THANKS

Thanksgiving is contentious. It has colonial roots that can’t be ignored. But I’m a firm believer in positive appropriation - so I re-frame it as a time to enjoy the people I love around a big table, laugh loud, express gratitude for the wholesome food we tuck into, acknowledge that we’re guests on the ground beneath our feet, and give a nod to everything that’s good in life. Loads to give *thanks* for this year:

  • My amazing peeps - who are a daily reminder that unconditional kindness, love and acceptance are alive and well in this big, diverse, beautiful world .

  • My daughter. There’s a framed pic of her in my bedroom, taken a couple of summers ago: a wee cub in oversized cowboy boots and pigtails. I just put a new one beside it, taken this summer: a vibrant young woman, the setting sun behind her casting a halo around her full nap Afro. Easier to deal with in the morning, for sure - but I also know its her way of proudly asserting herself as a black woman the world. She’s a real wonder.

  • Art. My work. Picking and choosing projects more carefully these days, so I can fill my creative boots and fill the coffers, with equal measure: a new multidisc play in development, written by Jimmy Tait, for myself and dancer/choreographer Noam Gagnon (thanks to The Cultch for our residency in September); a super fun recurring role on the new Hardy Boys TV series (Hulu). And the work of my peers - which teaches me, and inspires me to keep doing what I do.

  • Green Party of Canada.

  • Greta Thunberg

  • All the farmers at Trout Lake Market, and my fellow growers at Cedar Cottage Community Garden. Food enough for all.

  • LOVEBOWL: a community long table dinner series I’ve started up. Feeding everyone, keeping overhead down so it’s affordable for anyone to come, sending some shekels to other community-building orgs around the city - feels pretty damn good. And the first one’s almost sold out…

  • My record player - listening to stuff like Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, dreamy Fleet Foxes and Jose Gonzales, Lauryn Hill, an old scratchy copy of Leonard Cohen’s Songs from a Room, and Leeroy Stagger’s killer new album Strange Path (True North Records)- catch him on tour if you can. Vinyl is the best.

  • Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments. Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey. Gaia Vince’s Adventures in the Anthropocene. Wowza.

  • Fogo Island Arts Centre. Literally perched on a remote chunk of island off the coast of Newfoundland - this place is so rock and fuckin’ roll. The art and ideas that emanate from here are mind blowing. Check them out.

  • The Cultch. For providing a rooftop home for the hives and the bees that I have the privilege of raising, along with my mentor, Brian Campbell of Blessed Bee Farm.

  • Shoshana’s The Little Big Yarn Shop off Commercial Drive - supplying the raw materials for my wooly weaves. Her piles of skeins are kinda like crack.

Giving thanks for it all.