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
