I was a witness to racial hate the likes of which I’d only ever seen on TV, in movies and on the news. I was stunned, shaken and certainly frightened enough to be poised to dial 911 on my cell phone. This was up close and in my face.

I was outside having a puff and noticed two very tall black guys walk halfway up the block across the street from me, they stopped and stood there having a converstation, minding their own business. Next thing I know there’s some pipsqueak of a white guy yelling obscenities and racial slurs at them, trying to provoke them into a fight. I should also mention there was a blue minivan stopped just a half a block away. I imagined the worst. The white guy, in my mind, was successful in goading these two black men into fighting. The white guy maybe had a weapon like a knife or gun, or some way of getting the black men into the van and, well you can extrapolate the rest.

I have to hand it to the black dudes, they ignored the white guy a long time as the white guy strutted in a semi-circle in front of them. After some time they had enough. They started to talk back, offering up their genitals for the white guy to suck. That was the when I let my finger hit the dial button for 911. It only rang once, this was because the white guy suddenly took off up another street I hung up. The 911 operator called me right back and I explained that I felt there was an iminent threat to the black guys, that there was a hate crime about to be committed. I explained the white guy suddenoly took off. The operator assured me I did the right thing even though nothing came of it. The two black guys went off to their own desitnations.

I went back up to my place clearly shaken. I had never personally witnessed such ugly behaviour up close and if I ever see that again it will be too soon. Why do people hate those of another colour? It makes zero sense to me.

It took a while to stop vibrating like one of those fancy hotel room beds that take quarters but I did and I felt compelled to write this to bring help bring awareness to the issue of racism here in my province of NS.

Now, because of Covid-19 hate crimes against asian communities has been on the rise. It’s inconceivable to me how a group of people can put themselves so far above BIPOC folks. Dear white supremacy people, the colour of your skin does not make you superior in any way, shape or form, get over yourselves. The colour of your skin should not give you extra privileges or rights. We are, all of us, humans.

Black Lives Matter

Photo courtesy of Pexels Free Photos

As promised, the long awaited release of my second song, Echoes of the Wild. The music was composed, arranged and performed by Rowan Ayers and Ramped. It’s hard to find the words to express my gratitude to these guys for taking on this project and doing such a fantastic job, and for putting so many hours in on perfecting this song.

The lyrics were inspired by a summer afternoon laying in a hammock by the river bank of a small quiet lazy river.

Integrity is,( in the case of personal integrity), the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions….Wikipedia

For the past few days I have been feeling very activated (CPTSD) and disregulated (BPD), and in stark contrast to years past I have been able to voice what I’m feeling rather than self-destruct. I don’t really know or understand why this has been happening but I guess it doesn’t matter all that much. The point is I feel as though my dark emotions are on the brink of taking over. I feel shaky and weepy, restless and all out of sorts.

Working with the clay will help, I thought, it’s something I have been enjoying. I also recalled some of my training from group therapy. One of the things suggested to us was to change the negative internal dialogue we surely have going on. I started trying to make a mental list of positive compassionate things to say to myself so as to avoid going too far down that rabbit hole but was struggling.

During this time I crossed the street, found the clay I needed and was paying for it at the cash when I looked down and spotted a five dollar bill on the floor. I picked it up and without even thinking, handed it to the cashier and said, “Oh, I guess someone dropped five bucks on the floor.”

The cashier thanked me and put it aside in case a customer came back for it as she did just have a cash transaction before me. It wasn’t until I left the store that I realized there’s a positive thing I could say about myself, I have integrity.

I have integrity and I know this because I will turn in found money. I love this sentence structure . The first part of the sentence is positive thing you would say about yourself and the second part claims it, owns it and provides the evidence. I __________________ and I know this because _____________________________.

It wouldn’t matter if it was five dollars or five hundred dollars, keeping something that isn’t mine doesn’t feel right to me. I also know that on a tight budget even five dollars counts and that if it was me, I’d need that five dollars (in fact I could have used it today). I felt better having that one positive thing in my pocket as evidenced by my recent action.

I had reached the ripe old age of twenty five years old when I had to have a bilateral mastectomy due to some kind of persistent infections. One doctor explained there were four or five different bacteria but couldn’t give me specific causes of these breast infections. I wasn’t producing milk but I did have a toddler about, so I didn’t see how it could be mastitis but that is how another doctor described it. The only relief was with my second pregnancy. No infections and no lumps.

I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and after my breasts dried up the infections started again. I was on and off cipro (the only antibitotic that worked) and demerol for the next couple of years.

One of the many attempted solutions to these infections was to make an incision two inches long and two inches deep. I had a nurse come daily to pack the wound as it had to heal from the inside out, if not it would create a pocket for more infections.

The doctor told me I can try to ride it out and hopefully these infections will stop in the future or I could have a mastectomy. There was no guarantee that these infections wouldn’t spead to other parts of my body and the doctor could not tell me precisely what was happening. I opted for a bilateral mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery.

The day before my surgery my new boyfriend took me to a Blue Jays game as a distraction. I had an active infection in the very wound that had to heal from the inside out. My boyfriend and I were enjoying the game but were getting a whiff of something putrid. As it turned out the pressure from the infection burst through a small part of the healed incision and let some puss seep out. It was so disgusting and smelly.

The day of the surgery I was so nervous but I didn’t want to keep getting sick. I do think, though, I underestimated how I would feel about losing my breasts. I needed a lot of support for the first couple of weeks which came from the Red Cross and social services, not my parents or anyone else in my family.

The day come for the staples to be taken out. It would be the first time I saw my bare chest where my breasts used to be. It looked like a couple of zippers going across a dents in my chest. I broke down, I cried the whole time the nurse worked on the staples. That is a vision that will never leave me.

I had to wait eight weeks for the wounds to completely heal before they could start reconstruction. This was because I was getting implants and not using my own fat and tissue. I would have had to gain at least twenty pounds which I was not able to do. WIth implants they had to stretch my skin out to have enough room for them. The device they used to expand my skin was called an expander. It had to be filled once a week until the desired size was reached. Those were then replaced with more permanent implants. The final step would be to build and tattoo the nipples.

Well, I waited the eight weeks and when I woke up from that surgery I was informed they had found another infected lump. I felt defeated. Another round of antibiotics, another eight week wait for reconstruction to start. It was devastating.

The next attempt went smoothly except for the fact the plastic surgeon who did the reconstruction advised me against it. I did not scar well and would have more scars elsewhere from the reconstruction. I followed his advice.

Twenty-some-odd years later and they need to be replaced. One is leaking (don’t worry, it’s filled with saline) and where I have gained a decent amount of weight they look disproportionately small. I’m waiting to hear back from the referral to a surgeon.

I have struggled ever since with feeling attactive, feeling feminine, feeling sexy. I wear a brave face because what else can I do? I often look upon my body with hatred and loating, resenting my younger self for having the stupid operation to begin with. A part of my journey is learning to be more compassionate with myself, to build a better relationship with myself and to manage my occasionally out of control emotions.