future career pathways this degree can open up. Mama didn’t raise a quitter, so I will not quit.

But I will not tacitly accept the way myself, and other Indigenous students, are treated in this institution.

I will keep pushing through while resisting in the ways I know how: sharing my experiences openly, demanding more from the institution I pay to provide me with an education, and advocating for decolonization to be at the forefront of social justice rather than its afterthought.

Mostly, I write this because one day I will be on the other side of this institution; perhaps an author, a lawyer, a professor, or all three. When that day comes, I want my twenty-something writings to serve as a reminder; both of what I endured to make it and the better conditions I want to instil for generations of post-secondary Indigenous students to come.

Conversation starters that could change your life

In the summer of 2016, I found myself thumbing through a book in a small-town gift shop, simply titled “The Book of Questions”. I thought it would make a great icebreaker for my first year of university. Little did I know then that it would become my game-changer for good.

When a dear friend of mine asked me questions for the first time, we opened a floodgate and opened up to each other in a way we never had before. My first-year roommate and I giggled at its hypothetical scenarios for hours. When I posed the questions to a “Chad type” I was dating, he confessed that I’d gotten past his “alpha male persona” and gotten to know who he really was underneath it.

As a guest at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner, I brought the questions along to pass the time on the drive. My book soon became the talk of the table. By the time I returned, I’d gained a second family and a lifelong best friend. A  few months later, I decided I would gift the book’s magic to a crush of mine, only to find its last copy at the same time as another customer. She’d been searching for a previous version released in the 1980s- the version that made its rounds through the conversations she was having in her twenties. Clearly, the questions have stood the test of time. From my experiences, they’ve stopped time entirely.

Case in point: A friend of mine once picked up the book right before our plans to go on a late-night adventure. Six hours of talking later, we never left my house- in the midst of asking questions, we realized we were more than friends, an adventure all its own. I’ve since taken questions along on every adventure I’ve been on, from the beaches of Maui to the jungles of Belize to the cobblestone alleys of Spain. I always keep questions tucked in my back pocket, ready to cut past small talk and get straight to connection. 

Why do I love to ask? Because deep down, I know that every person I cross paths with wants to feel seen. Our fast-paced world allows us the opportunity to get away with meaningless interaction all the time, displayed in our “I’m good” replies, our “hope you’re well” emails, and our “let’s catch up” texts. I believe people are too complex, too storied and too beautifully complicated not to have more interesting things to say. And if I get to find out even a sliver of those things, I consider my life all the better for it.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to start asking the people in your life questions too. Aside from physical touch, what better way is there to practice closeness than through conversation? I’ve hand-picked these ten just for you- but before you get going, I’ll let you in on one secret: the magic isn’t found in the questions themselves- it’s found in one’s openness to answering them.

THE QUESTIONS:

1. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about one thing about yourself, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know and why?

2. Would you rather be very successful in a professional sense with a tolerable private life, or have a great private life and an uninspiring professional one? 

3. What is the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done? Do you feel more proud or embarrassed about said thing?

4. Would you like your partner to be smarter and more attractive than you? If so, what is it about you that would hold their interest?

5. How would you feel if you knew that within your lifetime, computers would become more self-aware, intelligent and creative than humans? Would it change the way you live your life now?

6. Has anyone been able to greatly influence your life within a short period of time? Do you think you’ve had that same effect on them, or had that effect on anyone else?

7. Would you rather have one true soulmate and no other good friends, or no soulmate and lots of good friends?

8. If you could return to a previous point in your existence, change a decision you’ve made, and pick up from there, would you?

9. If someone threw a party for you and invited everyone you’ve ever cared about, who would you be most excited to see? Who would you be most nervous about seeing?

10. If you died this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Do you think you’ll ever tell them?

Enjoy these questions - if any resonate and you’d like to send me your response, you can always reach me by email at tayalyjade@gmail.com.

I have always been a writer

CW: sexual assault. If you require support after reading this, please reach out to one of the phone numbers listed here.

JUVENESCENCE

October 2003. I have just started Kindergarten, and I LOVE show and tell. One day of the month, I get to speak my mind to a classroom of attentive listeners, and it is my most favourite thing.

I also love to read the newspaper. Each morning before school, I sit on my mom’s lap and learn about the world with her. People say newspapers are for grown-ups, but they are wrong because I can read big words too.

Sure, I like comics, but it is everything else that grabs my attention. I read about the weather, and crimes, and classified advertisements, and am engrossed by it all. I decide that at the next show and tell, I will come ready to educate my classmates about what’s going wrong in the world.

My mother chuckles as she retells me this story. That day, I came to school and told my classmates about the murders happening in our community. My teacher called my mother, concerned for my well-being, and asked her to stop reading me the newspaper.

“She’s teaching herself to read,” retorted my mother, “Who am I to stop her?”

—

October 2008. I am in fifth grade, and my language arts teacher reveals that she has an exciting assignment for us. We are to write a short story- our only requirements are that it has to have a forest, a princess and something enchanted involved. Most of the other kids are groaning about the three pages expected of them, but I am beaming. This sounds like the most fun homework I will have, maybe ever.

I take out my favourite notebook and get to work. My story is aptly titled The Enchanted Forest. It is a gender-bending fairytale about a sword-wielding princess who trains her male love interest to fight the dragons that threaten the forest surrounding their village. In return, he shows her how to do domestic tasks. Naturally, they are a perfect match and live happily ever after. By the time I am done writing its side quests and plot twists, it becomes a twenty-page behemoth. 

When presentation day comes, I am ecstatic. The teacher has brought in a special cherry red leather armchair from the library for each of us to sit in as we read what we have written. The Enchanted Forest is a story that deserves to be remembered, so I volunteer to go last.

I read all twenty pages of my story aloud to the class. My presentation is much longer than the others- in fact, it takes a full hour to get through- but I do not care. I have never been happier, or felt more me, than I do at this moment. 

During recess, one of my bullies comes up to me. She says, “That was so long I almost fell asleep, but so interesting it kept me awake”. It is the closest thing to kindness she ever gave me.

I make my mother proud. She thinks my book should be published. As a ten-year-old, I don’t know what that means exactly, but it sounds important. The Enchanted Forest was never published, of course. But to this day, my mother brings it up whenever I’m feeling down, as proof that my writing gift has always been with me. 

—

May 2016. I am in twelfth grade, and taking second-credit literary English. My English teacher wears vintage dresses and thick-rimmed glasses and is more self-assured than I think I will ever be. She’s a hard marker, which makes me deeply want to impress her. When she gives us free rein on our final assignment, I pour every fibre of my being into it.

I write her a journal, titled Turning Seventeen. The first few pages provide an overview of key events in my life. The rest of the journal consists of “memory jar” entries, crumpled scraps of paper with details I want to remember.

As a teenager, I am convinced that my life will one day mean something important, so I write down everything. This includes my first hangover (horrendous), my friend breakups (dramatic), and the time I kissed two boys in one week (scandalous!). My English teacher grades me an A+ on my work and refuses to make eye contact with me ever again.

Looking back at this assignment, I am both horrified and amused with myself. I am sure my English teacher and her husband (my art teacher) ate up my exposé on everyone in my grade and everything that happened that year. 

I would never write something so scathing now. But I do think it is the purest example of myself creating with abandon, and proof that I was meant to be a memoirist.

ADOLESCENCE 

November 2018. I am in my third year of my undergraduate degree, the worst year of my life. Three months before that night, I was sexually assaulted by my best friend. Now, I am getting on stage for the first time to speak out about what happened to my body that night.

Every year, the Women’s Centre puts on an event called Survivors Speak. It is a brave space, built into a cozy campus cafe, that invites survivors of sexual violence to share their experiences with listening ears. I have not written much since high school, so the idea of sharing my writing on a topic this vulnerable scares me. But since I am fighting a sexual assault investigation that continually invalidates me, I desperately yearn to be heard. I decide that I would write something, just this once.

I get to work on my piece, a seven-minute monologue of the sexual assaults I experienced at ages five, eighteen, and twenty years old. I describe them happening to three of my friends - Taylor, Alyssa, and Jade- and tie them together by clarifying that I am Taylor Alyssa Jade in my conclusion. I speak back to victim-blaming culture, punctuating my last sentence with the words “fuck no”. It feels powerful.

Because I have never been to a poetry event, I assume that memorizing the poem is mandatory. I recite mine with no notes and do not miss a word. My audience responds with a standing ovation, hugs, and hand squeezes. The speaker after me says, “I don’t know how to top that”. My work is so well-received that the Women’s Centre invites me back for years to follow.

I perform at more coffeehouses, join a local poetry collective, and slowly start to believe my voice has something to say. While words cannot return my stolen body back to me, I am grateful that they found me in time to pull me through my darkest days.

—

November 2021. I live in Vancouver now, as far as I can geographically get from home without my mother wrangling me in. I’ve long graduated, and just started a job as a policy analyst; after a year in the emergency management sector, I no longer crave a work-fuelled adrenaline rush.

It’s been a while since I had time to spend with my own thoughts, so I am eager to get back into writing. I decided to build my own website, a little corner of the world where I can freely put social justice in creative terms. The problem is, I am not quite sure who to write for.

That’s when Haley’s newsletter finds me. Haley, a bossy, Brooklyn-based, bi gemini who writes boldly about mental health, sex, and trauma, is the coolest person I have never met.

Haley is starting a course called “Writing With Confidence”. We are challenged to show up every Tuesday evening to write, in the company of other budding creatives. The intent of this class is to boost our confidence and break our procrastination habits. I sign up within the hour.

Haley and her perfect blowout deliver a writing prompt to start our first class. We all share, no preambles allowed. I am soon enamoured with the creative brains of my classmates. 

A few weeks into the course, I submit a ten-page submission for editing. I hold my breath the entire week, forgetting I am in safe hands. There are nothing but kind, constructive comments left on my work.

The course gives me lifelong friends, whom I later fly out to see in New York. My newfound community instils in me a belief in my own abilities, strong enough that I whisper aloud to myself: I am not just someone who writes, I am a writer.

—

September 2022. I am back in university, this time to get a Master’s degree in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. On orientation day, my and I cohort are squished into a small classroom. Our professors have prepared presentations to welcome us into the program.

Two women take their seats at a table facing us. The first to speak shares words of knowing comfort. 

“You belong here”, she declares. 

Speaking to a room filled with people of colour, she intimately knows that we have all already experienced academic exclusion. I feel at home, knowing someone cares enough to rectify it. 

Detailing vignettes of her career, she drops a detail that I audibly gasp at: she is writing a memoir and has a contract with Penguin Random House to do it. She is personified proof of my dream. It takes everything in me not to raise my hand and beg her to tell me everything. 

I decide, bravely, to email her later the following day:

“I learned a lot yesterday, and I would love to learn more from you. I imagine you are incredibly busy as both a professor and MFA student, but if you can make time in the next month to discuss memoir writing and the publishing world, I would be delighted to listen.”

She replies back:

“I am more than happy to share with you my own story of acquiring an agent and also about how I got the publishing contract. I would also be happy to share with you an introduction to an amazing agent – this seems to be the all-important key to acquiring a book deal!” 

I immediately call my closest friends, crying tears of joy about even the slightest chance at this newfound opportunity. For the first time in my life, my goal is within reach. I may be a writer now, but one day, I will be an author too.

ADULTHOOD

December 2023. I have just finished my Masters degree. It was laborious, but flew in the blink of an eye. I fast tracked my degree and finished it in sixteen months. I teeter between excitement and nervousness over what comes next.

I know one day I’ll want to go back to school- whether for a PhD or a JD, I’m not certain yet. But for now, all I want is to write.

It is risky, taking time away from the workforce to pour into myself rather than fulfill someone else’s agenda. Money is tighter than I would like, but I consider myself lucky. I live in London, England, with the love of my life, and since he has a full-ride Masters scholarship, neither of us will have to worry about rent for the next few months. 

I have the capacity, finally, to focus entirely on completing the first draft of my first book. I have an agent in mind- the one my professor helped me find all those months ago- and cannot wait for them to fall in love with Brave Thing. My memoir has been six years in the making; like an overstuffed animal, my story is bursting at the seams, ready to spill its inner workings onto the page. Thankfully, I journaled that entire year, so my memories remained intact; it’s like I knew my words would mean something important one day.

On the days where it is hard to write, to revisit that worst year of my life, I remember who I have to lean on. My mother. Past teachers. The poetry collective. My Writing With Confidence classmates. Haley. My graduate school friends. My professor. My partner.

I feel grateful, knowing these people will be with me, throughout this process. I can’t wait to have them in the audience of my book tour, responding with standing ovations, hugs, and hand squeezes. 

—

November 2025. I am an author, holding my published memoir in my hands. Every time I pick up a copy of Brave Thing, the surreality of this accomplishment sets in, and my eyes well up with gratitude again. 

Writing this book was an arduous process; there is no triumph without preceding struggle, a mentor once reminded me. I did what I needed to push myself through: I diligently went to therapy, took breaks that grounded me in the present, and cried on the shoulders that could support me. 

My book is a powerful thing. It looks my rapist in the eyes, names what he did to my body, details the unjust burden of winning a sexual assault investigation and delivers social commentary on the wider issues illuminated by my case. The publishing team at Penguin Random House says this book has the power to reignite social discourse about sexual violence not seen since #metoo went viral. It might even make it onto the New York Times bestseller list, they tell me. 

Tonight is the first night of my book tour. The buzz outside my changeroom tells me the venue is already packed. I may be nervous to share something so vulnerable so publicly, but I know my entire life has prepared me for this moment. 

I step onto the stage in a gorgeous gown, receive a standing ovation, take my seat in a cherry-red leather armchair, and captivate the room.

It’s time we had “the talk”

Excerpt from the policy proposal I presented to provincial government changemakers through the LEVEL Vancouver Foundation Youth Policy Program. My full policy proposal calling for comprehensive reforms to British Columbia’s (BC’s) sexual education curriculum that emphasises consent, sexual well-being, gender-equitable relationships, and the full inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity can be found here.

It’s time we had “the talk”.

The overwhelming majority- ninety-seven per cent of us- will engage in sexual activity at some point in our lives.

However, only twenty-eight per cent of us understand what it means to give consent. 

This is in part because our sexual education curriculums have failed to teach young people to respect one another’s boundaries. 

This failure comes with reprehensible consequences. For example:

• Fifty per cent of women in Canada report that they have felt pressured to consent to unwanted sexual activity.

• Forty-four per cent of women in Canada report experiencing some form of psychological, physical, or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. 

• For those with identities at multiple intersections of marginalization, we know that these rates are even higher, while their access to justice is lower.

Gender-based and sexual violence is 100% preventable.

But it will take major shifts in policy to create a world without violence.

That’s why I am asking government leaders to place consent at the forefront of sexual education curriculums.

In my research, I sought the answers to one question: 

What should youth be taught in their sexual education classes so that they enter adulthood knowledgeable about consent?

After conducting a thorough review of best practices, I came up with a list of recommendations for the Government of British Columbia to implement: 

1. Schools need to explicitly mention consent in their sexual education lessons. Teaching students how to effectively give consent and respect the consent of others contributes to a safer world for us all.

2. Students need to be taught that they have a role to play in eradicating gender-based violence. Including everyone in these conversations will ensure that misconceptions about gender-based and sexual violence are dispelled and that violence is no longer deemed a “woman’s issue”.

3. 2SLGBTQQIA+ sexual activity and sexual health need to be included and normalized as topics in the sexual education curriculum. Having representation that extends beyond identity will ensure the curriculum is relevant to all students.

4. Digital and printed resources need to be developed so that parents and guardians can understand why the lessons covered in sexual education curriculums are so necessary. This will garner their continued buy-in to the curriculum as it undergoes transformational change.

5. Sexual-education curriculums need to emphasize positive sexual well-being instead of just the prevention of negative outcomes. By reframing sex as a pleasureful, life-enhancing experience grounded in consent, safety, and respect, we make the curriculum more meaningful to students. 

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse as well as sexual assault, I came to this research with a lived perspective.

Had I been taught comprehensive sexual education, I could have known the difference between “good touch and bad touch” as a child. 

As a teenager, I could have learned that my sexuality was valid, that sex isn’t supposed to hurt, and that my personal bodily autonomy deserved to be respected. 

As an adult, these lessons could have prepared me to identify unsafe people in my life, and leave abusive relationships before they escalated to the levels of violence they did.

Instead, I learned what consent was by experiencing what it was not.

I was failed by my sexual-education curriculum. But the youth of today don’t have to be.

The government of British Columbia has the power to build a comprehensive, consent-based sexual education curriculum for youth.

I hope the government chooses to take on that responsibility as though the lives of youth depend on it - 

because they do.

Reflections on grad school: month one

Now that I’m a month into my graduate school journey, the question I’ve been asked most frequently is: How is school going?

It is challenging, though not at all in the way I expected.

I knew this year I would have to buckle down, and get used to being immersed in the academic world once again. To do so, I prepared myself myself months in advance by writing long papers. After producing 100+ pages of policy research, I thought I would be 100% ready to take on whatever challenges graduate school threw my way.

I was not.

—

This semester, my faculty designed my program’s classes so that professor and students could co-create their academic environment together. Learning in this way has taught me that everyone’s lived perspective is valuable, and possesses something for others to learn from.

I wasn’t prepared to share so much of myself in the classroom.

That’s why I have this website. It may be on the internet where anyone can read it, but I know my work is only being exposed to those who can hold it in safe hands, at least for now.

I don’t have that same kind of assurance in graduate school.

—

Last week, I took a leap and poured my heart out to my class. My assignment was to braid together Narrated Nationhood and Imagined Belonging, Braiding Sweetgrass, and my own family history in presentation form. To do so, I interviewed both sides of my family to learn about their stories of migration, assimilation and colonization.

I grappled with what it meant to come from both colonizing and colonized ancestors, and what kinds of responsibilities I hold as a result. Parts of my own family’s story had me choking up with tears as I spoke.

At the end of it, when it came time to offer feedback, the first person to respond said, “I love your outfit”.

—

My classmate’s comment was intended to land as a compliment, but it hit me as an uncomfortable gut punch, a stark reminder that I am often treated as something to look at rather than someone worth listening to.

I walked away from that class feeling gutted. It was one example amongst many that has made my master’s degree so much more emotionally draining and time-consuming than my academic research practice could have prepared me for.

I made time that week to mourn graduate school for not being what I expected.

—

A few days later, I showed up to a seminar, where two of my classmates asked how my week had been going.

“I’ve been sad the past couple of days,” I replied.

They came over to me, and asked permission to hold my hands. I let them.

“Listen, I know I didn’t get to tell you in class the other day, but I LOVED what you had to say. It was incredibly, powerfully written. I know how hard it can be to share thoe things, and I am so proud you did. Your piece was on my mind for days afterwards”.

Something new clicked for me.

THIS is what graduate school is about.

It’s about making genuine connections with like-minded people.

It’s about building a deeper understanding of my own identity, and how that ties into social justice.

It’s about being brave enough to put myself out there, even when that isn’t received the way my ego expects.

All the other stuff- the research and writing bits- are things I have already proven myself capable of doing.

—

Does that change the fact that graduate school is challenging?

No. I won’t deny that it still is.

However, rather than mourn about what graduate school isn’t,

I can choose to be excited about what it is,

and who it will evolve me into.

The next chapter

I’m going to graduate school.

I’ve been awarded $20,000 to pursue an education opportunity beyond my wildest dreams. If younger me could see what I’m up to now, she would be so proud.

I always vaguely knew I wanted to pursue graduate school, but had no idea when, where, or what I wanted to study. Looking for some semblance of direction, I reached out to a professor from my alma mater for advice.

“If I'm interested in Indigenous studies, where should I go to learn it?” I asked.

He gave me a few options to consider in Canada, and at the bottom of his email, added:

“I’m looking for an RA (ideally with an Indigenous background) interested in doing research in Aotearoa. This would be a fantastic opportunity for someone like you, based in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Just a thought in case you might be interested in exploring this…”

My initial thought was to reply “Thanks but no thanks. I have a partner in Canada, and don’t plan on moving across the world from him. Best of luck finding someone else!”. 

Curiosity got the best of me. I read his research proposal and it intrigued me.

“I think I’ll apply to some schools out here”, I said, “But I’m willing to learn more about this Aotearoa New Zealand thing”.

He invited me to his next meeting with the Aotearoa New Zealand research team. The team consisted of a few professors from various universities throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, and a research assistant based out of the University of British Columbia. I clicked with them instantly.

They felt the same way about me. One team member sent a private message saying, “Taylor’s just hit the jackpot”.

“I have a good feeling that this is all going to come together really well”, remarked my former professor.

I remained skeptical. 

I kept the idea on the back burner and decided instead to apply to the University of British Columbia for their Gender, Race Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ) program, as well as the University of Victoria for their program in Indigenous Governance (IGov). Since both appealed to different sides of me, I figured I would go wherever I was accepted.

The problem was, that both schools competed for me.

UBC’s admission offer came first, followed shortly by UVic. UVic’s offer had a $5000 scholarship attached to it; when I told UBC, they matched it.

With two offers sitting in front of me and none of my Aotearoa New Zealand applications sent in yet, I had no idea what to do.

“I had a feeling this would happen,” the professor said. “You’ll be taking a chance if you say no to these and wait to apply to schools in Aotearoa New Zealand, but I really think it'll be worth it”.

I started tearing up. “But I really love my partner,” I replied, “How can I be that far from him that long?”

I was reminded that a few months away from my partner, in the grand scheme of life, was not a big deal. He pointed out that having a funded master’s degree in Aotearoa New Zealand, on the other hand, was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 

I decided that my best course of action would be to accept one school’s offer, defer it, and then use the extra time to apply to schools in Aotearoa New Zealand.

As an activist in the queer and feminist communities, UBC’s GRSJ program appealed to me. I knew I would be exposed to a variety of fascinating viewpoints. It certainly was the school that got me more excited. The downside? I would likely be one of the few Indigenous students in the program. Indigeneity would likely only come up as an honourable mention in the broader subject of intersectionality.

UVic’s IGov program, on the other hand, would have at least 50% Indigenous student representation. I knew I would feel safe learning about my people's history, culture, and struggles amongst a like-minded cohort. However, I also knew I would be sidelining my feminist and queer research interests, which wouldn’t feel right either. 

I didn’t want to have to choose between studying as a queer feminist or studying as an Indigenous person. So, I proposed an idea that could structure my graduate studies to suit me. I emailed:

“I've been toying with the idea of a mixed model recently. The Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Masters I was accepted into has a thesis component, so my idea is to conduct my coursework at UBC, and then move to Aotearoa New Zealand to do my thesis portion of the degree. This would allow me to complete a thesis on Māori water governance in Aotearoa New Zealand, while receiving a “Canadian” degree (which makes it easier for me to apply for scholarships).”

He replied, “If the idea you are hatching gives you a greater feeling of security, and that you’re getting the most of the various options that are being offered to you, then I’d say let’s try to make it work!”

It was settled. I would be going to the University of British Columbia and the University of Canterbury.

This September, I am starting my Master of Arts in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. Getting to go to UBC is special. I know I’m going to mesh well with my faculty, my cohort, and the university at large. Seeing my lush, vibrant campus in person made me feel solid in my decision.

In January, I’ll be moving somewhere else lush and vibrant- the city of Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. There, I’ll be working as a guest researcher at the University of Canterbury’s Ngāi Tahu Center, writing my thesis on Māori water governance.

There are striking parallels between the environmental degradation that has happened to my homelands and on Maori territory. My master’s degree is an opportunity for me to learn from a fellow Indigenous community and bring their knowledge home to help my own.

—

My mom recently gifted me a pair of monarch butterfly earrings. Inside their box, she wrote me a letter about the multi-generational migration journey monarch butterflies make.

“You’re finishing our family’s journey”, she told me.

The Indian Act prohibited my grandmother from being educated beyond the 8th grade. My mom was a trailblazer in our family when she went off to university. Now I will be the first to get a graduate degree. My educational journey has always been as much about me as it has been about my ancestors. 

Truth be told, I’m feeling all kinds of nervous to be embarking into new territory, both in education and my (soon to be) location. There’s lots to think about, and I don’t yet have all the answers to the worries running through my head. 

However, here are the things I do know for certain:

1. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I’m thrilled to be taking on.

2. Learning, growing, and making new connections are exactly what I need at this stage of my life.

3. I have a great team of mentors around me, both here on Turtle Island and in Aotearoa.

4. I’ve got a partner whose love for me spans the world, and we’ll be continuing our long-distance journey together while I’m away.

5. No matter what, my ancestors are looking out for me.

Main characters, do this:

1. Make your bed every single morning. It starts your day with a sense of accomplishment.

2. Find your regular coffee shop, memorize your barista’s name, and have a go-to coffee order.

3. Stop to smell the flowers (and send a picture to your mom so she can appreciate them with you).

4. Curate playlists for your every mood. Envision them as the soundtrack to your big, beautiful life.

5. Give yourself full permission to sing and dance at stoplights (no one is paying attention).

6. DM the acquaintance you wish you knew better. I bet they wish they knew you better too.

7. For the love of god, leave your hometown. Your new setting, even if temporary, will grow you exponentially.

8. Go to therapy (if you can afford it). It’s the greatest gift you will ever give to yourself and those around you.

9. Speak up for your boundaries. Set your own bar for how you want others to treat you, or they will set it for you.

10. Learn why your parents are the way they are so you stop resenting the way they raised you.

11. Do not extend empathy to people who refuse to take accountability for their actions. It’s a waste of your precious energy.

12. Lean into the issues that get under your skin. Chances are, you’d be a really great piece of the puzzle in solving them.

13. There’s no point in saving the clothes that don’t fit you for “when you lose the weight”. Start embracing your body as it is, ever changing.

14. Own your sexuality and pleasure. When communicated effectively, doing so makes for better solo and partnered experiences.

15. Create a go-to character uniform for yourself. 3-5 outfits you love (matching sets for ease!), plus some statement accessories only you could pull off.

16. Get a tattoo or a piercing on a whim. You’re living in a borrowed meat sack for a speck of time, why overthink it?

17. Do things for the thrill of it. Kiss strangers, book impromptu trips, go skinny dipping, whatever.

18. If you want to stop feeling like time is passing you by, start making your birthdays, holidays and celebrations memorable.

19. Try not to record every second of the concert/event. Your followers didn’t pay to experience the show live, you did.

20. Shake up your routine and try a new hobby. It will allow you a rare opportunity to see the world with childlike wonder.

21. Keep your goals where you can regularly see them (as your phone background).

22. When in doubt, make the career decision that will grow you most.

23. Spend time in adoration of Mother Nature. It’s the best cure we have.

24. Stop wearing your “trust issues” on your sleeve as a means of avoiding commitment. Let yourself fall in love already.