Home: a combination of the physical, your emotions and your memories. A structure in your mind that stacks up as you grow older to create an image of what is ‘home’. It doesn’t matter how far away you travel, or if a developer knocks your house down. All experiences of ‘home-ness’ are just added to the mental building block – a structure that survives purely through memory, which no bulldozer can touch.

I can trace back my earliest memory of a house to when I was two and a half years old. I remember running from our front doorsteps to welcome my new baby sister. From there, I remember our next house where I saw that same baby take her first steps, where my sisters and I played with our barbie dolls, where we slid down the slide in our backyard and ran to the playground a couple blocks away.

Then we moved. So where was my home now?

The next house was in a military complex. It had a white door with a gold handle, and had a huge tree out front where we played 40-40 with the neighbourhood kids. I remember this one time my older sister climbed it and got stuck – she was always more daring than I. At the bottom of the yard, we had a swing set near this berry bush. If you squished the berries and put the juice on your skin, you could make look like you were bleeding. We used to prank our mum by coming up to her with ‘blood’ (aka: berry juiced) smeared on our forearms. Three years later, my dad left the army and we moved to Vancouver.

I cried when we left; the neighbourhood kids ran after our car. The idea of ‘home’ was becoming increasingly transitional for me.

A nine hour flight later, we landed in Vancouver, British Columbia. Our new home was on 28th and Dunbar – across from the elementary school my sister and I attended. It was incredibly convenient to have to simply walk across the road to school. The garden wasn’t big, so we used to walk to the playground to play after school hours. Six months later, we were asked to leave.

Bye bye house – off to the next ‘home’.

The place we were renting while my parents found something more permanent was a quaint little house in Kerrisdale. It had a huge plum tree in the back and a toy cart had been left in the garage by the owners for us to play with. We used to sit in it and let ourselves roll free down the sidewalk. Looking back, it is a miracle that none of us died…. those were the good ole’ days.

A couple months later, my parents found a place close by in Shaughnessy. We moved in to this big house with a monkey tree out front – the best direction tip you can give someone coming over to visit. We have lived here for 13 years now – this is where I have the most memories of home-life: lying on the trampoline till the wee hours of the morning, attempting to build a tree fort, breaking down a piece of the fence with a soccer ball, disney nights……

But it is just the last building block placed on my mental stack of ‘home’ – when I move out, the next place will become my literal home. But no one house will be the structure of my mental home.

My mental home is a stack of every single place I have lived in so far. All of these put together construct my understanding of home, as all of them contain memories of family, friends, food, laughter, parties, homework, fights, hugs, meals, sports, cooking, baking, chores, tea, birthdays, smiles, joy, and love. All of the physical structures of home are complimented by the emotions and memories that were created in it.

Home is a mental building block that I take with me every place I go, and add on to with each new chapter of my life.

So… what physical attributes, emotional connections and memories construct your mental home?

Works Cited:

A High-reach Excavator Is Used to Demolish This Tower Block. N.d. Wikipedia. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demolition#mediaviewer/File:Hydraulicke_demolicni_nuzky_na_podvozku_CAT_330.jpg>

“Google Maps.” Google Maps. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <https://www.google.ca/maps/@54.516059,-6.065704,3a,75y,288.64h,85.54t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sMmuhbW2-2kFFl5PITjGvrA!2e0>.

I have grown up simply enraptured by Disney fairytales… I can’t name many girls and boys who would say that they didn’t.

As I grew older, my love of fairy tales did not diminish and so here I am, an (almost) 22 year old young women acting as a Princess for a children’s Birthday Party Company here in Vancouver!

Because of my love for magic and imagination – I decided to write my story about how evil came into the world with a fairy tale feel to it.

By doing this, the reactions of my friends and family stemmed from “wow, that is a really sad ending! the poor seventh princess” to “I loved how the King reacted, demonstrating mercy instead of anger” to “that wasn’t the fairytale I was expecting”!

These comments demonstrated to me how the stories we tell – be it fantasy, thriller, horror, suspense, romantic, comedic, fairy tale etc. – are all a ‘stock’ way of communication, and yet they are so malleable to the speaker/authors requirements. This malleability means that there is great responsibility – similar to “with great power comes great responsibility” (Voltaire or Uncle Ben or Winston Churchill… whoever tickles your fancy), so it is also with the words we say. Even if our intentions are good – such as with the seventh princess – the words that we say always have either positive or negative consequences.

I hope that you enjoy my fairytale and a not so happy ending…

I have a great story to tell you.

It’s not too long, so don’t think it’s going to be one of those stories I usually tell that goes on and on until there is some useless conclusion. No, this story tells you something important. So listen, listen closely.

Once upon a time….

When you could look at the sky at night time and see millions of stars.

And when the wind rustled through the trees, you could hear their voices talking.

And when the water rumbled over rocks, you could feel the ground quiver.

When things mattered, when people, trees, plants, animals, the ocean.. when it all mattered.

During this time, there was a beautiful kingdom. In this kingdom there were seven princesses. Six of these princesses were all good in their own way, but there was one princess who could never get it right.

One day as the King looked out on the world he ruled, he saw how his people lacked presence. They all existed, and everything was right, but there was something better to be had. And so he declared that there would be a ball and that during this ball each of his daughters would be required to speak a gift and its’ story into the world.

As the news of this spread throughout the Kingdom, men, women and children prepared for this big night.

And the night finally came.

The Grand Hall was full of people, food, drink, flowers, candles, music and fellowship. It was the greatest of parties the kingdom had ever seen.

But too soon it was time for the Princesses to speak each of their gifts into the world.

The first stepped forward

My gift is the gift of love -may stories forever be told of hearts permanently intertwined by this powerful emotion.

The second stepped forward

My gift is the gift of peace – may stories of harmony between people, animals, and earth always be written into the history books.

The third stepped forward

My gift is the gift of joy – may stories of deep seeded contentment with life be told from the hearts of all.

The fourth stepped forward

My gift is the gift of courage – may stories of men and women remaining pure of heart in all of life’s journeys always be shared.

The fifth stepped forward

My gift is the gift of song – may the world be full of stories of sound that are nurturing to the soul.

The sixth stepped forward

My gift is the gift of plenty – may the earth be abundant and so thick of food that we feast for days, and great stories of ancient times be shared.

And then the seventh princess stepped forward.

My sisters gifts are all good, I do not know how to add to them other then to give the gift of knowledge. May man only know each one of these things by knowing what the opposite of it is. And so may stories of hatred, war, sadness, cowardice, silence and scarcity be weaved throughout history.

The Kingdom turned quiet at the princess’ proclamation.

“Take it back!” a voice cried, and in turn a chorus of voices erupted all yelling the same thing.

“Silence” said the King, “this is a tragic day for mankind indeed.” He walked towards his seventh daughter with tears in his eyes. He went to hold her in his arms but his daughter fell to her knees.

“My King” she cried, “please, let me take the gift back. I meant for it to be a good thing… but I see now the evil I have created.”

“Oh my child” the King said with a sad voice, “you cannot take your gift back. Your story has been spoken and now it is done.”

“For once a story is told, it cannot be called back” (King 123).

– The End –

Works Cited:

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 2005. Print.

Question Posed:

Explain why the notion that cultures can be distinguished as either “oral culture” or “written culture” (19) is a mistaken understanding as to how culture works, according to Chamberlin and your reading of Courtney MacNeil’s article “Orality.

‘Oral’ and ‘written’ are two examples of poor categorization in regards to culture, as this classification oversimplifies and ignores its own biases. In J. Edward Chamberlin’s novel If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? he states: “We are, all of us, much more involved in both oral and written traditions than we might think. And our stories and songs draw on the resources of both” (Chamberlin 20). Chamberlin demonstrates throughout chapter one that the over simplification of defining primitive cultures as ‘oral’ and modern, sophisticated, scientific cultures as ‘written’ “encourages people to treat other societies with a blend of condescension and contempt while celebrating the sophistication of their own” (Chamberlin 19). As explained by Chamberlin, the history of each respective group of people and is not determined by whether or not they literally wrote down their history (Chamberlin 20), but by the simple existence of said history. As Chamberlin is quoted in Courtney MacNeil’s article: “Speech and writing are so entangled with each other in our various forms and performance of language” (MacNeil). Therefore, the separation of the oral and the written creates a misunderstanding in every culture’s respective story.

“This is not to suggest, of course, that we relegate orality to a culturally-specific or regionalized realm. It is worth remembering that to this day, the majority of the world’s inhabitants use orality as their primary communicative medium” (MacNeil). Therefore, it would be wrong to say: ‘because a culture maintains its’ historic records by an ‘oral’ means, that it is less legitimate’. If we look at our primary mode of communication today, we still use speech—not writing—and yet we do not find our history with those around us ‘illegitimate’. “Ultimately, the divide between oral and written history is a misconception. Writing and orality do not exclude each other; rather they are complementary” (Hanson).

In regards to the Aboriginal peoples in Canada, undermining their oral traditions and claiming that because their stories are not written down that they have no legitimacy is a primitive understanding of culture. Aboriginals have just as much history as any other culture, they have just done their record keeping differently to the majority. Therefore in this course it is imperative to remember that ‘oral’ and ‘written’ are not binary to each other but that they are intertwined–even if our ancestors did not view it that way. If we comes at the texts in our Canadian Literature Studies arguing for the legitimacy of orality over written, we lose the stories of those whose cultures write them down. Therefore, we must keep an open and modern approach to documenting history, and notice the times in our past where this was not the case.

Bibliography:

Chamberlin, Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. AA. Knopf. Toronto. 2003. Print.

Courtney MacNeil, “Orality.” The Chicago School of Media Theory. Uchicagoedublogs. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2013. https://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/mediatheory/keywords/orality/

Hanson, Erin. “Oral Traditions.” Oral Traditions. First Nations Studies Program UBC, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.  <http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/home/culture/oral-traditions.html>.

Walbert, Kathryn. “The Value of Oral History.” The Value of Oral History. UNC School of Education, n.d. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.<http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/762>.

Dear Reader,

First and foremost, thanks for checking out my blog. I am really excited to begin this journey with you for the next 13 weeks! During our time together, you will read my thoughts, comments and questions regarding the course ENGL470A- Canadian Studies: Canadian Literary Genres. In this course, we will be studying and reflecting on the oral and print traditions of the Indigenous and Settler (European) peoples. By looking at the texts, the class will engage in discussions of the power of voice, the power of the written word versus the oral, the meshing of two societies and how much of the Canadian “voice” to our history is weighted against the Indigenous traditions and more towards the settlers.

As a 4th Year English Lit student graduating this April, I am really excited to be taking this course as I have not delved into the Canadian Literary Genre too deeply. I am originally from England, and moved to Canada in 2001- but don’t worry, I am not planning on taking over the country again :P! My family became citizens in 2006, and we have loved every minute of living in Canada.

When I ponder about the potential lessons and discussions/debates that this course will instigate, I reflect on the bloody history that weaves its way throughout our red and white flag. I anticipate an exploration of our modern day understanding of multiculturalism, and how although “Canada was the first country in the world to declare multiculturalism as its official policy” (Economic & Political Weekly) there are discrepancies and problems in our supposed ‘multicultural’ approach to our Canadian doctrine. Because of this, I foresee a discussion full of strong opinions towards our present day acceptance of Aboriginal traditions in all departments of Canadian institutions and whether or not Canada should recognize Aboriginal Law, and the implications of doing so. Additionally, I am very interested in discussions about the “cause and effects” of changing the ‘voices’ to our Nation’s governing ideologies, and historical view points!

https://ehpols1303blog.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/aboriginal-peoples-in-canada/ 

I am very excited to embark on this journey, and look forward to engage with you all about Canada eh!

Works Cited:

“Aboriginal Peoples In Canada.” POLS 1303 My Thoughts. N.p., 21 Sept. 2014. Web. 08 Jan. 2015. <https://ehpols1303blog.wordpress.com/2014/09/21/aboriginal-peoples-in-canada/>.

“Multiculturalism and the Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.” Economic & Political Weekly (2012)

Tomm, Matthew. “Public Reason and the Disempowerment of Aboriginal People in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 28.3 (2013): 293-314.