I quit my job last night. I wasn’t expecting to, though in the heat of the moment the pimple that’s been brewing for the past 6 months finally burst through it’s skin, and I was like I’m the fuck outta here.

Given the kind of brutal exploitation of labour and straight up slavery that exists in the world I know that my ails are minuscule, yet I still don’t want to be working in a environment where I’m not given basic respect and dignity. I know in my heart that I’m not suited to be an employee, but it takes a lot of energy and focus to run a business and I’ve been too messed up and ungrounded to undertake such an endeavour: until now! I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing but I know that I won’t be working for any boss anymore, no no no..

I’ve been crying a lot and feeling fucked up but also feeling very relieved, and I can’t believe I lasted almost a year doing customer service. I have some good people skills now and I’m ready to take no shit wherever I go. I’m also ready to do something that is truly sustainable and honouring of the earth. No more bullshit greenwashing and keeping customers happy at the expense of others mental health and the environment. I can’t believe how disgusting humans can be - and fucking entitled! This old hippy dude came in to buy a salad yesterday and he used a take out box even though he was going to stay in the restaurant and I let him know that he could use our plates but he was like no i just like the box and how it keeps the salad nice and contained and i can fork it up more easily this way. Okay bro, you’re too fucking lazy to make a little pile of salad on your plate and shovel your fork into it.. millions of years of evolution: wasted! WE ARE DEVO!! Maybe I'm being insisensitive, but it's because I actually give a fuck about animals and ecosystems and when I see polar bears starving to death and pollution soaked skies, it really messes me up.

Today is so-called Canada Day, and one of the many things I was uneasy about at the restaurant is that the website of the business didn’t have a land acknowledgement on it. When I spoke to the owner about it he said that he didn’t want to put one on there without understanding why. I sent him a heartfelt message about it and I do understand that running a business and having a big family is a lot of work. At the same time, I’m like where have you been for the past 5 years dude??

I’ve never been very patriotic. I refused to sing the national anthem at school when I was growing up and even before I got in to activism I could see that the political system I was living under was extremely corrupt. Since learning more about the lives and perspectives of Indigenous people, I stopped celebrating Canada Day altogether.

A Nu-Chal-Nuth man I spoke to at the Indigenous Day gathering I attended last week told me that he didn’t think that Reconciliation is working. The Canadian foster care system is the modern day residential school with over 50% of the children being Indigenous, despite Indigenous people only representing 5-7% of the population. And I recently read that almost none of the 231 recommendations put forth to address the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women crisis on these lands have been addressed by the government. Just in the past couple of years in my midst there has been Chelsea Poorman, Noelle O’Soup and Carsyn Seaweed. And in Winnipeg there has been a serial killer by the name of Jeremy Skibiski preying on Indigenous women.

I don’t know what to do. But I’m not doing nothing. And now that I have stable housing, I can do more.

For today I’m staying inside and letting these feeling move through me. It’s a big change that I just brought upon myself and I didn’t sleep much last night.

I’m taking a break from life to hang out with the new cat that came into my life and maybe get into Dungeons and Dragons again now that I have Friday nights off in perpetuity. My friend has an online campaign going and it sounds like a good one.


July 2

What a strange day yesterday was.. A few months ago I made a surprising friendship with a person who lives in my building. She used to live in the apartment that I'm in and then moved into a larger suite, and one night I asked if she could help me figure out how to use the thermostat. I was a bit nervous about her coming in to my place as it’s witchy as fuck in here, though to my surprise she started asking about my altar and told me that she had just starting getting into witchcraft. We ended up sitting on my bed and I did a tarot reading for her and showed her how the cards work.

Jolie texted me as I was lying in bed feeling like ass after not sleeping and 'twisting and churning in retrospect' (to quote Nivek Ogre). She wanted to go down to the so-called Canada Day celebrations at the water.

The Songhees did a beautiful ritual at a large stage on the lawn of the provincial legislature building and there was a much bigger crowd than last year. There were a mix of people around, some wearing red and holding Canadian flags, and many with orange t-shirts (for the children who never came home). Jolie has Aztec ancestry and was like how could anyone wear red today, don’t they know how this country was founded?

We checked out some of the Indigenous artisans who were down along the water and I really wished I had money to spend on their beautiful art, though I chatted some of them up and wished them a Happy Land Back Day.

I’m looking after Sebastian’s cat while he’s out of town so I headed over to his place afterwards and Jolie went to hang out with a friend of hers who lives downtown. Before we parted she talked to me about her business that she recently started and gave me some tips on becoming an entrepreneur. Already I feel like the sky is parting and new opportunities will be opening up.

On the way to Sebastian’s I stopped in at the Chinese Cultural Museum in Fan Tan alley, as I’ve been waiting to check out the exhibit properly since I got here over a year ago. I got into a really great discussion with one of the women in there and she told me that I made her feel really good with what I shared about my experiences living in China, and then she invited me to volunteer with them. I was so honoured that she would ask me as a non-Chinese person and I feel a bit nervous about it, though I also really really miss being around Chinese people and felt like my time in China was cut short, so I’ll definitely be following up with them and connecting with them more.

When I walked home from downtown I looked around at the cityscape of Victoria and saw Canadian flags all over that were permanently part of the landscape: on the little shuttle ferries, on City Hall and a large flag above the legislature. This year was also a lot more celebratory than last year. Last year people were somewhat subdued by the discovery of mass graves of young children at former residential school sites.

So-called Victoria is the capital city of the province of so-called British Columbia. This is a place where colonial power is concentrated and big decisions are made that have lingering impacts on those who live in the shadow of the privilege and entitlement that settlers have infused into ourselves since we first started coming to these lands.

I initially wasn’t sure how to respond to my boss when he said that he didn’t understand why he should have a land acknowledgement on his site. I want to centre Indigenous voices but I also don’t want to put unnecessary labour upon them.

When I heard elders speak about land acknowledgements at Indigenous Day it was a call to go much deeper into ourselves as “settlers” than I knew how to express, though I did my best and sent a letter to the restaurant owner the day before so-called Canada Day. I wrote dozens of drafts, went through waves of anxiety and self-doubt, but I sent it all the same because I know that sending an imperfect letter that might not even be read all the way through is better than doing nothing. This inspiration came from my friend Bramble when things became complicated with a group she got together to decolonial work. She said “whatever we do, lets not do nothing”.

Last week I attended the Indigenous Day celebrations that happened out at the Royal Roads University, and one of the main events was paddle racing. Before they began, each boat came ashore and acknowledged the territory that they were entering, and they were welcomed to the land by local Songhees community members. A representative from each boat introduced themselves and asked for permission to dock. This is standard protocol from Nation to Nation among Indigenous peoples on these lands.

My friend who I went there to support is from the Metis Nation and wore his traditional sash. Some of the other boats were from local businesses, and the RCMP were there as well. Asking for permission to come ashore from those who have ancestral ties to these lands going back thousands of years was an act of Reconciliation, as those who originally colonized these lands never asked for permission or even acknowledged the original inhabitants of these lands as fully human.

I still have much to learn about the local cultures here so I was honoured to hear some elders from the Songhees Nation speak at the event, including Butch Dick. I was also honoured to be brought into circles with so many wise, creative and beautiful souls who were so open and inviting.

One of the most striking aspects of all Indigenous cultures that I’ve encountered throughout my time living in East Vancouver and throughout my travels is: generosity. I’ve been picked up hitchhiking, taken in by families, invited to events and been a part of sacred ceremonies.

So the first thing I want to offer you is a token of my generosity, and a thank you for the space that you’ve created, and the generosity that you and your family have shown to so many. I worked a shift without clocking in the other day, and in the receiving of that gift I would ask that you reflect on the gifts that come from the land and the people of these lands, and perhaps think about how you could reach out and begin to build relationships with those people in a meaningful way. How each person creates these connections will be totally unique.

I offer these thoughts and feeling with humility as I've had so much to learn myself and will be learning for my entire life, though I hope I can inspire you to spend some time reflecting on how ******* could honour the ancestors of these lands, both living and dead.