Through ARLUK eyes...

In my hips. My belly. My thighs. Gravity reminding me of the times I comforted me instead of challenging me. It’s fine. I’m a mother now. When do I have time to exercise? I barely have bed space. That’s where my energy goes. To sleep. Then to wake, then to work.

Weight. Shoulders. Back. Legs. Mind. Silence. Words unspoken from peers in fear of it becoming lateral. I hear you. Connection. In my mind there are worlds where we gather. I follow you. I heart you. I like you. I celebrate you. I look forward to the times we are person to person. Then I am awkward and distant. Connection.

Light. Inside enclosed rooms I imagine light instead of searching its present illumination. Too much to do to leave and search for light.

Co-Pro. Climbing on the Indigenous back to reach higher status. The opposite of reconciliation. I look forward to feeling lighter.

Child. Lifts me from the place of doubts and fears to a place of laughter and joy. Eyes shine of his and mine.

Trust and Criticism. In criticism, I trust I know. I do know because I trust teachings shared, life lived, ground support and something deeper. It’s easy to criticize from afar. It’s easy to take home judgement. It is not easy to trust. It is harder to understand. It is harder to ask why. It is easy to criticize without asking why and stay critical. Trust.

Grateful. I am grateful for the roof over our head. The bed that holds us. The water that cleanses from within and out. The earth that holds us. The air that keeps our lungs clean. I am grateful for my voice. It can get lost.

Time. Time takes time and doesn’t leave room for voice.

Space. Voice needs space. Clarity needs space. Focus needs space. Family needs space. Love needs space. Spirit needs space. Thoughts needs space. Creativity needs space. Discovery needs space. Sleep needs space. I need space.

As the years go forward and each holiday becomes a greater and greater deal on Facebook I am compelled to write this. Father’s Day is always particularly hard to maneuver through because I never really had one. It wasn’t like he was unknown. I knew who he was. I knew his name. I knew where he lived. I just didn’t know him. I wanted to. I tried to know him several times in our lives and each time he just wasn’t interested./I haven’t really talked out loud about this publicly. Not out of shame but of confusion./ I know shame was there for part of my fatherless journey. Shame that I had a father that didn’t want to know me. That he had a family he was a part of, that I was excluded from. I often asked myself, “Why not me? Why not know me?” I used to buy him gifts on what I thought was his birthday. Nice ones too. /I always had good taste./ None of it mattered. I was rejected. I felt shame for it.

I didn’t discover I was a rejected daughter until I was 19 years old in theatre school in Toronto, Ontario. I was attending Centre for Indigenous Theatre, testing out my acting chops to see if this was something I wanted to pursue. /It ended up being a life calling but that’s a well known story told already./ The practice of becoming the artist means discovering who you are and what you carry within you. It takes courage to go to these places and often, because it was my first time exploring self this way, I was surprised at what came up. Not surprisingly, anger was part of the emotional landscape. I used to get angry at the people that loved me. My mom would bear the most of it but it wasn’t until I had been with someone I loved for several years that I realized this was a pattern. He used to say I was getting meaner towards him. This concerned me because I could tell I was. I didn’t like it. I loved him why was I being so terrible? Amongst the anger and in the daily class explorations came memories and overwhelming feelings that brought up confusion and discomfort. I stopped going to school. I told myself and the school I wasn’t feeling well. I stayed in my room with the futon on the floor and bathed in the sun, blocking out the dark. Three days later the Artistic Director calls me and asks how I’m doing. I say, “fine.” She doesn’t believe me and instead of punishing me, invites me over for dinner and suggests I meet her daughter. I say, “yes.” /I never refuse a free meal./ We never discussed why I was absent for those days but from there she suggested myself and other members in the class begin seeing a therapist. I agree to it not knowing what that means. It meant discovering the word “rejection” and “abandonment.”

She was Indigenous, my therapist. We would smudge before every session and then get started. I had never gone to therapy before so I really had no idea what was expected of me. The first few sessions were about getting to know each other, who I was, who she was. I liked her. Then she asked why I thought I was there. “My anger.” I said. “I get mad at people I love. I am hard on my mom.” She then asked about my father. I said it didn’t matter about him because he was never there. We needed to focus on my mom and loved ones. She insisted I speak about my father. I say. “What do I need to say about him? He was never there. He never wanted to be there. I have no emotion towards him.” Then she said, “Where do you think that anger you have towards him is going?” “If he’s not there, who is and always has been?” [                                                        ] From there on in we discussed rejection of father and what all that meant. I remember going into the children’s room for one session where I picked a toy resembling my father. I chose a little playmobil© man with short black hair and screamed at him while he looked at me blankly with bad hat hair and an outreached hand. Mostly I learned how my sexual choices were rooted in my rejection of father and the anger returned. I have always been sexually adventurous and with that comes great moments and not-so-great moments. It angered me to know that in those not-so-great moments where I felt like I had compromised myself or felt shame...those moments could have been prevented had I known consciously that it was to keep myself from being rejected. I was angry at my father for taking away the confident voice in myself that should have said, “well fuck you then.” Thankfully, I am forever thankful, for that time spent with the therapist. I made many changes in my life from that time. Afterwards, I still had some not-so-great sexual moments but I had more control over them. The rejection of father haunted me. It haunted me through a terrible marriage that carried similar themes from that of my father and his addictions. His anger. His self defeat. I wrote a play, TUMIT, that explores those themes. I wanted to break cycles. I asked myself, “How do we break generational cycles with the same tools and handicaps of our parents before us?.” It helped me get to know my father another way. I put him in my world and got to be part of his. It is dark, somewhat sad, yet still he is loved. He is non-compromised. Tumit means, “tracks” in my language of Inuvialuktun. I went back to go forward but I’m still walking, discovering, resolving. TUMIT continues to tell those stories and it does impact an audience giving insight to a world that is rarely seen on stage. 

He haunted me even after his passing a couple years ago, from alcoholism. Since therapy I let go of trying to know my father. I let go of putting myself in a place of constant rejection. I instead focussed on my aunties and uncles who wanted to be in my life. His siblings, their children. I reached out to our elder relatives focussing on culture and teachings. So when I got the call at 6:30 in the morning from my uncle saying my dad had passed I was lost. I was lost but not shocked. Last I heard he was in Paulatuk teaching mechanics. Earlier in the week I got a call from my mom telling me he was back in Smith, that he was getting ready to die. I was painting a house in Yellowknife at the time. I had turned down acting work in Vancouver to paint this house. I didn’t know why then but understand now, it was to keep me close to home. When my mom shared that, I thought it was the ramblings of a self-pitying alcoholic. I was wrong though. My father knew he was going to die and headed back to a place he considered home. Yet he never reached out. I wondered about that afterwards; if he knew that he was going to die, even so much as to leave one place and go back to another, then why didn’t he reach out to make amends? He died how he lived.

I was conflicted about going to his funeral but I had to. He may not have needed closure but I did. I needed to see his body and I needed to say good-bye. Death is the ultimate closure. I flew into the town I was born in, Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and went to my Aunt’s house. All of his side of the family were there already and it was nice to see them. The most memorable was going to the morgue to see his body. It was going to be a closed casket wake because he was yellow from kidney failure, but I wanted to see him before he was sent to the Hall to be mourned over. I needed that time. I went with the aunties, his sisters. What I will never forget. He was in a body bag with a white label that printed off his birthdate I never knew and his death. The nurse unzipped the bag. He was wearing a blue polo shirt with pyjama bottoms. His hands were folded. He was yellow and slightly bloated. His eyes were closed and he looked like he was sleeping. I studied him for a long time. I looked at the length of his eyelashes. His nose. His little dark mole on his left finger. His hair. His round face. I put my hand over his and remember crying out. We all cried out. We keened. The rest of the funeral was a mess with dysfunction. Remember the family he had that I wasn’t part of? Well they reminded me of that. Even then. I am grateful for the cousins and aunties and friends that stayed there by my side through the madness. I flew back to Yellowknife, finished the paint job, and from there back to Vancouver.

For over a year my father’s passing haunted me with the darkest of grief and even more confusion. It wasn’t until Christmas where I briefly ended my relationship with my now partner and isolated myself from family and friends did I realize I was depressed. That I had been since his death. The problem with not knowing your now dead father is, “How do you grieve a relationship that was never there?” I didn’t know how to. With sound advice from my now back together partner, he suggested I talk to someone. “Who?!” I said. “I don’t want to talk to some white-privileged-city-man about my fucked-up-northern-no-father life.” He was right though. I felt this loss for a year and didn’t see an end. I needed help. I found a grieving circle that met once a week for six-weeks. It was made up of people from different cultures, different ages, different financial brackets. They all lost someone they deeply loved, a husband, wife, lover, best friend, mother, father, sibling. The only difference between me and them was all of their deceased loved ones loved them in return. I went every week and the greatest gift happened. I learned I was grieving because I loved the person who passed away. This may seem like a simple statement but to me it was a light bulb moment. I didn’t realize I loved my father until I grieved him. The other greatest gift was that being a witness to the grief of the others around me for loved ones that loved them filled me with love for my father. I forgave him. I reached out to an elder friend when the circle was coming to an end and asked how to do tobacco ties. I wanted to give the group a tobacco tie to thank them for helping me heal. The elder I asked was Rene Lamothe Sr. who has recently left us. I know that his teachings will be with us always as he was such a generous and loving father himself. On this day his spirit is felt. I have a few more words to share. Today is Father’s Day. I am writing this while I am 38 weeks pregnant with a son of my own on his way and a great man lying next to me. He will become a father for the first time very soon. /Hopefully soon./ I look at him and see the excitement in his eyes when someone congratulates us. His pride as he touches my belly. His love as he leans down and speaks words towards my womb. I look at him as he researches the best diaper options and makes sure I eat healthy. I see the growth in my own life to choose a man that will be there when this little man enters the world and fuck am I ever grateful I broke that cycle. Grateful that this child will have a father that will be present, loving, nurturing and courageous. That he will be there for him. Grateful that our son waited for us to come together for him. I feel so blessed today.

It may be Father’s Day but today is my reconciliation day. My letting go day. My forgiveness day. My celebration of new life to come day. My day to say, “Mahsi cho and Quyanainni for making me the person I am today day.”

In my imaginary life I know who my families are from generations in the past. I can see multiple worlds and still sleep in my own bed. In my imaginary life I can speak my language and tan a moosehide in two days flat! My beadwork skills are stellar. In my imaginary life I take big leaps into different forests and speak all the animal dialects sharing with them the newest lingo so everyone is hip to it. I fly, like, really fast but still look good when I arrive and someone always packs my luggage for me. In my imaginary life I take the high road and mean it and the residual regrets actually turn into smoke and blow away. In my imaginary life there are lizards that eat mosquitoes and silver fish then hang out in their own corner of paradise so I don't step on them. That would be terrible. In my imaginary life I am always in shape and never get tired. My food is always healthy and I want for nothing. I have children in my imaginary life and in it they are healthy too; and smart and compassionate and like the same music I do. In my imaginary life there is no fear of falling, only floating when you want to take a break. There are little people that eat my crumbs but also have refreshing conversation. It’s easy to buy them dinner except when we go to Chef Lac Le Lustre´ who charges the same rate no matter the size of the meal. In my imaginary life I sleep in a perfect bed and drink my perfect coffee. We die when we die and not for any other reason. We also have closure. Like closet closure where things are put away neatly and can be visited when you feel like wearing them. Ha. In my imaginary life!

For the past 2 years I have been slowly loathing my body. It's been very difficult to face that about myself. Some of it was due to getting older and my metabolism slowing down; which had me thinking my hormones and thyroid were off whack (they weren't), some was due to just feeling like the ball is always being chased and rarely caught (still does), and some from losing the motivation to exercise.

About four years ago I consciously stopped exercising. It was a choice I made and I made it to lower my sex drive. During that time I was in a relationship where my sex drive was much higher than that of my partners and it was causing (mostly me) quite a bit of distress. I have always had a high sex drive and exercise helped that. You know that feeling-good-from-endorphins-pumping-through-your-veins-after-a-good-run sort-of-thing. Well, I always had that because I did that. Why the hell did I stop doing that?! Fair question. I loved him and wanted it to work. Plus I thought if it didn't work then I could always go back to running and feeling good again. Well, that was a choice I now regret because the desire to return to exercising hasn't returned. I remain almost as inactive as I did when I made the decision about three years ago.

Now add age, slower metabolism and a busy travel schedule to the mix and you get me today. A self loathing, highly critical, physically unmotivated woman that wears stretchy pants, hair up in a bun, and barely any make up, not because I don't need it but because I don't really feel like I'm worth the time. With all that, you probably expect me to be pretty hefty with the way that I am talking about myself, right? Well, no. I am not really all that heavy. Truth is I can't see myself from the dark lens that has hung over me these last couple years and it all seems so overwhelming but from the outside it looks quite different.

What I've realized is that it all happened so slowly, like bit by bit I dismantled myself. First it was exercise, then it was make up, then it was brushing my teeth not in the morning but later in the day when I had to be somewhere, then it was hair up in a bun, then it was wearing mostly grey and black colours, not drinking enough water, not listening to music, not dancing in the kitchen like I used to. It is a slow self sabotage where I am the only one who loses. 

In this time of dismantling I fell in love. Like for real in love! Like this-is-the-man-that-is-meant-for-this-woman-in-the-best-way-possible kind of love! Like I-never-thought-I-would-find-the-man-for-me-in-this-lifetime kind of love and I did. It seems like this would not seem possible but it is. During the dismantling (I am now coining it that) I was also doing a lot of heart work. I decided that I wanted to have a child after most of my life accepting that I probably wouldn't want to. Mostly due to the childhood I had being a child from teenagers, and teenagers from the 70's no less.

(This blog is getting much deeper and longer than I intended...)

Long story shorter; teenage parents, selfish decisions, being raised by a single mom and being part of the struggles, kind of ruined the desire to have one myself. Until a couple years ago, that is. It was my 36th birthday and I looked at myself hard in the mirror and asked myself if I wanted to have a child. I tried to skirt the answer by popping zits and plucking eyebrows but forced myself to ask the question again and answer myself honestly. The answer was, "yes." I wanted to have a child but I didn't want to have this child the same way I was born. I wanted more structure set in place and to give this child an opportunity for a better life.

So I started this heart journal where in it I explored the areas of my life where I needed to make better decisions and face demons. I read books about Dancing with Anger, Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, Fatherless Daughters, How to Budget, Keys to a Successful Life, Making Miracles Happen. These sound shallow and some were but self exploration has to start somewhere. Then it turned into lists of accomplishments, goals, journalling and collages. It became meditation. It became travel. It became financial independence. It became happiness and in a year and a half later it became love.

That wasn't the intention. This is a new century. We don't have to have a man to be happy and have children anymore. I was mostly aiming for financial independence and a strong supportive community then, he came along. To be where we are now is a long and wonderful journey in and of itself so I won't indulge in that further to keep on track, but know it was definitely a result of the heart journey I remain on.

So where did I go so wrong in the body image factor of this journey? How did all this happiness cover up this deep self hatred? How did this self hatred hide itself from all the inside work I have been so diligent in exploring? Honestly, I am not sure other than to say it did so, so slowly. 

I write this today because it started to shadow the heart. My heart. It started to divide me from the heart of another and for fuck sakes I have worked so hard! So I write about it because it is just something that needs to happen to figure it out. It amazes me to the depth the mind will go to deceive and distract and deny and as the layers peel the deception digs and finds a way. I am flabbergasted by the desire for my own self destruction. Truly.