Are we actually comfortable with people who never fought a war checking to see if those fleeing war are being properly ‘respectful’ in a way that someone else who’s never fought a war has dictated?
Author Archives: Kathleen May
She Speaks: When sad, art
What if, artist Kate Brown muses, we treated the environment as she treats her artwork—would we have polluted the very air we breathe if we’d truly understood that it is not empty, not nothing? Could we have dismissed it, destroyed it, knowing that air, oxygen, is tangible, like every corner of a canvas?
CBC Nonfiction Prize Shortlist – “The Long Driveway
We don’t even trick-or-treat on this road because there aren’t enough neighbours. Instead, we drive 20 minutes into town and go in someone else’s neighbourhood, where the houses are close enough together that we can walk. We have to leave this house to feel joy.
She Speaks: Plastic straws and other distractions
To put it another way, the fervour around individual use of plastic straws makes it seem like we are the problem. But we are the solution. And guilt is a terrible motivator.
She Speaks: Politics, religion, money and ovaries
Maybe my body is a reflection of the world and this toxic disease is akin to the suffocating oceans and the blaze-engulfed Amazon.
She Speaks: Whose pride is it anyway?
For want of a true ‘safe space’, Pride is so very close to what we need to heal as a community from relentless othering in a society that’s enforced a hierarchy we cannot ascend by virtue of being the amazing people we are.
She Speaks: I envision a community in Muskoka for women, forever
This is the vision I have for Muskoka. A dedicated space for women – not a shelter, not transitional housing, not rentals, but a land held in trust, and homes created by and for the women who wish to live there. Homes that belong to them. A sense of ownership, pride, stability, security, community, respect.
She Speaks: Have you talked about death lately?
I am pro-choice. I am pro-choice when it comes to the beginning of life and also when it comes to the end. I believe people should be able to choose what their death looks like, who will be present, and when their end has come.
She Speaks: Yes, we really call you cidiots, but in an endearing way
I think I wish tourists understood that they are not seeing all the layers we live in, and I wish they wanted to. I wish they believed they had more to offer than money, or that more than money is needed.
kathleen may 