Monthly Archives: November 2018

Here is a link to my podcast I created with my friend Jordan Hayward.

 

We had so much fun creating it we plan to make more episodes! If you have any ideas for our next theme let me know!

This is my first script, inspired by my daughter, Anna.
I would welcome your feedback.

LLED 367 Assignment 3 SISTER CITY_Kerri Carlson

Listen to the Recording now.

 

 

 

 

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/losing-parents-to-suicide-40-kids-in-delhi-highlight-farmers-plight-1727823

If you’d like to help the farmers, one of the most important things you can do is post about it! Share articles, help us start a dialogue. Here are some current articles you can read and share:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46396118

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/angry-india-farmers-march-parliament-highlight-farm-crisis-181130102003286.html

https://thediplomat.com/2018/06/devinder-sharma-on-indias-agriculture-crisis/

 

 

 

(Sorry for the second post. I’m posting this a second option as it’s easier to talk about the revision process and is easier to share in class than a novel.)

Little one
Tender tendrils, bright blue eyes and giant heart
And endless skies
Little one
Unbound imagination, faith and wicked smarts
Just born to shine

You feel betrayed
I understand the reason for your rage
Your tears
You look at us now
And in your mind I know I let us down
My dear

Forgive me
I know I didn’t get you all your dreams
I promise you I’ve tried
You must believe me
I know we’re not exactly who you thought we’d be
But please
Forgive me

Little one
Your venom and your vengeance and your punishment
For all your pain
Little one
I’ve failed you and I can’t go back to try again
I hear you say:

What’s gone is lost
And now you’ll have to just live with the cost
You cow
You took my life
I’m taking yours, stop struggle towards the light.

But I don’t know how.

Forgive me
I know I didn’t get you all your dreams
I promise you I’ve tried
You must believe me
I know we’re not exactly who you thought we’d be
But please
Forgive me

Once upon a time it all seemed possible
So when did you loose hope I’d see us through?
I guess at 6 it’s hard to see the irony,
I cannot help you heal if you leave me bleeding too.

Forgive me
I know I didn’t get you all your dreams
But give me back my skies
You must believe me
I know we’re not exactly who you thought we’d be
There’s still a world of endless possibility
And in your furled fists you hold the key
So please
Forgive me

Dear Mr. Science,

I know you mean no harm,

It’s just your job…

I get it.

I’m just a job.

 

But dear Mr. Science,

I don’t appreciate being reduced

To just facts on a paper—

To just x-rays on a screen—

To just the shell that harbours the problem.

 

Dear Mr. Science,

Have I become a game to you?

Something like the impossible puzzle?

The unsolvable case…

I refuse.

 

Dear Mr. Specialist,

Yes, I refuse to allow you to extract my soul with just a needle.

Yes, I refuse to be read like my chemical chart.

Yes, I refuse to be seen only through your tiny lens.

Yes, I refuse to be told the actual beat of my heart through your tiny machine.

 

Dear Mr. Science,

Dear Mr. Science,

Dear Mr. Specialist,

Oh, dear other specialist,

Oh, dear little girl.

 

2016/03/23 (Original)

To the doctors to told me I can’t,

I know you don’t mean to harm.

I understand it’s just your job.

But I don’t appreciated being reduced

To just facts on a paper—

To just x-rays on the screen—

To just the shell that makes up only half of me.

Have a just become a game to you?

Something like an impossible puzzle,

The unsolvable case,

What excitement it must bring you.

Have you forgotten the person inside me?

A being with hopes and dreams.

Yes, I refuse to allow you to extract my soul with just a needle.

Yes, I refuse to only being understood by chemical reports.

Yes, I refuse.

I don’t want to be defined by whatever condition you might apply.

I don’t want to be limited to how others may understand it.

I don’t want to be weakened by its acknowledgement.

Is ignorance truly bliss?

A Measure in Time

 

3:45 pm. Okay, only an hour and 15 minutes to go. Carmen looked at the clock on the wall, then to the watch on her wrist, then to the tiny icon on the bottom right of her computer screen. How silly. She thought to herself. As if one clock is faster than the other; and as if that one faster clock has more authority over the others. Regardless of the measurement, you can’t change time – it continues without regard for anyone. You can only kid yourself into believing you’ve beaten the clock…

“Carmen, have you finished that draft yet? I need that sent out to Mrs. Shelly today.”

Carmen was snapped from her daze and firmly secured back into her seat. She nodded and stared down at her key board. The slight ringing of the word ‘today’ confirmed that Alice noticed she was later than usual this morning. Carmen was not particularly great with time. Always either just on time or a couple minutes behind. Alice never seemed to mind as long as she got all her work done. However, Carmen had already left work already left work early two days this week. She thought she could make that time up by working through lunch but perhaps the loss of time was starting to seem unforgivable.

Carmen was never the type to leave early and more likely to stay late. Partly because she never wanted to feel like she didn’t get the job done; but also, because she tended to schedule her time out to the second but never budgeted time for the life that just happens without plan. She was always the first to volunteer when it came to working the Canadian holidays that American markets ignored. She was the definition of a workaholic with the bad habits of a natural procrastinator.

However, this week was different. At the beginning of the week, her grandma admitted to the hospital to run some test. It was nothing too serious, but Carmen knew it was getting to that time when hospital visits would become more frequent. Carmen always spoke fondly of her grandma but never enough. The kids aren’t old enough to understand, but in time, I’ll tell them. Her grandma was the reason Carmen had lived such a fortunate life. She tried once, to tell the kids stories from back before they immigrated to Canada. But it had been such a long time she didn’t even know how to talk about it anymore.

4:45 pm. Perfect. 15 minutes left. Just enough time for me to finish the closing report and be out the door on time today. Carmen hammered down the last period and hit send. She had just enough time to pack up, run to the bathroom, and collect her lunch containers from the staff room. But wait – shoot! My coffee mug. She hated being that person who left their dishes in the sink.

5:10 pm. Out the door. There was a great little bakery that offered 50% off after 6:30 pm. Carmen knew if she went straight there, then home to drop everything off, then to the hospital, she’d make it there by 7pm and she would still have an hour of visiting time left.

6:55 pm. Damn it. Shouldn’t have stayed back to eat that cake. She wasn’t necessarily hungry at the time, but she had only bought one slice of chestnut cake and if she didn’t eat it then surely her husband would have sunken his teeth into it. Only 15 minutes behind. I’m still making good time. Carmen arrived at the hospital 30 minutes later than she originally planned. But she had already allotted 2 hours the following day to visit with grandma, so she didn’t feel too bad.

7:32 pm. She walked into her grandma’s room. At first, she saw her mama and her two sisters sitting in their usual spots around the bed. They all looked up and acknowledged her. Carmen’s eyes fell to her grandma’s face. Her head was tilted to watch the door, her eyes were strained as if they had been staring at the threshold for just a moment too long. Her grandma held on for just a second to give a weak smile then the life left her lips. Carmen had arrived just in time.

9:10 pm. I should probably go in. They will be wondering were I’ve been. Carmen walked though the back door and slowly sunk to take her shoes off. She could hear her daughter’s foot steps flying down the staircase.

“Ma? Is that you?”

A frantic little figure entered the room to find her mother’s face buried in her hands.

“It’s like she was waiting for me.”

The words escaped through the cracks in her finger, she had no time to take them back. She lifted her face to meet her daughter’s. Her daughter didn’t say anything. She sat beside her and began to cry – not because she understood death or loss or mourning, but because she had never seen her mum cry before and it made her inexplicably sad.

9:30 pm.

“If it’s not too late. I want to tell you a story about your tai po.”

(Please note that this instillation is meant to be listened to on a bench in the UBC rose garden.)

 She sits comfortably with her left arm gently caressing the warm black steel of the park bench. She wears loose fitting yoga pants, but they aren’t lulu lemon or Nike or even Adidas … they are a local brand that uses only recycled material, but they hug her slim thighs perfectly. Her sandals are comfortable and her lose fitting shirt hugs her curves. Her long brown hair dances effortlessly in the wind as she sits calmly on the bench. Her entire body weight given to the hard plastic. But it doesn’t hurt her sit bones the way it might for you and me. In fact she doesn’t notice as her weight is perfectly spread out along the seat. She looks down and notices the way that the paint has worn away from the steel park bench, and questions how many palms it’s taken to get it to that state of varnish. She is made uncomfortable by the idea of the led entering the palms of the hands that they have, and she wonders if the air is now polluted with the toxic waste. She looks past the armrest and notices the small silver bottle cap nestled into the grass. She bends over and picks it up, walking to the garbage to throw it out because she can’t fathom the idea of those small shards of aluminum sinking deeper into the earths core and disappearing without notice. I’m not trying to make any assumptions, but I imagine you wouldn’t have picked up that cap and thrown it out? Neither would I. But she does.

You and I just sit, continuing to breathe as deeply as we can and not think about the breeze on our faces and how its blows a bit colder than what we would find to be ideal.  We have adjusted several times in our seat, stopping our butt cheeks from becoming numb. But not her. She could sit here for hours, even after this podcast is complete.

She is different from me. And maybe from you. She managed to get through the last few minutes without thinking about what will come next, without looking at her phone, or even wanting to, without planning out her next move, or reflecting on the last. Wondering if she left the oven on, if she is dressed appropriately for the entire day, the errands she has to run on her way home, and the friend she is meeting up with for drinks with later tonight.

But I have done all of those things twice over…

I have already gotten my phone out of my bag and checked my messages five, maybe six times. I’ve been thinking about the last 4 hours, and planned out the next eight. But see I am all about efficiency. Getting as much done in the least amount of time as I can. So I can get little bit more out of my day. I got down here at 2:45, on my way I picked up a wrap from Choices market so that I don’t have to waste time cooking when I get home, and I can go straight to doing homework while I watch the good wife which I recorded cause I can’t waste time on the adds. I have meal prepped for the next seven days and I keep Ziploc baggies of on the go granola bars in my bags for the days where I PLAN to sit at my desk through lunch. Usually I will take my laptop to the gym, to ensure that I can continue reading and writing for work during my scheduled workout period. And I am not alone.. there is a reason for TV’s at the gym. For those like me who need a constant distraction. Who are moving through the motions to gain the quote on quote benefits without ever really feeling anything in the present.  I go everywhere in a rush, at a great speed, even if I relax – it’s for a planned, scheduled relaxation period time.  My every minute – from waking to sleeping is accounted for.

Maybe that sounds hectic and crazy, but I am sure I’m not alone in this mentality.  Maybe there are people like me?  Maybe you are one of them?

But not, her.

She is patiently waiting, and listening. Sorry not waiting… because there is nothing to be waiting for, she is just simply are here, to listen.  She is an observer and she lives life from moment to moment.

So I invite you to join her. For the next thirty seconds, that is all.  To observe as much as you can from where you are sitting. Try to notice what you observe and allow our mind to wander if it is straying in the trajectory of an observation.

What did you see. What did you observe? Did you mainly see pictures painted by your minds eye or were you really seeing the place that you’re in.

She sat here. She saw… everything for what it truly was. She doesn’t think about the future, she doesn’t question the past, she just is…

I have never met HER… have you?

 

The Acrostic Acrobat

Able-bodied and eager to please

Bubbling with anticipation, I move forward with ease

Cautiously optimistic I wait for my turn

Daring to be brave and eager to learn

Entering my jump, I know something is wrong

Falling through the air, I no longer feel strong

Gaining speed and heading for disaster

Hearing my heart beating faster

Intense pain strikes as I crash to the ground

Jarred by the horrific cracking sound

Kneeling beside me someone whispers in my ear

Letting me know that help is near

Messed up and broken, I try to stay strong

Never imagining it could all go so wrong

Oh, how I wish I had landed that jump

Praying my severed leg wouldn’t become a stump

Queasy with weakness and full of dread

Realizing this path had been to risky to tread

Sound of voices all around me I  hear

Telling me I have nothing to fear

Unprepared for the journey ahead

Visions of horror filling my head

Waiting for painkillers to help me escape

Xanax-filled days soon to be my fate

Youthful glory lost in a flash

Zestful carelessness forever to be rehashed

 

Follow the link to check out my sample podcast, “I Am Not Creative!,” featuring my microfiction, “Pigs.”

anchor.fm/iamnotcreative

OR search “I Am Not Creative!” on Google Podcasts, Pocketcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Radiopublic, or Breaker!

Original, as found on in the discussion:

“Pigs”

The gate splashed open with a torrent of sparks, and forty-odd pink, writhing forms poured after it, spilling onto the highway at eighty miles per hour. They bounced over and into each other, like a tub of rubber balls liberated on a flight of stairs, growing both less and more pink with each bound. The headlines would inevitably be filled with words like “bacon,” and “pork chop,” but all you could think of, as a one-hundred-and-sixty-five pound sow came through your windshield, was who you could get to pick your daughter up from day care tonight.

– Reilly