Protected: Hair: My journey into gender
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Phones, questions and grief
Grief is one of those emotions that may ebb over time but never ever disappears sometimes emerging at times when you least think it will arrive. The first week of March which contains both of my parents birthdays are one such time where my thoughts often turn back to memories and reflections. This year is…
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The box of our social constructs
Recently I was able to watch the musical &Juliet at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. The musical reimagines Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The musical dives into how the normative box of social constructs drive how the traditional Romeo and Juliet ends with the lovers dying. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, class, family honour,…
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Castles: Dismissal and Regrets (Life along the Borders)
Looking back over my life I have come to realize how often I dismiss something out of hand and in retrospect I realize how I have come to regret it. Travel, especially writing about it, requires an open mind. So, I need to make a confession; I find castles boring and choose to skip…
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Why mattering matters.
“We are desperate for knowledge of self, but even more we are aching for the stories that have made us. We dare to touch the histories of this world, knowing that in them we are brought into a collective.” Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh. I began examining my family’s history as part of…
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A simple question from a Geordie I met in Newcastle
An on and off again mizzle caught up to me as I entered Newcastle. A little too persistent to ignore forcing me to slide on my rain…
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Thin spaces: death, grief, and celebration
This past weekend on one of those glorious sunny November days, my son and I had planned a walk along the Beltline rail trail in mid-town Toronto, to go visit the Evergreen Brickworks, a former brick factory along the Don River, repurposed as a community environmental centre and public space. Upon entry, it quickly…
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From Son to Caregiver
One winter break, while in university, I was working in a long-term care facility painting the newly installed doors to help pay for my education. At the time long-term care facilities were scary for me. But something happened. I got to know the residents, their names, their habits, and my presence became part of their…
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Walking in the steps of my ancestors
The act of walking is an intimate experience. In a world where everything seems fast, walking is slow. In that slowness, there is time and space that is different from our everyday life; to exercise, a time to think, to remember, to plan, and often, a time to be in the moment feeling…
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Ransacking Troy from a non-binary perspective
From Caitlyn MacInnis’s Instagram account: “I play Cur, and I can’t wait for you to meet her/him/them LOL.” Seeing non-binary representation in a play is still something that is not that…