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Welcome to this new Gratitude Friday! Feel free to share with me your (partial or full) gratitude moments in the comments; that way I can hold joy for you ✿ (you know that makes me happy to make you happy).

I feel like this week kind of flew by… I know this is a cliché, but where exactly did September go? It’s Pumpkin Spice everything season again. The weather is gloomy and colder, wetter as well. I prefer snow to rain, but not everything that goes with it.

I am doing my best to use this push from Effy to blog every day this month.
September is my birthday month and for once, I am tackling it differently.
I really hope you’ll find nuggets of interesting things in my words and in what I share. I love reading your comments.
Thank you for being here.

TRIGGER WARNING: Abuse. Systemic Racism. Death.

Today marks our country’s first national Truth & Reconciliation Day. Of course, Québec is the only Province refusing to make it a holiday. You know, they “already have enough statutory holidays, we need the productivity,” says Legault. Another reason not to like these assholes… I highly encourage you to click the link to the official page explaining what this is about. In 2013, the Government introduced Orange Shirt Day. But since the gruesome discoveries made earlier this year, we now have a better name for it.
I noticed that if you do not live in Canada, you might not be aware of one of the darkest parts of its history: the Residence Schools for Indigenous children.

I was so mad when my daughters actually talked to us about it the first time after discussing it at school. My husband and I did our education in France. Our history classes never mentioned it. Ever. This is an essential subject to talk about. But this is not an easy one, even when you are not directly concerned…

The day honours the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities. Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process.

Source: canada.ca

A little bit of history

More than 630 First Nation communities compose Canada and are still present. We do live on stolen land.

In 1894, Canada’s Government and the Catholic Church created a boarding school system all over our country. Its goal? To transform Indigenous children into “civilized” people. Over 150,000 children were forced to leave their families to attend these schools, against their will. It was mandatory to them until 1947. The last residential school actually officially closed in 1997 (!!!). These schools were purposefully built far from where the First Nations were living. With the intention to avoid contact between the children and their families.

If only it was just that… Especially during the 1950s, children were dying. Officially because of tuberculosis. However, we now know that it’s worst than that. Way too many of them died and were secretly buried. As of today, more than 6,000 unmarked bodies were found all around Canada. Recent awareness started with the recovery of 215 children in Kamloops, BC, in May 2021. It used to be the largest Residential institution in the country.

The Premier apologized publicly to the First Nations for what happened. On the other hand, the Catholic Church refuses to acknowledge its role in all of this, even though it operated the majority of the schools.

What now?

A question I asked myself very often. What now? How can I help?

LEARN & Get EDUCATED
First, we need to educate ourselves on what truly happened. Our children are taught about the First Nations and about the Residential School System at school, from a pretty young age. It’s never too late to learn and teach yourself about the history of where you live. How can we not repeat the past’s mistakes if we are not aware of them?
If you have any resources to share on the subject, feel free to do so in the comments.

LISTEN
Survivors and their families are opening up about what it was like and all the consequences it still has today. Sometimes (often), we should simply shut up and listen to others. Podcasts, books, radio talks… there are a lot of ways we can hear what they have to say.

I have to confess something: I am currently facing a huge block on my creative road. Well, this is not a secret either. Between going back to college for two semesters, work, family… moving again across Canada back to where we belong… I had to make difficult choices and one of them was to accept that I could not be in my Studio and do something there every single day. Plus, we downsized quite a lot so my current Studio space serves as the guest room as well. Meaning, there’s a bed in there taking an entire wall space.

This is also because we moved across the country that I had no other choice: to face the truth. Truth is subjective though, and right now the itch in my finger to grab a paintbrush is back. BUT when I try, nothing comes up. Nothing comes to the surface. I have still so many stories to tell, and I know the time will come.
I still have creative projects I want to birth, so this is not me giving up on painting. It’s something I need too much anyway.

I do not know about you, but I notice that a lot of resistance is happening. Like my fingers want to create. They want to make something with paint and all the good stuff. But then, my brain is putting a gigantic stop sign right there…
What’s up with that bullshit?! I usually listen more to my heart and intuition than I listen to the actual thoughts but this past year? A complete reversal. And you know what? that sucks!
I exhaust myself, actually. I always find an excuse not to make art. “I need to clear my table” “I can’t paint with my canvas vertically standing up against a wall anymore.” “I do not even know where to begin…“

So you know what? I went to Michaels yesterday, invested in a new table easel that will fit a canvas up to 34″. Holding myself accountable: I will allow my Soul to gain confidence again. I will paint even though no masterpiece will be created. I will use my art journal to process because it makes sense to me. Nobody has to see what’s coming through. I can share only what I want to share (this is a big one in my world… this need to share everything).

NOTE: This month, I am browsing through all the draft blog posts I have and found this one below. It was written exactly ten years ago to the day. It feels really (really) weird to read those words I have completely forgotten about for so long.

This is so weird how a decade later, I can still somehow relate to what I wrote then. Back to today: now one week away from turning 36. I can’t believe I am now closer to 40 than to 30. For some reason I am trying to understand, my mind is stuck on me being 18. This December will mark having spent half my life with my husband.
When I talk about it to my husband, he suggests it’s because my life drastically changed at that moment. My best friend Cocotte is sharing this feeling as well so we try to decipher the root and why of it together now and then. That’s a story I should talk about with a new therapist (still working on finding someone here as my former therapist can’t work from one Province to another…).

I have a lot of white hair now and I kind of actually really like it. I see them as a sign of growth instead of a passing of time.  Covid or not, death has been on my mind for a while. Not in a morbid kind of way, but in an “I must be prepared to leave this world eventually” fashion. I do not have the ability to know when or how I will die, so my daughters need to know what I want my final stages to be.

My dreams are both the same and different. I am still grateful that my husband and I still love each other dearly, no matter the crashing waves we have survived: at least we are together. My daughters are their own person and what a ride it is to be their Mom! I did not become a psycho-analyst nor a chef. Working in the entertainment industry is still a dream, but I gained experience both on my own and in my recent college studies. I know what my dream career would be, and I am taking steps towards it. But Fear is so big… it makes me procrastinate. Fear paralyzes my actions, and therefore I stall.

It’s okay to evolve.

I have this obsession with storytelling. I don’t know how come it’s been nagging at me, but I can not deny it. Each of my paintings has a story to tell. Some of them are known before I start, some evolve during the creative process, some are whispers in the dark. I have been thinking of combining this and writing for over a decade but the Gremlins keep yelling that 1) who am I to think I could write a book? 2) nobody would even be interested in it, anyway.
But you know what? Fuck this. Because if there is something I have learned in the past ten years is that I am not a fraud. Do I still suffer from imposter syndrome? fuck yes. Does it stop me? Doing my best to go past it.

So who knows, maybe I will put all these stories and images together eventually. Just for the process of it. For me. And for my daughters who are currently craving to know more about who their mother is.

A song for today:

I am doing my best to use this push from Effy to blog every day this month.
September is my birthday month and for once, I am tackling it differently.
I really hope you’ll find nuggets of interesting things in my words and in what I share. I love reading your comments.
Thank you for being here.

Hello again Earthlings…

Lately, something has been on my mind and I thought I would share it with you. In the past few months, my family has faced huge traumas that I won’t detail here and now. Things that we don’t have any control over except for how we react to them. And this shit is HARD. Feeling helpless in what can actually be done…
However, I want to take these events as a lesson for the future. Trust me, I used to be living by the mantra “everything happens for a reason“. But in hindsight, I now firmly believe that this statement is full of bullshit… I approach life differently now. As if the lens through which I see the world shifted somehow. If only we did not have to experience these to be able to change, but eh… it is what it is.
Even though this does NOT make these events okay, not even for a second. I will never find excuses for the poor behaviour of others. I realize that most people do not seem to think of the consequences of their actions. This truth pisses me out so much.

Bless their heart

It would be too easy to hate on people. Hate is as powerful as Love, isn’t it… Then again, takes a lot of energy. And what I do with my own energy is only up to me. I was furiously enraged after the said events. I could have hurt somebody, to be honest. Instead, I decided to direct my energy in other manners. We reached out to people who could help. I put my witchy hat on and took on my to do an entire energetic cleanse of our home (and ourselves).
I bless those who hurt me and/or my loved ones. Just a little prayer.

Okay okay… if nothing works, I do freeze them out. Yes, literally. Their names+water+ziploc bag in the back of the freezer. Works well 😉

I am doing my best to use this push from Effy to blog every day this month.
September is my birthday month and for once, I am tackling it differently.
I really hope you’ll find nuggets of interesting things in my words and in what I share. I love reading your comments.
Thank you for being here.