fromthemouthofmoi

The following essay was written in response to an online comment about sexual abuse. It is a difficult topic to say the least. In keeping with my ongoing fascination with how race and colour play out in the world, I began to think of my own abuse, in conjunction to my academic studies: how Whiteness and its power plays out in literature and attempting to understand how this same relationship has  inadvertently played out in my own life. First came sleeplessness. My earliest memories are of insomnia. Then came physical torture in the form of being wrapped and pinned into sheets while she jabbed my fingers with pins and needles attempting to rid me of the pus infecting my fingers. Somewhere in this time I climbed to the top of a sewing machine to glance in a mirror and saw, with shock, that I did not look like this blond haired, blue eyed woman that called herself my mother. Me? I had cotton candy brown hair and golden brown skin.  As my body developed prematurely, the...

My knickers got in a twist. I was feeling overwhelmed and pissed off. Too many people with a hand out and never a hand held out. Too many people with obvious problems that I was willing to lend a hand to, but who clammed up and, became ridiculous, yet still wanted comfort. I've been pondering things like: If you know someone is having money problems but they don't reveal it, do you still have a moral obligation to be a good friend and feed them? Or lend the car, or whatever? Right now I have decided: No. My rationale is that part of sharing your predicaments is the bond it creates between two people. Any successful relationship one can expect a give and take parlance. But if one person does more without the benefit of knowing why they are giving more, then things begin to stink real fast. And if one person is always accepting your generosity but never reciprocates, and you don't know the reason why, then it stinks twice. So what did I do? I talked to myself for a few da...

Everyone was in their place. Everything had a place. Then my biological father died. I am not going to tell you anything that smells of manure. I am going to tell you how I feel. I don't feel much about my father's death, and when my mother goes, I will feel even less. I can already feel some of you cringing and see some of you falling to knees to say a quick prayer for me; don't bother. Myself doesn't need your prayers, myself needs all of you to ask me what my boundaries are and when I tell you, myself needs you to abide by them. Leave your packet of platitudes for the hour after my death when I will finally be out of earshot. If you would like to know why I feel this way, just ask. What's the point of wonder when you don't use your tongue? And don't be asking any questions to pass judgment. Be asking to understand me. I was not raised by either parent after the age of eleven. At the age of eleven, this is when the heroes, heroines, and those that ...

I made my trip to Europe and what a trip it has been. It has not been what I expected. It has been more. I ask myself, self: what might you be thinking? And myself replies: too many things. I began in Dusseldorf. I saw old friends, Bernd and Sigy. Gray now and looking like strange children with youthful smiles under weathered faces. I love them now more than I did then when first we met.  They walk at a brisk pace. So brisk I can't keep up. I lumber with the gait of those living in tropical climates. They walk hurriedly desperate to outpace the cold. All those years ago in New York City's Lower East Side. I pushed Bernd, fully clothes, into a public pool. Sigy flirting with me and me too scared to let go of my sexuality. Now we are older and everything is let to pass in favour of the friendship that sustains years. The art of friendship. The friendship of art. The sudden reappearance of longevity that holds nothing and everything. This longevity allows instant simpatico. It...

A couple of weeks back I saw that a concert was to be given by The International String Quartet of Yucatan. My friend Ben and I went, and honestly, I was not expecting much of anything. I had, earlier in the year, gone to the Merida City Ballet and that proved to be such a disaster that I simply found myself skeptical concerning things referred to as 'classical' in Merida. The ballet was so profoundly disappointing that at one point during the performance I found myself looking around the theatre to see if anyone else was laughing. It was a real Candid Camera type of performance. Ballerinas falling on stage, male dance partners spinning ballerinas around so violently that I held my breath half expecting them to be flung offstage...ballerinas being spun because they weren't able to pirouette on their own. It was really spectacularly awful. All the rows in my near vicinity were occupied by people with smart phones filming the performance; not one thought turing off thei...

The biggest reason that I can think of is that Hollandaise Sauce requires strict timing. I recently invited eight people for a sit down formal Thanksgiving dinner which was to have commenced at 6PM. At 6.15PM I called the one person not present to ask if they were on their way and was informed that they would arrive in half an hour. Fifteen minutes before their expected arrival I began to separate eggs and melt butter. This delinquent guest, after 45 minutes, had still failed to show. When he did finally show I did the best I could and just served food. Some of my guests, who knew what I had intended to prepare, asked me about the sauce and I had to come up with an answer that differed from: We are not having it because this asshole guest arrived late and ruined it. Later I asked myself what Mexican's cook for guests. I mean do they make anything that requires timing? Or is everything good cold or hot or is everything suitable for the microwave, an appliance I do not own? Mexic...

I hold many secrets of those that I love and for those that I could care less about. I hold these secrets because half of them I have forgotten and the other half, I know, that should I reveal them in anger or flippancy, it will be me that stands alone looking ill-bred. Merida is run amok and rampant with Gringos that love to gossip. I always expect this behaviour from people who stand before hallway lockers, dialing combination numbers, while acne wreaks havoc upon their faces. I am never expecting this faux forte from people who are my age. Plainly spoken, I feel devastation when I witness gossip. When I am asked to participate by answering a question or when I find myself overhearing it, I can feel the blood rush to my face with anger. I knew my mother was a hypocrite when I sat in the kitchen of her Vancouver apartment and overheard her bad-mouth another woman, from the living room, with what was gossip. I felt so inflamed that I jumped from my seat and asked her how she coul...