I return to the momentum, the strength, the fire writing gives me.

I play with memoir pieces, placing memory on page in honour of my precarious and delicate mind; a sand castle on the edge of high tide.

I breathe life back into abandoned pieces and commit to imperfection, failure, returning and restoring.

I walk back to pieces left behind like The Lonely Starfish written on the coldest month of this year. I place her at the forefront of devotion.

A Lonely Starfish

Sticky tentacles wrapped tight round hips and shoulders,

I get up off the floor, stuff feet into boots and push self out the basement door.

The perfect fat moon on top a city corner, mauve morning dawn;

that one stranger looking up too, I smile.

We nod and walk our opposite ways.

a lightness drops in,

an ache stuck in muscle and bone releases

I am a softening starfish,

a body heading to the next protest

chanting freedom songs til my voice cracks, my hips tighten.

I return home alone and feel all my beloveds on the floor with me.

On the verandah a few weeks ago we both recall the man from Montreal who was in the same ward as Randy. The Montreal man was hit by a bus while riding his bicycle in the middle of Town. I remember Randy pointing across the room to where the man lay. I went straight to a young Black man, this man nodded no, no he was not from Montreal while pointing his chin to the man next to him, an elder white man strung up in a body cast, slightly smiling. I must have imagined my own self strung up in Grenada’s general hospital and immediately asked if I could bring him books. He declined. I left thinking the man must be a descendant of Siddhartha Guatama.

Randy informs me (I never knew) the montreal man died in the hospital as did the young Rasta I mistook for the montreal man. Randy says he thought he’d be next and yet here he is 25 years later.

Randy reminds me I brought a bag of cashew. We bust out laughing (me Maya Theo). I’m sure it was Theo who picked and bagged this special gift of french cashews, perhaps a peace offering between tree and human.

Over the years Randy and I shared many beloveds who passed away like our dear brotherfriend Desmond who died a few years ago, both his feet removed after years of open gaping torturous wounds on both feet; diabetes mis detected we believe. We shared a mistrust of an aunt who’d come from Town to scrub Desmond’s open wounds with a hard brush. All of us cursing her as she drove away. The relief he felt footless and eventually at a nursing home. He died, we think, of pneumonia. I arrived by Desmond’s hospital bed with a bowl of Theo’s Oil Down and begged the nurse to let him eat just one small dumpling as they did not want him to eat any of it thinking it would raise his pressure. His face lit up when I said, one dumpling, yes. He died a week later.

The same night on the verandah we share memories of Michelle, “Sad. Just sad,” he says, “She didn’t take care of herself. By the time the cancer reach she gone already. I miss her bad.” Randy and Michelle real partners, drinking partners, conflict cronies; mother c%^t launchers; friendship repairers. They’d be laughing, kicksing one moment and the next all kinda of words flying at each other.

Under the quarter moon we bow our heads in memory of Michelle and Desmond and the memory of mash up bodies, death and aliveness in the relationships we share and honour in the community of Harford Village.

These are the people in our neighbourhood. This is we!

I long for pathways back to one another after our beautiful monster/loyal soldier parts arrive to protect us from shame. I long for the possibility of finding realness with one another knowing inevitably there will be impacts, impacts that will need unpacking and digesting whether with the person impacted or impacted by (always dependent on capacity and willingness) or with our communities of practice/support.

Can we find possibility for listening, deep listening to those subtle and not so subtle impacts of power and privilege? How do we build skills, tools, knowledge, body practices to build our capacity to be in hard conversations?

A friend shared recently her exhaustion and frustration re: shaming and blaming within social justice movements, protests, conversations, social media posts; in our communication of words, actions, behaviours dividing us further and further, leading to what feels like the impossibility of revolutionary change within our individual and collective hearts. Simultaneously I remind her there are so many of us meeting these moments with radical tenderness, stretching our capacity to wonder about the whole of our stories within the third story of historical underpinnings, personal and collective.

I continue on a road for more strength, more skillfulness, more compassion in having hard conversations, knowing these conversations are hard, fantastically hard! We humans, such delicate creatures.

I want liberation for all. I do. I do. I do. This makes sense to me considering the stories, and communities I live and breathe including the white heteronormative man living inside me; the insistent Karen bubbling with entitlement; the schizophrenic uncle who killed himself in a bathtub, the brother in law’s step son in prison for hijacking a boat and killing two yachters; the father sexually abused by a father; the sister in law sexually abused by the grandfather; the neighbour cussing the neighbour due to atrocities leaping backwards through humanity… All this inside me, all this held with kind-hearted intention to walk this world more courageously, more boldly, more forgiving, more inclusive of the horrific tragedy of unmet needs shattering into unspeakable violence.

May we find our way back to each other in all the horrors knowing we too are all of this, an interwoven tapestry of history balled up inside waiting to be retrieved, unravelled, stretched whole; symbolizing the goodness of our exquisite selves longing for each other.

I soon realized it made a difference when the folks in the rum shop were my folks too, my beloved community folks. It made a difference when the rum shop owner was my December 11^th earth strong sistren: Michelle, one of my first friends in Grenada met while kicking ball in the park; Michelle strong supporter of village peace programs, “Village youth have talent for so!” Michelle whose son, Sheldon one of those talented youth turned Village youth leader; Michelle calling my name from a Grand Anse bus telling me Sheldon dead and she in Town to identify her boy’s body (0h dear sister I will never forget that day); Michelle sharing years before she on a capsized boat, one friend drowned while others hanging on for life; Michelle soothing deep pain through addiction; Michelle sharing she stop drink and smoke cause she not feeling too well, little did we know you’d succumb to cancer a few months later. Oh the irony of throat cancer; you who didn’t give a fuck how high and loud and accusatory your voice reach; You singing high pitch, screaming Whitney Huston songs from a karaoke machine outside Crazy’s shop; You calling up to protect a young girl running past the shop, she with knife in hand, her father driving up minutes later, you who would not surrender the daughter cause it was he she was running from; You whose voice carry up the stairs calling Theo for bluggo, plantain, yam; You who died leaving many of us stunned how a bad ass warrior, Village icon succumb to death and yet we know death could never take your louder then loud presence from our shared community of Harford Village, .

And I can’t imagine the world without YOU dear sister. I can’t imagine waking up in the morning or late into the night not hearing your voice soar through the windows, bounce off the road and onto the verandah; the laughter, the singing, cussing, fighting; the darlings flown to people passing, the mother c##ts to those who’ve pissed you of; tv blaring, music blasting, the children calling your name, your shrill response of love and attention.

Your bad ass confidence inspired me through and through. Your photo is going to sit next to the Lion image glued to the bathroom mirror reminding me I too can take up space and be a bad ass warrior like you dear one, like you!

I spiral into memories a few years ago another woman raped and murdered by a man also recently released from prison. I pause and take a breath. I was there a few years ago when the body was carried out of the bush. I was there when the husband ran to my friends bellowing, ‘someone took my wife’. I was there when my friends bolted from the bar to find this woman’s body in the marsh; there when they returned with heads bowed. I was there for the deep guttural wail of a husband hearing his wife’s brutal death for the first time.

I believe books come to us when needed and Monique Roffey’s, Passiontide arrives a few days after the heartbreak. Passiontide, a novel reckoning with the murder of a young woman the morning after carnival. She writes:

“In the Caribbean, everybody exhausted. Like the wheel of trauma went round and round, over several centuries. Millions of First Peoples genocided, millions of Africans enslaved, mass monoculture under a plantation system, heinous mass torture, enforced Christianity and European language and culture, indentured Indians, and inside of this, unknowable numbers of women raped and killed.”

A swell of emotions as I write, a wallop to the belly, tears tripping down cheeks with the first light of day. I hear the ancestors whisper, weep dear daughter, weep and rage and release; this is the only way to find your breath again, your flexibility forward into words and sharing and holding and moving into collective grief to tend to the full human catastrophe of being human in the face of horrific acts of violence and how it impacts all of us, worldwide.

I watch on the news, this recent man flanked by police officers back, front and side as he leaves the court house. I watch his body, his facial expression and receive no clues of remorse? Shame? Fear? Distress? Nothing? I wonder his story, I wonder what kind of history of unmet human needs this man experienced, what kind of abuse; what kind of untended, undetected, un noticed mental health issues he traveled thus far in life; what kind of hate he harboured for women, for himself, for life; what kinda ancestral trauma he carries in order to enact this monstrous behaviour.

I mourn the brutal death of these two women and now hearing of another young woman dead on small island within the same week; a boyfriend raging on a woman daring to challenge his power. I mourn women worldwide perishing under the rage, grief, deep confusion of male supremacy that plagues all humans and more than human worldwide. I believe patriarchy the main root cause/effect to severe mental health issues within men and women and the main root to violence worldwide.

photo by Jacob Lund

Grenada hums in my ear asking to be shared before this next home fills up:

Home where Theo and I’s roots mingle beneath earth, our daughter’s navel string buried behind the house;

Home where we laugh into cameras, blow bubbles for babies and squeal with mothers and grandmothers’ delight;

Home where gossip spills and rolls tongue to tongue from road below to verandah above, where two elder brothers fashion their own versions of the same.

Home where routines settle: meals cooked, house swept, animals fed, cloths hung, bodies stretched;

Home where youwhooooooooos float in the air; where illnesses of neighbours spill forward, a village legend battling throat cancer, elders dying,

Home where we recognize with tenderness the inevitable turn to violence when suffering disregarded, overlooked, unnoticed;

Home where youth wrestle with universal need for autonomy resulting in robberies and choppings and gun shots, finding their belonging in other youth wrestling with power;

Home where friends rip into mangos with teeth and tongue, sweet juice rolling down lips, chins and necks;

Home where a neighbour called for juror duty feels proud like the tallest palm on island, “People feel I stupid but Jah know,” said with the brightest boldest smile as he shares his travels to Town every day, his white shirt washed and hanging in the sun as we speak; how he’ll visit our neighbour battling cancer in the hospital after duty is done;

Home where the crack of domino pieces fall heavy in run shops;

Home where breadfruit arrives amongst already peeled sweet potato, yam, bluggo for Theo’s oil down that afternoon;

Home where we bow our heads at the wreckage of the world while reflecting how we will continue to seek and deepen what is ours to do, strengthening paths of action;

Home where the beach below is clear of seaweed and easy to cast our bodies for afternoon swims;

Home where we bounce up with great nieces and cousins down on the bay;

Home where daughters and fathers prep food while listening to Afrobeats, Soca, and Reggae;

Home where dogs and cats compete for human attention and feed our souls with love and unconditional grace;

Home where Uncle Georgie laughs curses chats and dances all at the same time;

Home where cars break down and men appear, everyone a mechanic, everyone eager to help;

Home where the honk of horns more likely a joyful communication of ‘I see you s’ than a roar of agitation;

Home where we gather by the sea, a tapestry of generations, some playing football others slapping down quarters with cards in hand, some holding babies and laughing;

Oh sweet Grenada family you are only a bridge away. A strong swaying cedar and bamboo bridge where two worlds, two homes, many communities meet over sea, mountains, rivers, valleys and hills.

I kept writing to understand the anger and self-judgement, judging myself as rash and foolish while judging Renee and Becca the privilege of assuming immunity. The more I settled into the anger the more the roots became clear ie. there was a wounded child within me deeply confused and a justice-oriented me unsettled and seething.

When I was a child, I was bullied by an angry young man and during this time I needed skillful tactics in order to stay relatively safe; in order not to be held under water for longer than a young body could withstand, or thrown into snowbanks and white washed so hard it felt like packed snow stifling my last breath. I had to find skillful means in order to not be publicly teased, taunted, shamed, shoved by this same youth. I knew what rage could do and how terrifying it was to be harmed by someone meant to protect and love you and how this resulted in a deep fear of existential and physical death. I believe the anger towards Renee and Becca came from this young part judging them for their carelessness, for their lack of skillful means in dealing with a bully, in dealing with the real possibility of death.

My angry child self screaming, ‘How can you tell this man off, this ICE bully without fear of repercussion? How can you taunt him with your, “dude i’m not mad” and expect to come away unscathed? How can you taunt the bully with words of righteousness while filming him and claiming your superiority over his coward covered face?

Angry cause holy fuck what kinda privilege is this to stay so calm and tell a white man in uniform holding a gun that your not mad and then drive away like nothing could ever happen to you, like the rage of a man in military is nothing to you; like the bully is simply a pestering fly to be swatted while you turn your wheel and drive.

I also recognized my anger stemming from racial injustice, how Black and Brown folks are killed for the colour of their skin and how easy this may go unseen. For example how many of us knew about the murder of Keith Porter a week before Renee? A Black man shot on his door step on New Year’s eve by an off duty ICE agent. Keith’s unbeknownst neighbour disturbed by noise outside his window, walks out and shoots Kieth Porter dead; there was no filming, taunting, calmly calling this man with a gun, ‘dude’. I reflected on Black and Brown youths lectured by moms, dads, aunties, uncles, siblings re: what to do when a policeman pulls you over. I reflected on the movie American Son with Kerry Washington at the police station waiting for news of her son who never came home the night before. She hears of an alteration between a Black man and the police. The police unable to provide her any answers. We watch this mother go through rage, anger, terror, grief, confusion, internal upheaval for hours while waiting to hear if her son was dead or alive. The whole movie i thought there is no way her boy is dead not after this performance. But, sure enough he’s dead and this was no performance.

Writing this helps bring back the issue beneath the issue on a personal level ie. knowing from an early age there were repercussions for not falling in line with the bully. As an adult perhaps I too would have had the audacity the courage and calm to tell the bully I am not mad at you and taken a bullet in the head leading to an eruption in the streets, a standing up to system-birthed bullies worldwide.

And I wish Renee did not drive away. I wish she came out of the car all calm and zen like and alive today because we know her white skin privilege would have allowed her to stay alive. And yet I know this is exactly how it was supposed to play out, knowing her death, her murder continues to fuel the streets of Minneapolis, fuel more and more white folks to show up, stand up for marginalized communities ripped, murdered, denied their right to a full humanity. And for folks to take notice of Keith Porter and his family and fuel the people of LA to continue fighting the fight!

To you dear bad ass street warrior humans worldwide. Thank you for your warrior stance! Thank you for your bold courage. Thank you for your consistently in showing up, speaking out, for your skilful means and not so skillful means. Thank you for surrendering your lives and for not taking your sweet lives for granted.

And Thanks Bayo Akamofola for shaking me out of my stupor with your beautiful piece which arrived a couple days ago and helped me finish this post!

check below

“I’m not mad at you.”

Renee Nicole Good’s final words might be a fugitive cartography for navigating these tense times.

Perhaps one of my favourite biblical passages, one I find most compelling due to its theoretically post humanist significance for thinking beyond the individual, insists: that our fight, our struggle, is not against persons, villains, and stable subjects. Not against “flesh and blood”. Not against humans. Our wrestling is with principalities and powers. Our struggle is with the shape of experience, the logics, patterns, loops, and fields of desire that preserve, nourish, and sustain the troubles that haunt us.

“I’m not mad at you.” You the masked organelle of anxious surveillance. You the carnal extension of state power. You the agent of the necropolis. You the angry warrior for supremacy. You the meandering line of becoming frozen into the isolated dot of the modern. You the spectacular villain in feel good tales of moral victory.

Good’s invitation - perhaps lurking at the edges of her own intention, and dancing beyond the apparent - may be that there are things to do, things to say, things to try, things to sit with, that bestride the policed boundaries of the morally obvious.

“That’s where I’ll meet you,” she may have added, her voice thinning out the wall between history and fiction. “I’ll meet you at the place where the asphyxiated neck of George Floyd compelled him to see his mother. At the crossroads, not just the intersection. At the place where even those shrouded agents of white purity long for in the cracks of their bodies and in the fissures of the moments before they assume their identities every morning.”

Good is somewhere beyond good and evil. Beyond getting mad and getting even. Reworking the political from the place between the count.

Báyò Akomolafe

He reaches the top of stairs and I feel this deep desire, wanting him gone. I give him a Guinness hoping this will be enough of a connection and he’d leave with bottle in hand, and that he’d take his drunk self back down the stairs and I would not have to witness his tortured soul.

I felt disappointed in myself afterwards. Why did I give him more alcohol, why not a glass of water, a chocolate, a piece of food. In that moment I could have cared for him the way his deceased mama cared for him when he was a baby. Instead I added hardness to hardness, wished for his swift departure and cracked him open a Guinness. Theo in that moment held more compassion, chatting with B until B dropped the bottle, Theo softly telling B its ok he will pick it up but then Billy persisted while Theo grew more and more impatient telling him to leave.

This young man, B. once a promising poet, song writer now a tormented young man, his drinking, fighting, violent attitude and behaviours all indicators of a tortured soul. Then his Mama dies a couple years ago and this spirals him further into the depth of darkness, into the depth of perhaps not being seen, held, validated by the one who provided these kinda non reciprocal maternal needs when he was a baby.

Billy makes his way down the stairs and finds himself in the drain dry heaving, vomiting by the side of the road. I wonder if he is disgusted with himself, perhaps feeling our aversion towards him; I wonder if he is imagining his mother also holding disappointment and disgust; or perhaps the couple of sips he did manage to take from the Guinness just too much and he stumbled down onto the road and lost his belly.

I take this story into the new year, knowing we all hold the capacity to either love or loathe, for me on this day I recognized my disdain for a drunk youth whose track record is one of violence. My hope is I continue to see my own biases, my own not so generous behaviour and how easy it is for us to lose sight of our own biases and thus treat folks with less kindness. I’m not saying to ignore the darker and dangerous sides we all carry but to unearth generous narratives connected to root causes behind the violence; to find love rather than abhorrence, to find more ways to hold and practice loving accountability. Can we hold what might disgust us with reverence, rather than rid ourselves of the wounds we all carry in different forms? Can we find kinship inside and outside ourselves?

Giving thanks, back on island, back home again; the sweet blessings of home(s). Thinking of the many people throughout the world whose home(s) are being destroyed by war, genocide, violence in all its forms on this first day of 2026. And here I sit with deep gratitude (and grief in my heart) at the places I call home. All homes born of vicious histories, all homes blended and tended and held in reverence and love while at the same time holding cruel histories, we are all part and made of.

According to writer, photographer Taiye Selasi home is not tied to a single birthplace but to the building/nurturing of layered, multilocal relations and rituals and restrictions. (check her talk below)

I am home here in the Village. Maya’s birthplace. My home for over 30 years. And even though times changing and I find myself settling back on Turtle Island where I also find my local, Grenada is still home. Grenada is where sweet friendships have grown and out grown, where the more than human world merges through bluegreen sea, soft morning purple skies, bright chatty parrots, sister palm trees touching veranda, golden apple and mango dripping from ancestral trees. Home, where neighbours laughing, cussing, singing, crying, gossiping, youhooing through windows; Grenada where I grew up politically, socially, spiritually, communally; an initiation of sorts from 23 onward. From funerals to weddings to communal grieving, celebrations, conflict and and and…

Giving thanks for finding my multi locality while at the same time centring, paying attention, acting within the realities of this mad cruel world denying, ripping people/families/communities apart from their own homelands their own right to border free existence, their own locality.

2026 another year to renew my commitment to writing as my weapon, my sword cutting through the layers upon layers of cruel, exquisite stories we all belong to; renewing my commitment to boldness, bravery, brilliance, brokenness devastation and joy!

.

Susan Aglukark accompanied me through a monumental transition in my early 20’s, travelling with me to Grenada, settled into my walkman, a press play away. She was part of my journey, my leap into the unknown, my tumble into change, my free fall, my mixed tape necessity. I was not surprised my whole body remembered lyrics, pulse, voice after all those years. My mixed tapes back then dominantly women: Susan Aglukark, Tracy Chapman, Sinead O’Connor, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, Lauren Hill, Jewel.. Oh sweet medicinal music convoying monumental and evolutionary passages.

Memory. Grenada. A drawer full of cassettes at the small flat under Mr. Edmund’s house, Telescope, up Barber Hill, a roll away from the beach. My first beloved community: Patsy, Sally Anne, Alice, Anne Rose, Kenisha, Kenyo, Anil, Lina and she crew, Marianne and she crew, Marie and she crew. The girls, Alice and Anne Rose visiting for the first time, them pulling open the bottom drawer by the sink, cassettes spilling out onto the floor, their gasp at so many cassettes, me embarrassed at the abundance; ashamed of my material wealth in the form of plastic cassettes.

Giving thanks for music and memory, music as medicine, music my everything on this journey of sweet sorrowful rage and exquisite critical joy. Thank You Susan Aglukark for igniting memories of revolutionary journeys!

I write to lean into discomfort, into the many conflicted (personal and collective) wounded parts inside/ outside myself showing up in all my relations, human and more than human. I write to tend, mend, integrate; bring unconscious conscious within a container of words amassing, whittled into existence and shared into the world. While writing and shaping I hold compassion and tenderness for self and other (of course this too is a practice, this holding tenderness and compassion). I write to show up more whole and real and honest inside and outside myself (the good, bad, ugly, broken).

I write to tame my mind, this small creature grabbing for multiple diversions, one after the other, lost in the realm of hungry ghosts. I write to understand this addiction of grabbing screens to distract, to ward off the shame of not being enough. I write to understand this insanity of scrolling, the new age colonization of attention, intentionally designed to keep us collapsed, fearful, occupied. I write to unravel, unearth the collective unconscious, the collective shadow and then I write to share this beneath the beneath knowing, that we belong to one another. I write to understand this deep need for all of us to show up to the whole of our stories, the social-historical-ideological narratives paramount in understanding ourselves and others and why violence is also a mishappen antidote to our universal need for belonging.

I write to grieve so I’m better able to share that grief out in the world either through shared writing or holding communal grief circles or listening on the streets to people’s deepest sorrows, confusions, anger; all pathways in connecting to the humanity of all; I write to listen to all that is going on inside and outside so I am better able to take the next loving step forward, at any given time, into the messiness of humanity (even if the next loving step is rage, rage made conscious by writing).

I write to seek, deepen find beloved communities of support; communities to grieve collectively, communities who recognize this period of darkness and who are also seeking practices of deepening into what writer and psychotherapist, Francis Weller coins the long dark; I write to speak to the ancestors who I believe are lovingly cheering us onwards in this unraveling of shame, centuries of shame living in our bodies. I write to unlearn, unravel, unshame shame to better understand shame as a historical and systemic means of control, ‘shame is colonized grief’, a term I learnt from grief activist, Malkia Devon Cyril.

I write to explore, discover, reconfirm what is my path, what is mine to do in these times and I also write to lose the path, repair and reconcile the path; I write to explore capacity and limitations so I can honor and embody more fully what is my role in these times of torrential change. Writing returns me to myself over and over scattered, bewildered, rageful, full of delight, joyful, fearful and full of wonder. Writing helps me find my way through the violent muddle of all that is presently going on in the world. Writing is my spiritual weapon and in its many forms, helps me identify other spiritual weapons whether painting, protesting, facilitating, coaching and/or holding space for people longing to find their way back to themselves, their purpose in this mad exquisite world.

I write and end with An invite: Come write, listen, grieve, witness, share, build beloved community with me, while exploring what is ours to do in this mad, beautiful, traumatized, unshakeably good world.

I am presently collaborating with The Compassionate Listening Project to offer a three part interactive online series called Writing to Listen, Writing to Grieve, Writing for Change (check out here: https://www.compassionatelistening.org/events-1/writing-to-listen-writing-to-grieve-writing-for-change ) I hope you can join us!

I think of the university students I had just left, early morning, standing in front of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC); standing in solidarity with Palestinian children, youth, students, families maimed, starved killed by Israeli forces while waiting for their Canadian visas to be processed.

There are no universities left in Gaza, all destroyed. Palestinian students accepted by Canadian universities unable to pursue their right to education and their lifeline back to Palestine due to Canada’s racist systems, systems enabling some countries easier access than others. Canada, a country that continues to fuel genocide by selling arms that destroys lives while creating impossible processes shutting people out.

While writing I feel the elder on the elevator’s truth even though it is not my truth.

My truth. I believe we are born of basic goodness reaching from our mother’s wombs waiting for Village hands to receive us, to welcome us, for the sheer delight of another human reaching the shorelines of mama earth. I believe we humans are waiting to be folded into the arms of community as we take our first breath, welcomed by unconditional love of many mothers, fathers, siblings.

If we’re lucky our first experience of sweet communal love is our mother, father, friends, loving doulas, midwives welcoming, welcoming us . And I believe this is one of the first traumatizing events in many of our lives, the blinding white lights of hospitals, doctors and nurses working long hours; mothers alone and confused, mothers who never chose the babies reaching for community from between their legs. I believe we are a traumatized species born in a traumatized world acting out appallingly to get our human needs met: agency, autonomy, love, validation…

I wonder if this interpretation, humans biologically violent, a cover up for the deep shame we feel for not being able to do more in the face of genocide. I wonder how the deep shame of Israeli people plays into the very violence perpetrated against Palestinian people, a lack of awareness of profound historical trauma living out through the genocide of another; deeply embedded generational unconscious need for safety, survival, seen ness.

The Elder on the elevator says we’d all be better off if aliens took over the earth. I want him to stay on the elevator so I can ask him if he’s read Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood but he is gone with a quick wave, he is gone.

I am left thinking of my dear sistren, Darlene who shared an experience with a Medium who reached into the future and shared how much species/beings of the future love us humans. I shoot back with, they love us? Adore us, she says, adore us for what we’ve gone through in these flimsy bodies of bones blood and flesh, these small, fragile bodies born of such devastation.

I take a breath and pray for the overthrow of newer forms of colonization, the colonization of our attentions. May we take back our attention so we can come together and love, adore one another as we deserve to be loved and adored, so we can end genocide and colonial occupation worldwide and reimagine, rebuild, co create something fantastically and adoringly different.

Listening to Play, Playing to Listen was an opportunity to gather, connect and share thoughts, ideas, opinions, childhood memories, likes and dislikes, ways of understanding our stories and the stories of others through warm up prompts such as: security or growth? Logic or emotion? Apathy or obsession? Passion or stability? Misunderstood or forgotten? Regret or doubt?...

We then jumped into a game of Salad Bowl (Thank you dear Natty Abdou for bringing more and more play into my life in all her forms!) Salad Bowl is an opportunity to use words and bodies to guess a bowl full of shared names, places, titles, phrases, things (around a particular theme or not). We had no particular theme and with that words floated up and through our imagination, words such as revolution, sunrise, Burna Boy, trajectory, aquamarine, arms embargo now, Lauryn Hill, Kenya, love, lust, Harry Potter, Jayzee…

Oh the sweet joy of witnessing folks free up and find their play in acting and wording and guessing and cheering and allowing points to be shared by both teams, by all members; witnessing folks lose their habit of rivalry or rightness or one upness (patriarchal conditioning released!) and play freely, publicly and tenderly.

The Pop Up circles are open to those invited and to those who show up in the park, curious and willing. A young man walked by and plopped himself down on a cushion. He instantly became our brother, our friend, our barrio. He shared later that the circle saved his day.

We ended with sharing celebrations, inspirations and/or challenges. I assumed folks would share feelings around our time together but instead folks shared their lives in general, testimony, I believe, to building circles of trust within a short period of time. We heard folks share the challenges of mental health, unemployment, time moving too fast, celebrations of creativity and play, inspirations of finding our journals, our creative expression.

Giving thanks for our first Pop Up Circle! The People’s Listening Project is founded, held and shaped by every human and more than human flowing in and out of these circles, circles of connection, belonging, care and trust! Stay tuned for the next one and if you are in Ottawa and want to join us for an evening of mobilizing vision, and purpose through words, images, movement, song and togetherness join us this Thursday July 17^th at St. Paul’s University 6 to 8 pm.

I am just learning of Grand Chief Pinesi. I was not taught the truth of our Canadian history while growing up, not in school, not in the home or within the white dominant culture I swam in. It was not until I moved to Grenada at the age of 23 that I became more and more conscious of my own history while learning/living within Caribbean history.

On July 1st I sat by the river with others waiting for the Paddlers to arrive; folks who journeyed by canoe from the village of Oka, Quebec to New Edinburgh, Ottawa. A group of indigenous and non indigenous paddlers traveled the great Kichi Sibi (Ottawa River), a 6 day journey tracing Grand Chief Pinesi’s hunting and fishing grounds and honouring his contributions; as well as sharing traditional knowledge of the waterways at each stop they made. The journey was also a pathway to strengthening reconciliation, community bonds and cultural connections between paddlers, settlers, and indigenous people in communities along the Kichi Sibi.

I also found out recently Penesi means large bird, this filled me with such joy as I remembered two large double crested cormorants, wings stretched wide, on two separate stones, still like the moon welcoming the paddlers as they appeared in the distance.

I met Elder Mary that day, we were both happy to connect on the great Kichi Sibi. She shared her father’s shame and denial of his Anishinaabe roots. She also spoke of her settler mother who took Mary and her three siblings to the forest before school, they waited for first sunlight to break between trees, waiting for God to arrive she said. ‘That’s my kinda church,’ my friend, Jim whispered. She wished us a Happy Unity Day and we smiled knowing this is it, this is what we are longing for connection, love, belonging. We sat by the river until the welcoming celebrations began. The Paddlers shared tales of their trip while drums, song, dance and prayer held us together.

I biked this morning to the library to pick up Noreen Kruzich’s book, The Ancestors are Arranging Things. I want to learn more of the traditional land, waters and people of the Algonquin nation; more the history of this part of Turtle Island. I want to honour, build relations and continue speaking out of injustices born of brutal patriarchal, imperialist and capitalist histories alive and breathing today. I also re commit to deepening into the history of my own ancestors and their passage from Italy and Ireland to settle on the unceded and stolen land of the Anishinaabe People and what that means in understanding of my own complicity and the complicity of my ancestors, while understanding their own brutal domination by the British and Roman Empire, pitted against First Nation people upon their arrival.

While writing this piece I remembered a recent share by a friend who spoke of prayer and ritual by the Paqos people of Peru, who believe our nature mother is the river or body of water we were born nearest. And our nature father, the mountain or hill closest to our birthplace. I now know who my nature mother is, the great Kichi Sibi and I am blessed presently to live five minutes from her. I go to her regularly with prayers, offerings and requests for guidance .

I think, damn, me too, me too.

She shares her headaches and how the pain moves all over the place.

What a drag, I say.

She tells me shes’ been fasting. I leap to tell her (a little too excited), I too have been fasting!

12 hours is not enough, she says

She fasts 16 hours and sometimes 24 , 48 and 72.

Damn, I say, while not surprised.

She does not have a doctor and has to find ways to heal herself. The fasting is helping, she says. She follows an Ethiopian healer. She’s been exercising. Little stretches she says, in the morning and drinking real coffee, Ethiopian coffee. The coffee is clean. None of this Starbucks. She feels much better.

Some people are just lucky, I say.

Yes, some lucky, some not. We just have to take what we get.

I think, damn. No. Why?

I reflect afterwards how so many take what they are given (so little) within an unjust economic system and find their way to some kinda wellbeing, whether through fasting, Mother Land healers, clean coffee, simple morning exercise and some find the streets, alcohol, heroin, crack, abusive behaviour to find their torturous wellbeing.

And then there are some of us who are lucky as fuck and and and, what does solidarity mean when we are lucky as fuck and keep reaping the benefit of luck?

I pulled the King of Wands this morning, and read, ‘the necessity to own your abilities and privileges is vital to stepping up and coming clean.’ Yes, can we come clean, guiltlessly clean and own our privileges and abilities and let that be movement towards the liberation of all.

We packed my groceries slow, slow, slow giving us more time with each other.

I am grateful dear friend to meet you, I say.

She smiles and moves on to the next consumer waiting patiently.

We are offering Free Listening to the public, I say, do you have folks in your life who listen? He replies, “Lots of people listening but few understand me.” We both sigh in recognition. “Got to go,” he says, “thanks!” And he’s gone.

A young woman and her toddler in a stroller. We both agree the majority of folks could benefit from therapy and that the majority of folks cant afford. Another sigh of recognition. We sit together in quiet, while her toddler examines me skeptical. Mother wishes she can stay but she’s late.

An Uber driver calls me over, ‘Listening is always free!’ he says. I share the youth man’s words, listening vs understanding. He gives me a bounce smiling loud before driving away.

At the mall we are Free Listening. A group of youth men are curious. They love up each other by criticizing each other while circling. We share our intent to listen if they feel to express. They joke and point at each other for not being good listeners while flinging other judgements. They are laughing, elbowing, jostling one another. “You up for a challenge,” I ask?

A collective silence.

“Name one thing that inspires you about one another.”

They all bust out laughing. I feel a longing and loving below the laughter. One youth begins but then a group of girls pass and all potential appreciations done. Not today, not in the middle of a mall with girls passing, watching, snickering. The boys are gone.

The youth woman circle next. One of the girls pours forth the iniquity of her ex who broke up with her and accused her of lies; her friends confirm. They share stories of other cheating and lying men. My co listener shares a relatable story of her attraction to people who are not good for her either. This opens sharings of intimate partner violence.

We are circling and listening and connecting in public places. I think of Cornel West’s words “justice is what love looks like in public.” And we are building community here in Ottawa inspired by The Grenada Listening Project and by the passion folks been expressing around embodied listening and universal human needs such as connection, dignity, belonging, and mutual care; cornerstones, I believe, for transformative justice and peace.

The People’s Listening Project is in its gestation phase, a phase that involves micro dosing on listening practices as well as supporting the listeners! We have been meeting and practicing together for the past couple months and we are getting ready to practice some more this summer in Ottawa streets, parks, malls, community spaces. We are also getting ready to mobilize vision, purpose, values creatively and collectively! Stay tuned for dates! Everyone is welcome! Please message if interested!

Later that evening I googled eight Canadians dead. I had no idea what he was talking about. And sure enough there were 8 Canadians killed October 7^th, 2023 on that horrendous day when 1200 Israelis were killed and taken hostage. I immediately wondered if one of those 8 people dead were a child, niece, nephew of theirs. And I still can’t comprehend denying the very existence of a nation, of a nation being mascaraed for all the world to see. And I can understand, a tactic used throughout history and present day of vanishing the ‘other’ in order not to have to feel the ‘other’.

I still hear people justifying what is happening in Palestine by referring to the atrocities of October 7; how folks are unwilling or perhaps do not have capacity (due to historical, intergenerational trauma) to broaden, deepen by learning history, learning the impacts, effects, causes of colonialism, imperialism, apartheid, occupation; by learning of their own Canadian history of theft, occupation, apartheid and genocide of indigenous people/culture/land. I beleive this deepening could be a pathway to understanding what is happening throughout the world and in Palestine whose destruction, whose genocide is happening right in front of our eyes, televised for all of us to see and yet many of us choosing ignorance, silence, distraction.

Palestine does exist. Palestinians do exist. Indigenous people, nations, culture exist and will continue to exist whether World Powers and/or embedded colonial mind sets want to acknowledge or not. Palestine will not be erased from the map. She is here. She is surviving, breathing while burying her dead; tending her wounded, the soul of her living, her ancestors, the soul of the land; just as indigenous people are still here, on land stolen, occupied, and violently used for profit while they too tend, care, resist.

My wish for all of us, to come out from behind screens of distraction and anaesthesia and process this together, find more loving and tender ways than bouncing up with strangers in a park exchanging numbers of the dead.

May this become a practice honoured and shared throughout this writing practice and as a creative documentation process of The People’s Listening Project (stay tuned for more on The People’s Listening Project).

In the parking lot of shopping mall waiting for mom. Leaning up against the car reading Monique Roffey’s, Sun dog when a man is telling me he likes my mother’s car, loves Buicks he says, while asking for some change.

His passion, cars not trucks. “Trucks are too hard,” he says.

“Ya, you look like a soft kinda guy,” I say.

“Just like my mother,” He says.

I smile.

“She’s from St. Elizabeth.”

“Jamaica?”

“Yes, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica.”

Gold cap front tooth, bald head, inked arms and neck; a buoyancy of spirit, a generous heart, a tender presence just like Roffey’s main character, August in Sun Dog.

I tell him I just got back from Grenada yesterday. “Nice,” he says, “I can tell you have skin like an island girl, not yellow.”

I give him a bounce, a bless and a touch to my heart and he smiles and says “Rasta,” while walking away.

We run into youth man, big man now, i’ve known L. since he was a toddler. I remember L. at fours years old rushed to the hospital after his mother threw a pot of boiling water out the window, not knowing her boy was playing under the window. He is a big man now with a puppy in his arms. I ask how he is, he replies his foot still giving him trouble. And I remember last year a truck ran over his foot. And today he is still out of work because of the injury.

We bounce up with another neighbour coming up the road returning from all night security shift. He will go and sleep for a few hours, and then into his garden, he says. Another neighbour burning bush up the hill. Welcome back! he says. I ask him about three puppies running on the road, he says they’re his. I say Theo needs another dog, this one can’t hear pointing to Opi! Bright says Theo can have one. The only problem I say, he wants a poodle! He thinks little dog little food. Eh Eh Theo don’t know, bourgie dogs need vet regularly! We both laugh.

Another neighbour singing welcome home, welcome home sister! And another neighbour say she hardly recognize me, You brush out d locks?

I turn around not wanting to deal with bad ass yappy dogs around the corner. Now its just me and the trees and the mangos dropping doop doop doop and the parrots in the sky cackling and the roosters alarming and the green of everywhere, and the scent of sargassum seaweed climbing Cook Hill, resting faintly on the village; and the vehicle coming down the road with speed. My two nephews late for work. They stop. Whaaaa my own fam want to kill my dog! They laugh, Nah man, never!

Then it’s me again with the early morning breeze and the punch up color from Dessa’s flower garden and the BBC news pouring from Fridge’s window.

Opi and I arrive home. I wait for him like he used to wait for me. We climb the stairs together.

I roll Rumi’s words under my tongue regularly, if you’ve broken your vow a hundred times, come, come, come again and remember the words of Sharon Salzberg’s, “The healing is in the return, not in never having wandered to begin with.”

Have I been wandering? Oh yes literally wandering from house to house, choosing to live a kinda nomadic life, choosing to house/pet/plant sit. I wander towards dog walking, cat vibzing; to watering, breathing, quarter turning an array of plants and flowers. This wandering is a practice, an experiment of living within the maternal gift economy (stay tuned for more about this). This wandering is also a practice of living within the ambiguity and chaos of other people’s spaces and lives alongside my own.

I also wander meticulously in my works, from painting to facilitating to co building People’s Listening movements where we wander in the streets listening, presencing, holding all kinda emotions: anger, rage, grief, joy; where we laugh and love outwardly, outwardly!

Perhaps I am writing again because I’ve wandered back to my cherished writing space here in Grenada. I’ve wandered back to my own home, pets, plants, humans; settled into my own chores and routines; feet planted in my own sacred space returning me to the page, to fingers tapping, mind converging, breeze blowing …Will I wander again? Yes, most definitely and I will always return, I will always return to words, sentences, to this paying attention to the world and I will for the rest of my life wander to and from beloved Grenada.