Livin’ & Learnin’
Livin’ & Learnin’
Ensemble
This weekend, I was reminded once again of the extraordinary gift of the Arts. A weekend filled with celebration: a well-acted and beautifully paced community theatre production of "Misery" by the Ladysmith Little Theatre; an incredibly stellar performance by the...
Making the Circle Smaller
I’ve been thinking about unity lately, and I’m not entirely convinced I understand it. When I’m in the town where I live and someone asks where I’m from, I say, “just up the street”. When I am in Victoria, and asked where I am from, I reply, “Nanaimo-Ladysmith.” On...
GaadGaasgiidang – Together
To witness a pole raising on Haida Gwaii is to witness GaadGaasgiidang Beautiful, powerful, and deeply emotional. Children stand beside Elders, and Chiefs, families beside friends, and the community moves as one. Like the tides, the songs rise with the voices,...
Shrinking Margins. Loud Voices.
Free speech sounds simple when spoken aloud. The words arrive carrying promises of openness, of voices unbound, of ideas moving freely through the world. Yet beneath that promise rests a harder question: who is able to speak freely, and who bears the cost when speech...
Where Were the People?
They were somewhere else, it seems…scrolling, perhaps, or shaking their heads at headlines before moving on. They were in kitchens, in cars, in living rooms lit by the quiet glow of phones. They were everywhere except the theatre, where an Indigenous troupe from the...
Live theatre exists because we do
We write what we know because it has already written on us, in us, through us In the silences, the misremembered moments, the truths we carry long before we find the words Some stories choose us and with them comes a promise we may not yet know how to keep Live...
Surviving The Remembering
I want justice, says the clenched fist Name the wrongs, balance the Ledger I want witnesses, says the sharp memory Keep the wound open, before it closes to History I want peace, says the surrendering hand Ignore the girth of the wronged, the Living are tired I want...
When did I stop?
When did I stop reading you bedtime stories? When did the lullabies loosen their hold, and your dreams discover their own rhythm? When did I stop laying out your clothes for school, smoothing tomorrow with my hands? When did I stop being the mother of a small boy who...
An Honest Urge ~ Chaos over Comfort
Fears are denying me a state of complacency. Uncertainties are doing the sidestep shuffle, curtly pushing safety out of line. Self-doubt still hasn’t evaporated, despite me putting it on the simmer setting on the back burner years ago. These confrontational roommates...