(Kaya wipimsiw: Cree "Don't throw yourself away.")
I haven't written for a while. I keep meaning to and in fact, have acquired the perfect surroundings and circumstances from which to write.
There is something that keeps niggling at me... Gnawing at my heart. Something that I know that I keep thinking I need to share. I haven't been sure about the context or the appropriate situation to share it, but my thoughts keep coming back to this blog; this assemblage of lonely electrons, waiting for more poetic prodding and reorganizing to capture my thoughts, feelings and to share them with my world.
The Darkness
Some time ago, I was a practicing addict - actually more pro than practicing, but an addict nonetheless. I was working for a Child and Family Services Agency, often sitting in case conferences with medical practitioners, youth workers, psychologists, child welfare workers, and other personnel, planning on how to reduce the risk of our charges getting introduced to street drugs.
Then, after offering my carefully moderated input (with a clear eye to keeping the facade intact), I would scurry away from the office and indulge in my own particular dysfunctional relationship with the very same substances.
I used while she was dying and I used after she died. Then I realized I might die. I felt so much like the gentle poplar fluff floating on the breeze, tossing to and fro, never knowing what end it might reach.
So I walked into my boss's office, sat down and said, "Bev, I need to go to treatment. I need to heal and to grieve."
She said, "You can do that here. We are your family. You should have support."
I replied, "But I'm a sad joke. I am using, sometimes even after high risk mitigation case conferences."
"Who better to have in those meetings than you, silly?"
I didn't know what to say to this. She went on:
"You are doing important research. We need you. This is who we are. We are broken, we are using, we are dying. Learn what you can, research what you need to, then share with the community. In leading your own way out of darkness, you can lead others."
I thought on this. I thought mostly that she was nuts. I agreed with her in some way, but I knew I was lost. So I went to a place that used to be
sacred to me but had been ripped asunder by bureaucrats and powermongers. It was good. I healed some, wrote some, cried some, exercised some and made mental notes about how sad it was that wonderful barrels of apples could be spoiled by one or two rotten ones.
But in the end, I found my centre, reclaimed some power and sallied forth into the cold, hard world.
My boss didn't like the new me. I was gentler, less abrasive. My slightly hurtful zingers and sarcastic sense of humour had been replaced with this antiseptic, slightly phony spiritual groundedness - working with all in my power to keep my thoughts away from my lizard brain
^
amygdala - not to
be confused with
\/
and trying to project love, compassion, sensitivity, etc. into all that I did. The old "fake it till you make it" school of thought. When I told this to my supervisor, she said flatly, "well, I don't like it. It's not you."
So much for faking it till I made it. I cashed in my chips as a $38K per year group home supervisor to run Komatsu 793 at Suncor for $1800 a week. Ironically, cleaning up and staying sober rather well in
Fort McMoney.
Fort Mac wasn't the problem. It was the coming home that killed me. The closer I would get to Edmonton, the harder my hands would grip the steering wheel, the old "white knuckle shuffle" I guess. Sometimes I would call a sponsor. More often than not, I would call my dealer by about Redwater.
Anyways, "The Darkness" this section is called, and indeed, darkness shall ye receive.
I write this today because I want to share some of my findings throughout the lo, 15-odd years of inner-city research I have conducted and how it might pertain to the missing, to the murdered and to the not-yet-missing-or-murdered-but-for-fuck-sakes-smarten-up-or-you-will-be-missing-or-murdered category.
This is The Darkness of which I speak.
It is the street. The endlessly desperate and pleading street. The same street that exists in every single town or city I've encountered across this nation - from Skidegate to Sheshatshiu, The one that claws at the weak or lonely or even bored and pulls them to her unrelenting bosom. It is in that embrace that one can know The Darkness.
This street is sometimes a main highway, knifing through town with asphalt that is cobalt black at 4:00 in the morning, sometimes with snow skittering across the lanes and ditch grass, brown and crisp, chattering and whispering "come, lay here with meeeeeee.... yesssssssssssss."
Sometimes it is a residential block, with a shady overhang of foliage that hides the users and abusers from sight, drowning out the shouts and obscenities with the endless hum of urban enterprise.
But always, it is Darkness.
And within that darkness, always, you will find them. The women, the girls. Usually alone, Seemingly unafraid. Maybe they are unafraid. Maybe they have danced with fear enough to know what real fear feels like, with its whiskey breath and dirty jeans from oil and diesel fumes and axle grease smell.
I can't know. I will never know until I am told. Until they tell their stories, one by one, and we are made to listen - through every gut-wrenching abuse and soul rending travesty - until we finally understand and find our way to do every goddamn thing we can to protect, prevent, educate, elucidate and illuminate the darkness that draws them in.
The Reaction
There is a code that becomes unraveled sometimes when you've spent enough time out there. Or even by dipping a toe in enough times. A code that is long and complex, sometimes cold and brusque, sometimes warm and loving beyond any love you've ever known. But is one that speaks for itself. It never needs explaining once you know it. Until you do, you hear things like, "they mistake your kindness for weakness", or "she had it coming," or "well what can I do? That's just the way it is."
My heart breaks every time I see them out there, walking, sometimes trying to look like they're going somewhere, sometimes even they are. I don't know that place where a woman has to go to sell the comfort offered by her body. I do know, however, that when I was in my darkest places, I would not have hesitated one SECOND to turn a trick for even a single hit, so I understand in a way.
When one has broken the code, it is then that the compassion and empathy can be unlocked. I don't see the behaviours, most times: I see the pain and the layers of leathery protection that have been placed so precariously to cover the thin spots, the weak spots, the sensitivities that might betray the little girl that had her innocence taken, or that young wife that was beaten and berated enough to believe her abuser, or even the inter-generational modelling of multiple abuses and shit-eating that sometimes grammas teach mommies teach babygirls.
I have literally been in a crackhouse with three generations of streetwomen: A grandmother, a mother and two daughters. All teenage mothers at one time. The grandmother proudly describing the first time she put the mother out to turn a trick.
This was the same night that the caretaker of the group (the oldest daughter, naturally) was trying to decorate a tiny, crooked Christmas tree with shaking, thin, bruised arms and 3-and-a-half inch heels and miniskirt, while the house was exploding with violence.
She said, with giant tears rolling down her face, "It's supposed to be Christmas. And look, I'm crying. I can't even remember the last time I cried." She wasn't even sobbing, or crying - just emotionless while teaspoon after teaspoon of saltwater rolled down her face, leaving their trails on her dark, gaunt cheek.
Shakespeare talked in
Henry V about the dark things that can happen when one is "in his ales and cups", so too when one is in his pipes and baggies.
But the lecherous manipulator that I've seen in others manifests differently in me when I used to use. I did not yearn for this woman. I instead longed to hold her - to comfort her; to take her away from this madness and let her cry and cry and eat and sleep and find her way back to that place where her darkness started - to reclaim that which was rightly hers. I hope that the Christmas tree was the start of her journey back.
I would hide out in these places, get what I sought, and want to be alone. Quiet. Away from the madness and violence and posturing and bullshit. Just in the dark, me and my silent hell.
But always people would find me, seek me out. Tell me their stories.
"This isn't the life I wanted," they'd say, "I wanted to own my own truck and hotshot company like my uncle." Or "I started school two years ago, but this shit kept taking me back out. I don't think there's any hope anymore, so I might as well just use till I do the
chicken."
And I would nod, and say, "There's still hope. You can always go back," or some such offering, but all I wanted to do was get high, and run from my own compassion.
Like clockwork they would come. Telling me their trials and hopes and dreams. And me, sadly detached from my compassionate powerhouse core - wanly trying to lend them an ear and some dime store advice.
The Reaction I am referring to in this section is the one that I sometimes see, sometimes even from people who are supposed to be working with our weak and high risk people; sometimes even from those high profile advocacy groups who access hundreds of thousands of dollars in the name of the missing or the murdered.
The one that will live with me forever is the time I was working for a fairly well known women's advocacy group. I had been doing some communications work - graphic design, writing, etc. One day I answered the phone and got into a wonderful conversation with a Mohawk woman who was seized by Child Welfare, adopted out stateside, then, not finding true acceptance (mostly of the "self" variety) in her adopted home, found solace in "her cups" and baggies, etc... Ended up coming back to Canada, and on the street. Worked sex trade to support her habits and got infected with HIV.
Through this tumultuous journey, she discovered the amazing culture of the bloodline into which she was born. She then began connecting with teachers, elders, spiritual advisors - anyone who could help her unlock who she was. It was as though the universe was placing people and opportunities in her path, exactly when and where she was supposed to be, meeting exactly the people she needed to meet right when she needed to meet them.
It all culminated with tearful acceptance from her blood relatives and a homecoming of intensely beautiful spiritual depth.
She now wanted to find out anything she could about initiatives that supported, advised, guided Aboriginal women.
I was beside myself with excitement on her behalf. What a wondrous tale of hope and heart and just plain everything that is good with the world.
"Of COURSE we'll work with you. I will connect you with the women that work here, I'm sure they would love to hear your story and work with you in any way."
That afternoon was a scheduled board meeting. Initiative updates and planning and board directives and the like.
Toward the end I remembered the jewel of a conversation I'd had that morning.
"Oh, I just remembered," says I, "I had the most amazing discussion with a young lady from..."
And I shared the tale with pride, knowing that this connection would be celebrated and supported and help to build our grassroots connections even stronger.
"...and now she wants to just be a part of whatever it is you guys are doing here, and spread the word and be an emissary on the ground out there, so yeah: It's been a good morning!" I said, almost breathless from my excitement and glibly awaiting the kudos and praise for bringing our message to the people.
Silence.
Then looks at one another. Then a sort of awkward shuffling toward the buffet lunch table by some of the participants; I was being coolly dismissed by them without comment.
"Sheldon, how can we be sure that is the kind of person we want associated with our organization? You need to be more careful when taking calls."
"WHAT THE FUCK!??" I screamed in my mind. "HOW THE FUCK can you write proposals for hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of dollars with the words "Missing and Murdered" in their titles and NOT WANT TO DROP EVERYTHING and help this damn woman be an emissary of light for the power of culture, of healing and of all things good?"
Here was a woman who had been ripped from the bosom of her homeland, systematically stripped of her cultural identity, exposed to all the evils of sin and excess, lost her identity, her hopes and her dreams, infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and then...
...only then did she dig deep, marshalling the resources to meet Creator halfway, and meet her He did, instilling hope where before there was only darkness and opportunities where there were only dead ends.
A goddamn inspiration says I.
But not someone they wanted to associate with.
Well, I never.
I will say this: This organization was the first, at least in my mind, to start the rallying cry which now even has its own hashtag #MMIW and may well get an inquiry after all. Maybe their job was to broach the subject at the government and policy makers' tables, and not.. um.. get their hands dirty.
This Reaction is not limited to organizations. We do it everyday in our urban world and even in our communities. We drive by them on the highway, or walk by them on the street, sometimes meeting their eyes - maybe to chide, deride; sometimes maybe to offer a polite smile of kindness and a sad sort of pity. We even sometimes pass right by without even a thought to their story - their pains and trials and broken hearts.
We leave them there to the johns - to the predators and to the police to deal with.
This is the black mark we need to wear on our collective conscience.
The Choice
What do we then do to change the numbers, to reverse our trends? Our aboriginal population is growing at a tremendous rate, placing enormous strain on our institutions and resources. So many of our people are young, in their teens or childhood, and with the economic pressures placed on our communities, so many are drawn to the cities and towns with their families - far too often consisting of a single mom (I was going to write "only a single mom" but there is no such thing as "only a single mom"... They are powerful and demanding of our respect as no other in our society) and more than one child.
Our migrating populations tend to occupy jobs at the lower end of the economic scale and educational attainment. These socioeconomic realities can far too often become a funnel directly into high risk, street lifestyles.
This is the critical moment that our society needs to flex its brawny and comforting arms and wrap our at-risk youth in opportunity, support, guidance, mentorship and real, practicable options.
It is with pride that I creep some of my Facebook friends' pages. I know their stories. One of my friends was led to the street by her family, to help bring home the bacon so they could all put it on a pipe. Now she is more than gainfully employed, well on her way to becoming a journeyman (journeyperson?) in a trade.
She will be a statistic, but one that we need to celebrate and applaud and reward with all that we can. Pulled from the maw of a grim and painful end by her own revulsion of the life she was leading and by some policies that actually
work.
The Choice: Community
We are our brothers' keeper, but most importantly, we are our sisters' keeper. It is our job, not as aboriginal people, but as human beings, to care for our most vulnerable. As aboriginal people, our responsibility should become more clear. We need to intervene; to talk, to ask, to say, "no, I will not let you throw your life away."
Kaya wipinsiw.
An inquiry could be a good
thing. But for me, I know why we have missing and murdered aboriginal women, and I think, if we all looked at our own choices, at our own actions, our own experiences, we could all offer our own answers to this complex question.
An inquiry will likely pick the scabs of social policy inadequacies, of shortsighted community planning, funding shortfalls in vital areas or paint clearly the picture of the lack of horizontal planning that helps heal, empower and equip our women to walk proudly, safely and with honour.
What it may not answer is "why?"
Why do so many of our girls, many of whom have fairly comfortable homes in their communities, choose the brash, unprotected existence in the towns and cities that surround them?
There are two sisters I know here in this small northern boreal Alberta town where I live. I know the eldest one from a treatment centre I attended some time ago (again, all part of my research) and reconnected with her in the most excruciating way.
A couple weeks ago, I was out having a smoke behind the restaurant where I
work a few evenings a week. I see some movement out of the corner of my eye and a figure sort of shuffles around the edge of the building, eyes to the ground. I recognize her instantly. She is tall and attractive, with the high, proud cheekbones of her Dene people.
She looks up, surprised to see someone out back by the garbage cans. There is an initial look of surprise, and then she recognizes me too.
Her breath catches in her throat. Her eyes widen. And then, in an instant, she is crying, running away, back around the corner, ashamed.
I remember her from when she came into the rehabilitation centre. She was loud and brash and tough talking, misusing swear words and vernacular in an almost child like way. Over the weeks there, she softened, quieted. She talked about losing her mother. She spoke frankly and with little flourish, but always with significance and deep meaning.
Then, as can be the case with peeling
onions and healing, it all became too much. She found something to focus some negativity on, played the victim, then packed her bags and self terminated.
"How?" you may ask.
How else: She packed her duffel bag, threw on her sneakers and hoodie, and started hiking it to the highway - all 7 miles of February wintry road 'tween the two. (Staff eventually went to pick her up, thinking she would return, but she wanted out and back to her "life")
But in that time in that healing place, I remembered listening to her. About her fears and her children (now in care) and her mother (dead from drinking) and her role as oldest of her sibs (I can relate). I saw her vulnerability. I saw her inability to reconcile the brutish experiences she had as a child with those she learned she was
supposed to have had. I remembered thinking that she needed some help assembling a meaningful life from the cards she had been dealt; some intervention, mentoring and support from someone kindred who had done the same.
12-step is a good way, but you gotta have 12-steppers and willing participants to make that dance work. "What are you willing to do today to stay sober?" my most beloved sponsor would say.
She had her mom's house, which she said was homey and inviting, but still so sad. If she had an invitation to hope and to light in her home
community, maybe she would stay there, find something to hold onto and come out of The Darkness.
This, to me is the key.
This girl, and now her little sister, spend most of their days haunting the streets of our town, looking for a few bucks for an
She tells me she doesn't hook but that her sister, who "is more of a hippie than me" does, but only once in a while.
It'll be cold soon. Real cold. This is just "South of 60°" so we don't mess around. This tends to decrease the numbers of denizens on the street. What we do, as a community, for our broken and slowly breaking, will speak volumes on our place in history.
The oldest profession in the world.
Right.
Ever since man created money, he's found a way to exploit it, get what he wants.
And I have played my part in this terrible tragedy just by being a past participant in street drug culture. I have played my part by walking past, without a thought. I have contributed to missing and murdered women by not working with everything within my power to create safe havens, hopeful paths and healthy options for those who live on the fringes and front lines.
But each day, as the grim and sad story continues to play out, we must find it within ourselves to ensure our girls and our women are able to find their place in the light and not the dirty, broken Darkness.
It is because when they are at those difficult crossroads, when choices seem limited and few, that they must be equipped with the means and the options to chart courses to lives that are full of hope and beauty.
Our most sacred, blessed creation is woman. We must help her to believe this too.
