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.
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.