July 22nd 2016 Rest in Peace Audrey Davison. Wife of George Davison (Deceased). Mother of Vicky, Peter, Janet and George. Grandmother of Elizabeth, Andrew, Adele, Katy, Adrian, Helen, James and Martin. Great-grandmother too. May you rest in peace from your suffering. May you have relief and calm wherever you may be. “How many kisses?” as Grandad used to say. Love Helen P.S By the way- did you set off the fire alarm in my building at 2am this morning? The fire alarm that woke me from deep sleep, made me put on mismatched clothes, pick up my keys and phone and head outside to the curb. The fire alarm that woke me, so that I might look at my phone and read the message from your daughter, my mother. The message sent at 00.19 that simply read “muMs just died”. Was that you? If it was, I can imagine you chuckling at your mischief. Hah! Love you.
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I performed my Metissage- Crazy Women. Neil had found a Birch branch to tie the braid to. I tied the branch to my bench easel and sat before it in the circle. As I held each coloured strand, I read out loud my writing about each woman. Then braided each strand into a Metissage. A matriarchal chord. At the end, I was met with stunned silence. Hard to read the reactions. Did I share too much? Was I too truthful? Should I have held back? Did I read the situation wrong. Overestimate their ability to hold it when I put it out there.Vicki said "Continue your healing journey. you know this is big right? You know what Aboriginal people say about dreams." "Go to the mountain. Look for the Meta view. Yes this is part of your metissage but there are other running alongside them too. Yes there's mental health and what you do." Afterward, I am exhausted but I feel cleansed, like I have been exorcised of my demons. Where is this religious iconography and language coming from? I do not believe in God and I do not practice Christianity. Yet when I look at the effigy I have created in my presentation, I can not deny it looks like the cross that Christ died upon. Did this image reach out through the genes of my ancestors, jumble my neurones and fire the idea into my hands? Interesting thought. One exorcises demons. My demons. The demons that have haunted me for so long. They have defined my story because I have never spoken of them, except to a therapist, my husband and very close friend. I wanted to share their stories because their stories are my stories. I am the Hummingbird seeking survival, sustenance and home. As were they. Their stories were considered unimportant and mundane. Not exciting. Not man-made. I had looked on them in judgement. Why didn't they go to school, get a job, why did they have so many children, why didn't they travel, see the world? Why did they stay in that one place, dominated by men. I don't know the answer. I don't know if they yearned for it even.Or if they were happy and satisfied with their lot, with what God had given them. Oops there I go again.. What made me different? What made me yearn for all those things? School, learning, profession, choice about children, travel, new experiences, different cultures, freedom. Why am I different? Am I different? When I listen to the women in my class, I am not so different. In fact I am at times a milder version of women traveling off to distant lands and immersing themselves in the culture, people, work there. All that alone. How I admire and envy that. That is freedom. That is emancipation. As I write this I think about my first trip alone which happened this year. I finished a visit to see my family, just after Christmas and New Year. Then I went to Paris. It was scary and amazing and life affirming. As I sat in L'Orangerie looking at the Monet paintings I had poured over as a teenage art student. At a time when life was at it's heaviest, I had escaped into schoolwork and art. Devoted hours to the work. Stayed late after school to avoid the bullies at the school gate, the absence of my mother and the oppressive responsibility of taking care of my brother and father. Art was there for me. Monet, Manet, Pissaro, Renoir, Lautrec. They were there. in their beauty and attention to detail. In their humour and bemused observation. They were there and I was there with them Inspired by the work of Cynthia Chambers (2009, p 70) in Life Writing and Literary Metissage as an Ethos of Our Times (Hasebe- Ludt, Chambers and Leggo 2009).
Her advice…… 1) Writing is a meditative practice 2) Writing a woman’s life is a Feminist practice 3) Writing is hunting 4) Writing is a form of truthtelling 5) Write with the blood of an actual life 6) Write as if the whole world is in a single dandelion 7) Write with your ears 8) Write with compassion 9) Write with a sense of responsibility to the word and the world 10) Write naked I have the idea to knit a metissage of the women in my family. To create a Matriarchal Chord. To weave their stories like they are woven into my DNA. Each woman will be a different colour. I hope to write about each of them and tell their stories as I braid their chords together.
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Helen Kennett-BaconOriginally from South Yorkshire in England, I've lived with my husband Neil in Kitsilano, Vancouver for 10 years. We are fur-parents to our French bulldog Dave, I am a Registered Psychiatric Nurse specialising in ADHD. Archives
August 2016
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