September 2016 – missing canada

homeless to the second degree

a short story that describes your sense of home; write about the values and the stories that you use to connect yourself to, and to identify your sense of home.

– assignment given by erika paterson.

photo source of insite supervised safe injection site unknown. word additions mine.

we grew up together in two houses. the first was a small, modern white foursquare with aluminum siding, just off the main lower town drive. the property was so young that the yard was still filled with fruit trees and stumps from it’s former purposes when we moved in. our family of five fit snugly in its papered walls. on winter evenings we would all gather tightly into the back fireplace room, the kids around the computer, the dog in his blanketed corner, while mom and dad watched the evening news from the couch. on summer nights we would run with the neighbour kids, taking turns hiding in the truck canopy and corn stalks. we climbed countless orchard trees and wood piles, and endlessly scaled the claybanks and cottonwood ravines. we grew with fruit, punishing each other with its damp and rot; selling its novel, ripe sweetness down the road where people came from out of town to camp. we grew with the sumacs and overgrown trees, with grit and dirt in our fingernails. there is a cliff where i can still see the path we cut from our house down peach orchard. i can still see the creek brush we thrashed and the willows we used to make shelters and the spot where buster would lie for hours. i can still see the clay bank etchings we carved and the exact cracks up the road that derailed our bikes. the stones covered with fireweed that we curled into and dug through. the fruit trees we climbed. the maple. the willows. the trees and branches and leaves we grew with. it’s all there still. all of it. all those trees we grew with. i think our blood is still in the ground and clay and brush and dog run kennel. i think our souls are still searching under the night sky for the best new hiding spot. i think they are still waiting in the grass and corn and sound of crickets to be found.

but as our bodies developed, a need for space increased, and suddenly, violently, our youth interrupted childhood. we moved two blocks up the hill, to a dry, piney ridge overlooking the languid valley. it took me years to get over the move. the space between myself and my family grew with the larger house, and i was shocked by it’s unfamiliarity. i changed schools, friends and interests more quickly than i could keep up with. my room was in the dim, lower recesses of the mid-century house, without ceiling lights or base heater. the wintery years that followed were cold and dark. just down the street, the claybanks were flattened and laid with concrete for development. i could not reconcile the pure home of my childhood with the anxious confusion of my youth.

i did not feel like i had found home again until i moved into the dirty folds of inner city vancouver. for the first time in years, i began to sense the comfort of belonging again, in the pulsing gesture and grit of the city. it was the overcast of the coastal sky and the predictability of rain slick against the pavement. it was the constant wail of traffic, and entire blocks of people hanging onto life by the thread fibres of their being, making homes of dilapidated boarded blocks and old slum hotels with broken, unlit neon signs. graffiti littered the rundown buildings and indicated a landless ownership stronger than that of the absent corporate company lot owners. i felt a strange, incoherent embrace into the skids and their alleyways. it took me years to realize that i didn’t really belong in that neighbourhood, and until i did, i ingested every last facet of beauty that it held to my eyes. or maybe i did belong for a time. i sunk into old patio chairs and concrete and smoked cheap street cigarettes while i watched and felt the people around me. my jobs and relationships took me in and out of old shelters, cheap dive bars and run-down single room occupancies. for a couple years, i had a tiny corner of office in a coffee shop between the safe injection site on the east, and the co-op radio on the north. there were so many beautiful people that passed through the front doors of my downtown eastside cafe life, i couldn’t keep track. i was over-caffeinated and started drinking too much to balance the overstimulation. i fell in love twice, and the second time it was the slow reciprocation of a shadow human i shouldn’t have trusted. but in spite of him i was still in need of the change his presence instigated.

in 2009, i moved from an overcrowded and heavily insect/rodent infested flat on main street to a moist and earthy two bedroom suite burrowed in the bottom of a century old eastside house. it was the first home that i shared with a romantic partner and really, the only one. we spent winters curled up inside its warm, conclave retainer. i slowly began to go to college, dreaming aloud about being able to afford our own home one day. i wanted to live in the city, but no one could afford to buy in the city anymore. he wanted us to leave for the valley which gave me shivers thinking about. we fought our way through our misgivings, and made love beneath the the wet glare of streetlights and the hum of passerbys on concrete, refracted through our window blinds. potato bugs hollowed through the wood of the stairs into my living room and whenever it rained, earthworms would slip under the front door and litter the top step. there was a fig and maple tree in the fenced back yard, cut with a line of tulips and lilies in concrete planters. every winter in late january, tiny white snowdrops would bloom all over the slip of front lawn. the mismatched composite of acquaintances who creaked on the house floors above me blossomed into friends and family all at once. in many ways it was everything i had ever wanted. but that was all before the plumbing began to give and the landlords turned to talk of tearing it down; it was before my brother died and the shadow started to talk about leaving and the black mould began to grow thick in the windows and under the stairs.

that suite was so close to the glory of the earth. so moist and close to the soil. i felt alive there. i felt content there. but ever since matt’s death, there was a hole left. a crack opened up in the home i had imagined for myself. we were all wrenched from the home we tried to build, and forced to relocate into something we did not expect so soon.

after a year of wrestling i had to pack my things and quit my job and leave all my friends and my inspiration in the expensive city because i got too sick to be there and too sick to live without the support of my family. i almost died from a digestive/nerve issue that brought me to the point of starvation.

lines, stephanie. a photograph of where i grew up.

most people who live in the city i’m from have moved more than me. many have been homeless, living out of cars, vans, friends couches, shelters. i know so many people who have stayed at shelters at some point in their life. it’s an expensive city, the most expensive in north america. and it’s only getting worse. people set up tent dwellings and the city makes them take it down. or puts up fences around the bridges where they try to sleep.

i liken watching the gentrification of the dtes to the experience of losing my brother. it is a deep visceral loss that hits me in the gut and brings me to tears on a regular basis. it’s just that the soul of ourselves is in the dtes. it’s in the skids. it’s in the hearts and minds of junkies and the sensitive intuitive empaths and the poor who have experienced the hardest darkest things of this life. and we are ripping it apart.

there are many ways to build a home. many winding paths and broken stones. i am so fucking wealthy. i have so much. it gets easier to say that the more i let go of normality. the more i let go of trying to reach some dumb idea that success and happyness and perfection comes from a big paycheque and a house. normality is a lie.

the most important thing is finding the path that is best for me. the one that gives me the most stability possible in an uncertain life. this is the story i tell myself. my experience is important. and so are the experiences of the others around me. because they are a part of my own. they affect my story. especially the experiences of the poor and vulnerable, of people of colour and first nations who have gotten the brunt of the crises that arise in this time in history.

i have had a lot of uprooting.
we all have.
i wish that i could somehow pull together all the scattered pieces of my home around me and build some sort of shelter so that i wouldn’t have to keep moving.

i wonder if we ever feel at home for long. is it possible to with so many things ever-changing? does home require constants?

works cited

“The Science”. Insite For Community Safety. www.communityinsite.ca/science.html. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

Lines, Stephanie. “A photo of Where I Grew Up”. July 2016. Photograph.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 2.1”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-2/lesson-2-1. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

“The Housing Crisis in BC”. Social Housing Now! 2014. www.socialhousingbc.com/about/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

if there is evil in the world, this is how it came into it

take the story about how evil comes into the world, the story king tells about the witches’ convention in chapter one of the truth about stories, and change it any way you want, except the ending. your story must have the same moral – it must tell us how evil came into the world and how once a story is told, it cannot be taken back. learn your story by heart, and then tell the story to your friends and family. after you have told the story a few times, post a blog with your version of the story and some commentary on what you discovered about story telling.

– question posed by erika paterson.

"moloch" by stephanie lines — “moloch” by stephanie lines. 2014. inspired by allen ginsberg’s “howl”.

a long time ago there were two children. they were wandering together and scouring the earth in search of wondrous things. they swam through lakes so clear and blue that they shone in the sun like glass. they climbed through the deep cool trees of forests that smelled rich like wet earth and rotting wood. they wandered into cold caves that dripped damp and grew slick, towering rock spires. and they kept on looking for more wondrous things because that’s what the human heart desires above all else – to search for more. so they climbed mountains and gazed on breathtaking views, and visited dry deserts where the earth spread out in miles of dry earth and shimmering sand. and still they kept on searching.

one day one of the children noticed a bright shiny object in the ground. the children circled around it and began to dig to uncover the object. they kept digging and digging and they found that the more they dug, the more of the object was uncovered. it was so shiny and hard, it was unlike any of the other rocks they had seen before. the children began to get very excited as they realized how deep they could dig with their own hands. they began to uproot plants nearby in order to uncover more of the brilliant rock below. they began to chase animals away in order to focus undisturbed on their digging. they started working late into the night and lost concern for the other things going on in the land around them. when other children wandered across them, the digging children hid their holes and shiny rock treasure. the other children did not understand, but this was the beginning of evil in the world.

soon the digging children became old and yet they still dug away at the earth searching for more. the land around them was bare and dead and empty. one of the children, now old, lied down and died because he was too tired to dig anymore.

the other child, now also old, spoke aloud to the empty land around him. “i have dug the greatest hole in the world,” he said.

i’m not sure if he knew it, but once a story has been told, it can never be taken it back.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – –

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. “Fucking Creeps They’re Environmental Terrorists”, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 84” x 72”.

this a story i formulated over a few days, mostly with my boyfriend as a listener. we both found it hard to pin “evilness” as being something human or created by humans. the idea of evil brings up ideas surrounding religious morality immediately. after much thought however, i realized i did see a great destructive evil in greed and money. my boyfriend and i both agreed on this and i began to formulate the story of how our human innocence of searching and living can very quickly and easily get caught into greed and selfishness that is harmful to others and the world. sharing the story with people around me meant that i got a lot of input and encouragement, and also inspiration. it wasn’t a story that i wrote. it was a story that i was a part of, just as much as my professor was a part of for giving me the assignment, and the writer thomas king was a part of it for sharing his version of how evil came into the world, and my boyfriend was a part of it for getting excited with me about our ideas and giving me input into his version of what goes wrong in the world.

works cited

Busby, Brian John. “Thomas King”. The Canadian Enyclopedia. April 2008. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/thomas-king. Accessed 25 Sept 2016.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories. New York : House of Anansi Press, 2011. Print.

Lines, Stephanie. Molech. 2014.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.3 – Introduction to Thomas King and Story”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-13/. 25. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Fucking Creeps They’re Environmental Terrorists. 2013. Mcauley and Co. Fine Art. mfineart.ca/macaulay-co-fine-art/artists/lawrence-paul-yuxweluptun/. Accessed 25 Sept. 2016.

literal anarchy

technological advances in communication tools have been part of the impetus to rethink the divisive and hierarchical categorizing of literature and orality, and [i’ve] suggested that this is happening for a number of reasons. I’d like you to consider two aspects of digital literature: 1) social media tools that enable widespread publication, without publishers, and 2) hypertext, which is the name for the text that lies beyond the text you are reading, until you click. how do you think these capabilities might be impacting literature and story?

– question posed by erika paterson.

Soyer, Erwan. "Tahiti". 2011. — Soyer, Erwan. “Tahiti”. 2011.

in her article on orality, courtney macneil suggests that the ways in which the technological advance of the worldwide web have obscured the differences between oral and literal communication have been a catalyst for re-envisioning the capabilities and limitations of both.

erika paterson in her lecture on story and literature explains how the capabilities of social media tools that enable widespread publication without the need for any middle man publisher and access to hypertext, “text that lies beyond the text being read”, have both played a part in expanding the communicator’s power while diminishing restrictions of how the information is being communicated. the result of this greater power for the communicator and wider realm of mediums has resulted in changes for how the modern world relates to and forms literature and story-telling.

published literature has been the authority on storytelling in the colonial western world for centuries. ever since the beginning of imperial civilziations, only text that was meticulously edited, printed, published and distributed was considered literary. frank kermode ascertains in his book “the classic” that classic literature is entirely dependent on imperial qualities – he pointed out that it was countries such as spain, britain, france, italy, russia and germany that had the most influential classic writers. this observation implies not only that it was imperial powers that had the most access to means of preserving documentation, but also that imperial powers only valued their own works, as conquerors, and that documentation by smaller or conquered nations were more prone to be lost, destroyed and/or not given credence. this also ties into how the oral traditions of many cultures have been dismissed as falling beneath literature on the hierarchy of reliable documentation.

the worldwide web has changed our cultural social groupings in that where once we were dependent upon family and social groups who lived in close proximity to us for the communication of information, or various levels of governments and organizations that controlled the media being broadcast or mailed to our homes, we are suddenly part of a global community that has instantaneous access with each other. social media allows the voice of a single person to be heard internationally.

furthermore, as the worldwide web is more available to the public then esteemed publishing opportunities, the power dynamics that social, cultural or monetary capital typically offer for platforms of expression are less overpowering. although having access to a computer and a public following will require some amount of funds, social connection and/or privilege, the computer itself does not distinguish between positions of privilege. anyone who can get access to a computer can type their opinion or story and post it for all to see. not only are people attempting to access wider audiences, but they are actually getting a wider audience because suddenly, through social media, we find millions of people scanning the internet on a daily basis to hear and listen and see other peoples stories.

on one level, we lose the power of being in the presence of a live singer-songwriter, or listening to a poet perform a reading. however what we lose through internet in physical presence of the storyteller, we make up for in the accessibility of stories – in a single week we could listen, read and watch the stories of hundreds of different people all across the globe from the comfort of our own homes or internet cafes.

i would argue that those dedicated to presenting stories with different views within political subcultures and counter cultural circles of our world have always found a way to make it happen. elke zobl reminds us that as early as the first printing presses were running, self-published literature was being created, such as martin luther’s controversial “ninety-five theses”.

yet internet platforms still offer an unprecedented access to varying information and points of views of different peoples from all over the world, one in which poor and wealthy, young and old, black and white all have access to listen and tell stories. we are no longer as subject to our location in the world and to the published written works of the most affluent people of the strongest nation states for the access to and the sharing of stories. but with the influx of information available, what are the stories that are actually being heard through the worldwide web?

works cited

Borrows, John. “Listening for Change: The Courts and Oral Tradition”. Centre For First Nations Governance. n.d. fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/oralhistory.pdf. Accessed 18 Sept. 2016.

Kermode, Frank. The Classic: Literary Images of Permanence and Change. Boston: Harvard University P, 1983. Print.

Macneil, Courtney. “Orality”. The Chicago School of Media Theory. (2007): n. page. lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Lesson 1.2 – Story and Literature”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/unit-1/lesson-12/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2016.

Soyer, Erwan. “Tahiti”. 2011. Erwan Soyer. erwan-soyer.tumblr.com. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

Zobl, Elke. “Zines: zine history, the n\zine network, topics, and teaching zines in classrooms”. grrrl zines. 2004. www.grrrlzines.net/overview.htm. Accessed 18 Sept 2016.

missing pieces

there are many holes in the most well known narratives of canadian identity, many voices that are not being heard because they have been stifled through violence and barriers of poverty, genocide and trauma that most people in canada have not had to face to such staggering degrees. amnesty international reports that there are hundreds of first nation women missing. cbc news and reports for the canadian government reveal that there are people living in extreme poverty, hunger and daily danger, suggesting that their voices have been disregarded and treated with contempt. in both canada and the states we persecute first people who attempt to use their voices, as highlighted by lawrence o’donnell in this news story on the standing rock protests against the pipeline in dakota.

my name is stephanie lines and i am a white english-canadian 30year old mental health worker who has spent the last ten years exploring inclusivity and human rights for vulnerable populations in the unceded first nation territories called british columbia. i am a part-time creative writing and psychology student.

this blog is a personal exploration and study into canadian peoples whose voices have been silenced. it is also a commentary on erika paterson’s ubc course canadian literary genres: an interactive online study of canadian literature made up of four units over a four month period. rather than simply studying prevalent canadian literature, it is a critical study into the missing voices of the first people of canada through the general western-centric understanding of what canadian history and literature is.

one key part of voice is the oral traditions that have been overlooked for centuries due to the empirical colonial powers that value written documents and white voice over other alternative methods, styles and voices of story-telling and documentation, as noted in the essay “listening for change: the courts and oral tradition” by john burrows.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Indian World My Home and Native Land, 2012, Acrylic, 10’ x 7’

i expect that this course will require immense self reflection as well as thoughtful consideration into the material we engage with. neo-colonial racism is ingrained within us all. we white forget and take for granted the comforts that we are afforded. the safety that we expect out of our lives.

i want to in this first post acknowledge the racism that i am a part of by being a white english-canadian. i am privileged to be able to write a blog on canadian literature studies, and i acknowledge fully that i am a white voice. my voice has value, but truly we are at a time when we need to grow quieter and stand behind our canadian first nations and people of color and listen better to their voices that have been silenced for far too long.

works cited

Amnesty International. “Missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls: Understanding the numbers”. Amnesty International Canada. n.d. www.amnesty.ca/blog/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-understanding-the-numbers. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Borrows, John. “Listening for Change: The Courts and Oral Tradition”. Centre For First Nations Governance. n.d. fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/oralhistory.pdf. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Canada. Department of Justice. Victims of Crime Research Digest No.3. By Kathie Scrim. Ottawa: Department of Justice. Apr. 2010. www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cj-jp/victim/rd3-rr3/p3.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Kirkup, Kristy. “60% of First Nation children on reserve live in poverty, institute says”. CBC News: Aboriginal. CBC News, 17 May. 2016. www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/institute-says-60-percent-fn-children-on-reserve-live-in-poverty-1.3585105. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Metta, John. “I, Racist”. Huffington Post: USA. Huffington Post, 10 July. 2015. www.huffingtonpost.com/john-metta/i-racist_b_7770652.html. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Paterson, Erika. “Welcome”. ENGL 4710 Canadian Literary Genres: Canadian Studies. University of British Columbia. Nov. 2013. blogs.ubc.ca/courseblogsis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216-sis_ubc_engl_470a_99c_2014wc_44216_2517104_1/welcome/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Stefanovich, Olivia. “‘How can people afford this?’ James Bay communities struggle to eat healthily”. CBC News: Sudbury. CBC News, 12 Sept. 2016. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/james-bay-coast-high-food-prices-study-1.3756824?cmp=rss. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

“Rewrite: The Protests At Standing Rock”. by Lawrence O’Donnell. MSNBC. Aug. 25.2016. Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5uNRqtjdrM. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.

Yuxweluptun, Lawrence Paul. Indian World My Home And Native Land. 2012. Mcauley and Co. Fine Art. mfineart.ca/macaulay-co-fine-art/artists/lawrence-paul-yuxweluptun. Accessed 12 Sept. 2016.