Friday, September 28, 2012

re: new old writing.....


My name is Chris Bose, I am a Nlaka’pamux Aboriginal living in the city,in a world I did not create nor chose to participate, yet here I am sometimes alone and sometimes with friends, lovers, family, enemies and everyone else in between. Somehow I am supposed to make sense of it all, to live, to survive, to function in an appropriate manner and overcome not only the obstacles I have faced in my own lifetime, but also the baggage of racism, crime, injustice that Aboriginal people have faced for centuries. 

I am an Indian, chug, a drunk and a host of other horrible names that the dominant culture has so carelessly sentenced me with, and these words are a document of my existence in that society. I know that the vast majority of my people will die in the same economic caste that they are born, so very few of us escape the cell created for us. 

The system is not created for liberty and justice for all, but rather it really is for those who can afford it, or rather those who can perpetuate it because true liberty has not been experienced on this land since before Columbus landed in the Caribbean. Now, I must ask you, do these terrible words and the way that I am treated in my own country prove that I am real or is it all a horrible nightmare and I really time-traveling in a Shamanic ritual?

In this collection of words that are not my tongue, I talk about my servant reality and the world around me. In this document, I also talk about my loved ones, Christina is my schma-am, or rather, my wife, and we have a newborn son. Be patient, because this is how I am going to start it, in medias res, and there is nothing you can do about it. 

I stare out the window and notice there is a grey sky above us and a frozen earth below us, yet no one seems to mind or notice this, and I want to escape it all, but I do not know how to just yet. The girl downstairs is doing her dishes again, I swear she does them five times a day and three times a night, usually every two to three hours in this ghost apartment building - it must be nice to be that dedicated to having a clean apartment. 

Christina just woke up from a nap with our son and I wonder how much longer we can continue to hold out against the hunger, the poverty and the desperation. I pray for the ability to move to another place that will be kinder to artists, musicians and writers. Where is this mystical place and how much longer do we have to wait to get there, to find it, to know of it’s glory and triumph?

Perhaps we will never find it, perhaps we are not meant to find paradise on earth, or Shangri-La, because as human beings we still have so many basic problems to overcome. I mean we are concerned with more superficial aspects of existence as opposed to why we are really here, then again, those reasons seem as lost as we do in our lives. 

When commerce and looking good are the most important things in a society, everything else tends to fall by the wayside and that civilization begins its hasty retreat into debauchery and decadence. The cadence has been heard time and time again, it is a symphony of destruction accompanied by a hymn of flies, a roar of flame and the lastly the downpour of purity. Basically, I assume we are doomed to fall, to crash upon the shores of reality destitute and destroyed, to become a pale vision of what we once were and capable of becoming.

So, based on that knowledge or assumption, I guess we would probably pave over anything and set up shopping center no matter how sacred, so if there is any sort of paradise left unspoiled, I know it would be better if we never found it. For I am certain that it would not be too long before there were tacky tourist shops set up with shirts for sale that said, “I went to paradise and all I got was this lousy T shirt,” and various other industries developed around the raw, unspoiled beauty. The water would be bottled, the forests would be cut and the hills demolished or divided into lots for development, because this is how we think now, and the soul is a conquered land for business and encouraging growth is good for the bank account and investors.

Anyway, last night Christina and I were talking and she blurted out that she couldn’t take being so poor much longer that she was reaching her limits.
God knows that I couldn’t blame her, since we had been destitute for so long that it was finally wearing down the last of our frayed nerves. Our life was so unlike what those good natured people who had forgotten what suffering was really like and continue to say that strife builds character. It was no longer quaint or challenging, instead, it was just one long drawn out march to the gallows every morning and we couldn’t take it much longer. Dying everyday, just a bit, not enough to forget it all and start anew. 

So every single day it was destined for us to wake and stare out the same window again and again. I too had grown so weary of living life dime to dime and nickel to nickel, it had been so long since we had a flood of good fortune. I was not sure what to do any longer, and I had no one to turn to for advice, for wisdom, which made life one long trial, the interrogation had turned into torture, and it would only be a matter of time until I broke. Just what was left to give remained debatable, I had pursued every vice and quit out of health and boredom. Perhaps it was time to turn the tables and go ultra-capitalist, but this was unlikely, since also lacking a father figure, I also was shit out of luck in the maternal department for any sort of employment connections or guidance. I mean unless I wanted to do something other than get drunk every night and hone down my mind into a sliver of comprehension and awareness.

Basically, what this all boils down to was an empty pot, and it was something I had to realize and decide to fill the feast myself instead of waiting for someone to fill it or guide me to a source of more food. I realized that no one was going to do this, not even in my own family, and so I had to persevere to find a way to get out of this barren landscape of lost opportunities and burned dreams. Behind me, as I wrote this, the sky turned ablaze as the sun began to ascend over the horizon and I knew I had one more opportunity to set my world afire and get it right. 

Curiously, as the red blew away the rest of the blackness, the street below our apartment suddenly became busy with people, and I wondered if the beauty of nature was somehow, supposed to be seen by a lot of people this morning. I wondered what they thought as they witnessed something inspiring and miraculous, the whole sky turned red and orange, chasing away the ghosts of the night with the blazing light of the dawn. Sooner or later I would get it right, just as the rest of humanity might get it together someday. How much longer we had was up for debate, and I knew the meter was running, but all I had to pay for it was spare change and bad credit. 

adios,


cb

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