A meeting of souls.

The concept of loneliness seems foreign to me today. Often my body craves physical connections to the people I care for and my mind and emotional being crave the presence of others. But the manifestation of loneliness in my physical world is insignificant today. Today I acknowledge my spiritual needs and the comfort and care my soul searches for.

It is only in moments like the ones that I’ve lived this weekend and weekends past at Goddard that my soul frees itself of my constructed burdens and goes on a trek to find its mates. There is a process of meeting and greeting; sometimes soulmates are found and sometimes it’s just a meeting of souls. These are the most nourishing experiences I have had the privilege to engage in. To feel true connection and affinity with people who are strangers to me in the physical world – it would be a travesty if I did not acknowledge the deeper and more meaningful relationship that exists and flourishes when our souls enter the same space.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I selfishly await the days when I can declare that I’ve uncovered these reasons and retrospectively feel empowered about an experience, regardless of its initial emotional charge. I am sure that the physical journeys our bodies live in order to meet are all part of a larger conspiracy by our souls to meet their counterparts. I feel good today because I can safely and confidently say that I can foresee a future in which many more of these meetings occur and I look forward to caring for my spiritual self in this way.

“Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other. Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meetings are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes direction” – Paulo Coelho

Over the weekend I was asked to describe the culture of my residency in one word, I chose “re-learning”. This evening, upon reflecting on Paulo Coelho’s words I am pondering the shift that recent experiences have influenced. Engaging wholeheartedly, accepting opportunities to challenge and be challenged, with nothing to lose except perhaps portions of ego and preconceived notions. My soul has found a home away from home, encouraging me to forge a new home and new sense of community as I leave the comforts of my home – even if only briefly.

Autumn

I’m a summer woman, through and through. But this year I’m trying REALLY hard to appreciate the changing season while secretly counting down the days until the warmth comes back. While trying to appreciate the colder weather and changing environment I came to a very interesting conclusion. Autumn is the sexiest season (next to summer of course!).

I’m convinced that stripping to be sexy was invented during the autumn season. Here’s how it happened… somewhere someone wanted to dance, but also get intimate, and what’s cooler than dancing in your underwear? Nothing. Tom Cruise would agree with me. The problem is, it’s kind of cold out and you dressed for the weather - you’re sporting the layered look. Now you have to take it all off, put on some sexy lingerie, just to take it all off again? Sure. *insert sarcastic eyebrow arch here* Somewhere, an efficiency-minded person decided to roll it all together before rolling it all together ;) Layer by layer the scarf, the sweater, the pants, the long johns, the undershirts and wool socks all came off. Now imagine some music playing in the background, a little hip gyration as each item comes off… you get the point. Sexy stripping dates back to early autumns.

Pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin spice cider, pumpkin cupcakes with frosting… Warm pumpkin spice lattes with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top – tell me the physiological reaction you’re experiencing right now isn’t sexual? Yeah, I thought so. Studies have also indicated that certain odours (pumpkin!) can increase blood flow to one’s sexual organs.

Red is a fall colour – enough said. 

If more needs to be said, evolutionary and social psychologists have long believed that red is the colour many animals sport when they want partners to know they’re interested in mating.

Cuddling and holding hands. 

When it gets colder out, cuddling on the couch isn’t just sexy, it’s a penny pinching strategy. Montreal heating costs are through the roof people!

So despite having to put away my sundresses and flip flops I’m well on my way to appreciate the autumn instead of simply hibernating until May.

My mothers

My mothers

Born of mothers

Unto mothers

They asked me who my role models were

Who do you channel?

Who taught you to speak,

To think,

To walk,

This way?

They did.

My mothers.

Born of mothers

Unto mothers

Who taught you revolution?

They did.

My mothers

Born of mothers

Unto mothers

Standing, marching, holding

Relentless in their passions

Devout in their actions

Unwavering in their strength

In awe I remain

In solidarity I stand

In time I learn

In their love I thrive.

My foot is in my mouth. Please help.

My foot is in my mouth

Please help

My foot is in my mouth

It is pretty hard to speak

My frustration in the form of typed words is all I’ve got

My foot is in my mouth and I can’t get it out.

My foot is in my mouth and no one can hear my corrections

My addendums

My rebuttals

To the oh so ridiculous conversation that led me here

Here,

where my foot is in my mouth

No one sees my hands waving in anger

Anger because they didn’t quite understand what I meant

My hands are too busy

Trying to get my foot out of my mouth

I’m salivating

At the thought that if I could just

If only

Ugh!

If only I could help you better understand what I REALLY! meant

Before this unfortunate tragedy

I’m salivating because I can’t swallow,

the thought that my foot is still in my mouth

I’m choking on the thought

It seems I can’t get it out

It’s clearly stuck

Maybe happy to be there

That way nothing else can get out

Leading to the further jamming of …

My foot into my mouth

Welcome to my love exhibition

Hi there,

Sometimes I like hanging up and letting our conversation wash over me; I fall asleep happy.

Last night after we hung up I stayed awake for a bit. I came across a post that read, “Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say”. Mitch Albom said it first. Here’s an idea I can appreciated. It’s something the women in my family have taught me - always tell the people you care about how you feel, you never know what may happen. Unfortunately, I have had moments where I kick myself thinking, I wish I had told….if only I had  said… I could have… I wish…

Today I renew my vow to an idea my mother taught me years ago. Today I commit to making a concerted effort to be more self-aware, to pay no heed to momentary shyness and embarrassment and make it a point to share how I feel.

Yes, this was brought on by something I read. But more importantly, it made me think of You. And it made me think about the people I love and cherish and care for deeply. I want to honour the emotional connections I continue to nurture and build.

I want to beckon love like a firefly in a bottle, even if only for a moment, even if I have to then watch it float away on a night sky backdrop.

Welcome to my love exhibition.

Countering the Colonial Gaze and Gentrification

Response to Globe and Mail Article, “Why you should eat in Parc-Ex, Montreal's ungentrified ethnic food paradise” by Adam Leith Gollner

Countering the Colonial Gaze and Gentrification

Written by: Vanessa Shanti Fernando, Sidara Ahmad, Nailasada Alidina, Nadia Sheikh and Farha Najah Hussain

Following in the footsteps of a long tradition of predatory colonialist writing, food critic Adam Leith Gollner writes on an “ungentrified food paradise”, reducing a complex area in Montreal (Globe and Mail, April 2nd). As he writes, Parc-Ex is not a neighbourhood but a “habitat” and those that frequent a given restaurant are not customers but “wildlife”.  Gollner goes beyond offering insight into Parc-Ex’s gastronomical landscape; rather, he echoes colonialist tropes in presenting this neighbourhood and its inhabitants as commodities.

Amongst the transphobic and sexist observations he makes are that of a “sixty-something transsexual with a cubist face” and a “woman with Cleopatra eyes”. For those of us yearning for a description of people that extends beyond the superficial, he goes out of his way to provide us the insightful observation that the “transsexual” has “painted fingernails and long, blond, Pantene-perfect hair”. Gollner chooses a dehumanizing narrative, rather than identifying the people he observes as three dimensional human beings with aspirations. He commodifies Parc-Ex’s residents by presenting them as sensationalized Others. For Gollner, Parc-Ex is the home of “cultural communities” and “new arrivals” who run “weird driving schools”, sell “exoticisms”, and give the impression of living “on an altogether different planet”. In contrast, the “creative class” of “encroaching bohemians”, who live in the Mile End and elsewhere, are granted full humanity: they are “[a]rtists, activists, documentary filmmakers, and musicians”. Gollner places us in their vintage wingtip shoes by explaining the rise of real estate prices and interviewing people who are thinking about moving to or opening boutiques in the neighbourhood. Why aren’t Parc-Ex’s residents granted the same nuanced portrayal? Instead, Gollner brushes aside residents’ discomfort with “gentry” outsiders and encourages readers to venture into this mysterious place, to uncover this “hidden gem” and enjoy a “pre-gentrified frontier”.

Furthermore, in attempting to “other” the residents of this area, Gollner wistfully remarks that Parc-Ex is “raw, gritty, almost un-capitalist”. Except that this neighbourhood is not un-capitalist in the slightest. Life in Parc-Extension is deeply embedded within, and affected by, a capitalist system that pushes racialized communities to the margins and forces them to face layers of systemic and state violence – including poverty, racial profiling and police violence by the SPVM, and the brutality of Canadian Border Service Agents (CBSA). To qualify this area as “un-capitalist” only adds insult to injury with respect to the harsh realities people face.

We question why the article’s headline quickly changed from its original title, “Montreal’s Park Ex, an edgy hidden gem ripe for gentrification”? Was the original title too blunt about the piece’s ideological positioning? For Gollner, Parc-Ex is “a candidate for gentrification” because of its “cheap rents and central location”. Because Parc-Ex has “always been a landing spot for new arrivals”, Gollner frames increased gentrification as simply “a significant new wave”. His failure to understand the process and impact of gentrification, and ultimately support it by stating that it happens in the “best of places,” is promoting an act of systemic aggression.

Gentrification is a dynamic and violent economic process in which inhabitants of poor and working class neighborhoods are displaced from their homes and neighborhoods. This is primarily due to the fact that developers – with support of municipal politicians and governments as is the case with Parc-Extension - seek profit from relatively cheap property by constructing or converting real-estate in that area (e.g condominiums).

Gollner’s call-out to hipsters and others outside of Parc-Ex is not a harmless rallying cry. Gentrification is a very real process in Parc-Extension, as can be seen by le Projet d'aménagement d'un nouveau campus universitaire sur le site de la gare de triage d'Outremont. As stated in the “Rapport de consultation publique (2007)” by the Office de Consultation Publique de Montreal, the plan is to construct student residents, teaching and research buildings for l'Université de Montréal.  A private development of 800 units will be built, in which only 30% will be for social housing.  As Fred Burrill states in his response to Gollner's piece (Maisonneuve, April 6) Parc-Ex is “. . . a neighbourhood where almost 20 percent of the population pays 50 percent of its monthly income in rent, and where 81 percent of the total population are tenants, facing a high risk of displacement with the encroachment of condo projects and university residences”.  The displacement that Parc-Ex residents face is very real, and no laughing matter.

Gollner's piece on food is no a harmless folly. It is one that is embroiled in racist ideology and at the very least ignores the pernicious impacts of gentrification on human beings. 

As individuals who are committed to the communities within which we organise, and from which we draw inspiration in our quest for social justice, we acknowledge with great humility the creativity, strength and determination of communities and neighbourhoods who have and continue to fight against racism and gentrification.

The authors are part of the South Asian Youth (SAY) collective, in Montreal occupied Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) Territory.