Finding A Place

...to write. 

Distraction-free. 

Well not "free" but maybe slightly "less" distracted.

These aren't general or average distractions I'm writing about. These are less 'sensory' and more 'mentally' driven. Mentally in relation to the creative process. Do I write here for the joy of writing without purpose? Do I write here to get feelings and thoughts out into the world to make space and inspire creative endeavours?

What feelings do I have on a topic that would be interesting enough to espouse to you here with these words. I wonder "where can I find your curiosity, change it to suspense, and unleash it all as surprise". 

Wandering through the tangled mess I find in my own grey matter I find little that impresses me enough to warrant putting in work to bring to the surface for your potential perusal. I still ask myself if a strong enough emotion would do it, a mental state that has utility beyond the page.

Tenderness, Anger, Happiness, Sadness, Fear. Which emotion do I express to expose the one that I really want, the one that relates closest to what a writer needs to keep a readers eyes bouncing from word to word in that perfect mix of curiosity, suspense, and surprise. How, and where, do I find excitement?

There is a lot to be said a wide berth is necessary to explain the complexity of excitement. Translating excitement into cold emotionless words causes it to sit nebulously between emotions, acting as the force that pushes the lever towards max or a moving fulcrum dependent on the situation as to which emotion falls, forgotten, into our subconscious and which gets rocketed outward and erupts into your capacity for verbal and non-verbal communication, body language and words as explosion triggered by excitement.

What/who is this for? Why do I write here? 

Maybe the answer is to let this be a free space, whatever my brain or heart fancies in the moment. Maybe the answer is that this can suck as a creative outlet and I can accept that. 

These Are Not Your Stories

These are NOT your stories. I don't want you to take that the wrong way.

I struggle, and swallow hard on my vicious tongue, as I watch people who ignored, ridiculed and oppressed me and my family, especially my community, now touting their Indigeneity even though it is based on stories they've heard us tell in public spaces. 

Our stories are co-opted and seized out of the cultural landscape and used to prop up the legitimacy of a person, someone who should be able to accept their recent knowledge but refuses for no good reason. I say there is no good reason because I have never heard one and suspect I never will. 

Seeing all of this happen, the retcon of people's lives, in real time is an indignity to the people who gave all that they had, endured so much strife, just to be looked at, to be recognized.

Hopefully things can be civil in the future, I don't want to make this just about me ranting AT you. I will make a pact to be as civil as possible with you, as long as you affirm that these are not your stories make your own starting now. 

I am only a collector and sharer here. I only tell the story I've been gifted through my upbringing and I can only change that story in the present not the past. Aspire to the same or I will call your bluff, we know who our people are and have a duty to protect community.