Red Mug

Photo of a wide red mug held by the handle against 70s-style wallpaper with a yellow flower pattern.

Content note: this piece contains references to death and the COVID-19 pandemic.

I pour myself a cup of coffee in a red mug from the place they started taking me when I was a baby. I pour myself a cup of coffee from the place with the hill where I ran, tumbled, and lost my ice-cream cone. I pour myself a cup of coffee from the place where I sobbed hysterically and they gave me a new one. I pour myself a cup of coffee in a red mug with a white outline of an opened-mouthed fish jumping out of the water. This is my mother’s mug. She hates fish, but she loves where it’s from.

My grandparents loved it too, and now they’re gone. It’s just my mother, my brother, and me. We also lost my dad, but I don’t know how to talk about that succinctly. Sometimes, I feel like he was never really with us. His body came to that place, but I’m not sure if he ever did. Except, perhaps, for that time when I fell, but the memory is foggy. I think he helped me up and took me back for more ice-cream, so maybe he was there after all.

I’m not here to write about my dad. I’ve done enough of that.

The coffee is hot, so I have to keep my sips small. It’s rain-snowing outside, and there’s a pandemic, so that place is currently closed. I think it will survive though. The owner has money to burn. I trust they’ll keep it running and warm.

It was near there that I found a purple book in an outdoor lending library, part four of a mystery series that got me reading again. I left my mother and grandmother early that evening to read a hundred pages while rocking gently on a patio swing. I didn’t stop until I lost the light. The next morning, I told my grandmother about the story because she always liked to share what she was reading. She used to give us stories of faraway places and times and people in rich detail.

I haven’t seen my extended family since she died. That was the last time she brought us all together. That was the last time we were allowed to be together.

I was given a tarot reading over a year ago that told me I will find what I’m looking for eventually, but it will take a long time. I’m on the right path, but it twists and winds. I accept this. I have to. My grandmother was interested in my path. Her life was coming to an end, she said, but mine was just beginning, and she was curious about where it would lead. What will I make of this life? Where will it take me?

I can’t answer that yet, but I’ll share the story with her one day.

For now, I sit typing at my computer with a red mug half-full of cooling coffee. I write about the past and the future. I write about my family. I watch the rain fall, and I let the music play. It’s February. It’s been a hard year. I have a little hope growing inside of me, but I can’t place where it’s coming from. Maybe the coffee.

We Are Allowed to Ask Questions

Photo of three electrical poles shot from below, with the one in the centre looking like the largest due to the perspective. The three are attached at the top by two pieces of wood and have wires going in all directions from them. A cloudy sky with patches of blue is above.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking questions. Asking questions is how we learn about ourselves, others, and our world.

I believe in the right to question.

I think you should question the ideologies you are presented with. I think you should question your belief systems. I think you should question how much you really know.

When presented with a claim about another person’s character, I think you should question it. I think it’s okay to not automatically accept it as the Truth about that person. There are multiple truths about every person. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie asks us to be wary of the danger of a single story. All of us contain so much more than a single story. You can be supportive of the person making the claim by accepting that what they’re saying may be true for them or that it may be one story, but that doesn’t make it the ultimate truth or the only story. All of us are complex beings that contain multitudes who cannot be defined by a single story. Reducing a person to a single story is dehumanizing.

I think it’s okay to ask questions if you are trying to learn more about or understand an issue. It’s important to be respectful about the ways that you ask them. Obtaining consent before asking personal questions is always a good idea. If someone says they’re uncomfortable with answering your questions then you need to find someone else to ask or other ways of doing your research. The Internet is a mixed bag full of misinformation and contradiction, but there are good resources out there. You could ask to be directed to some.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with questioning an ideology. If questioning is not allowed, you’re probably dealing with dogma. Be wary of this. Why are you expected to believe and buy-in without asking questions? Why are your questions a threat to this belief system?

I have never been able to refrain from asking questions. I have allowed certain ideologies to push my questions underground, to make them private and make me quiet. I have been left alone with my questions, asking myself the same ones over and over. I have found a few trusted people I can share them with. We have passed our questions back and forth in low voices. I have been too afraid to write about them, to say them out loud, to make them public. I’ve seen what happens to the people who do.

I’ve often avoided explicitly writing about my questions, choosing to hint at or dance around them instead. As a writer, it feels bizarre for me to hold back in this way. It’s like I’m stifling an aspect of my creativity.

I’ve been seeing more people over the past few years who I share community or ideology with bring their questions out into the open. There’s still a lot of backlash and it’s still scary, but it’s made me feel a little bolder, a little braver. Maybe I don’t need to keep so quiet. Maybe I don’t need to avoid writing about it. Maybe my perspective and voice have value even though I have more questions than answers.

For me, questioning looks like seeking out and listening to different perspectives, to people who disagree with each other. It means following people on social media who have been deemed “problematic” or “cancelled”. It means risking the transfer of those labels onto me. It means I don’t have to totally agree or buy-in to any single ideology (or story) I’m presented with. It means I trust my gut, which warns me when something doesn’t feel right. It means I trust my heart, which is driven by my love for people and the planet. It means I trust my brain, my ability to think critically and carefully.

I don’t have all the answers. My beliefs shift and evolve as I learn and experience more. My belief system is currently in transition, a shift partially resulting from years of suppressing my questions and being unable to do so anymore. I will always grow and change. That is to be expected. One thing that won’t ever change, one thing that remains with me at my core, is my need to question. I may have felt like I had to hide that but it never went away.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking questions. It is the suppressing of questions that I find … questionable.

We are allowed to be uncertain. We are allowed to have more to learn. We are allowed to not have all the answers. We are allowed to challenge ideology. We are allowed to be imperfect. We are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to trust our guts, our hearts, and our brains. We are allowed to ask questions.

Aren’t we?

Dissolve Into Memory

Slightly blurry photo taken at night of bare trees, snow covering a lake, a dark and cloudy sky, and some buildings in the background with several lights on.

Memories flash before me. Memories flash within me. I am made of memory. Memories fading. Memories distorting. Memories interpreting. Interpreting memory. I am made of interpreted memories. There’s little truth to be found here. There’s little to go on. It’s disparate. It’s in pieces. Identity is memory. Identity is in pieces. Identity is meaningless. Memory is fiction. Memory is nothing. Memory is everything. While forming, memories are informed by perception. While held, memories fade, distort, and are informed by perception again. And again. And again. With each remembering, a memory changes. With each remembering, an identity changes. Memory is identity. Identity is memory. Memory is interpretation. Interpretation is identity. My and your memories define me, but neither define me thoroughly.

The courage to be interpreted. The courage to be misremembered. The courage to make your own memories. The courage to surrender your memories. The courage to relay myself through memory.

Maybe you’re not good and I’m not bad. Maybe you’re not bad and I’m not good. Maybe we’re misguided by our memories. Maybe we don’t remember our memories. Maybe there’s something to memory. Maybe there’s nothing to memory. Our subjectivity shapes everything and shapes us in return.

Return my memories. Leave them out in the light. Let them sit on the ground and gather dust. Let them grow stale. Let them grow cold. Let them out, let them out! Let them sit aside. Let them rise. Let them float away.

Memory, shaped by trauma. Memory, shaped by memory. Memory, shaped by perception. Memory, shaped by sharing. Memory, shaped within me. Memory, shaped without me. Memory, shaped by your mouth. Memory, shaped by my ear. Memory, shaping time. Memory, breaking from reality.

Memory, within me. Memory, without me. Memory, a part of me. Memory, not me. Separated from my memories. On a break from my memories. Remember me. Don’t remember me. Memory, sharp and faded. Memory, painful and pleasant. Memory, nourishing me. Memory, confusing me.

Memory, so needed. Memory, so distracting. Memory, so bewildering. Memory, extracting. Memory, extract from me. Extract from me what you need. Memory, what was it supposed to be? Memory, a word that loses meaning. A feature that fades. A pocket that gets tucked away. A file in a drawer. Labeled, not by time but by association. Memory forms, slips away, recedes, defines and doesn’t define.

Without memory, who would I be?

Babies are born without memory, aren’t they? Yet they have personalities. So, perhaps I would still be me without my memories. Unless babies are born with memory. We don’t know for certain that they aren’t. Memory can be stored within the body. Maybe memory can be transferred between bodies. In that case, perhaps who you are is shaped by memory.

I don’t have any memories from before the age of three. Three-year-old Sage could have been anybody. Maybe I was born with memories from a previous life and they faded away once I began to retain memories from this one. Baby Sage certainly had a personality. Baby Sage was certainly Sage. There is some kind of Sageness to Sage. Sage has always been Sage, just not always named Sage.

I don’t remember Baby Sage, yet I also do somehow. Some part of me remembers. Some part of me was shaped by Baby Sage and some part of Baby Sage was shaped by…

I don’t have the answer to that, but I know it must have been something. I don’t think I was created at birth. I don’t think that’s where I began. I think I have been shaped by this life, but I do not think my birth was the beginning and that my death will be the end.

This was one start and it will have one end. We’ll circle around. We’ll dissolve back into where we came from. We will dissolve into our memories. We will become one with our memories, we will diffuse, and we will return.

Wandering Man

Photo of a frozen lake. Bare trees, a boathouse, and a cloudy sky are in the upper quarter of the image. There are footprints crossing the snowy/icy lake horizontally in two paths, one in the foreground and one in the centre of the image.

There’s a wandering man. Where does he go? There’s a wandering man out in the snow. There’s a wandering man. He walks slow. There’s a wandering man. He breathes smoke. There’s a wandering man. He looks cold. There’s a wandering man. He turns a corner. There’s a wandering man. I can see him no longer. There’s a wandering man. Is that my father?

Everything Will Be All Right

Picture of a dirt road with tall coniferous trees on either side that rise up into a blue sky. There are snowbanks on either side of the road. A glimmer of sunlight is visible on the right.

I said goodbye to my home when I was fourteen. As I sat within its walls for the last time, I received a message. The magic of that place spoke up and told my scared and broken heart that everything would be all right. I left my home and have carried its message with me ever since. I’ve often wondered what it really means as things certainly don’t always feel all right. As I grow older, I seem to get closer to an answer. This poem is my attempt to unravel and examine this old message.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in your great-grandmother is watching.

As in you will have a roof over your head, even if that roof is always changing.

As in your support system will be small but strong.

As in the moon will provide for you.

As in the tarot will warn you.

As in the ground will lovingly hold you.

As in you always have your breath to come back to.

As in you will come further into the vastness of your queerness.

As in a stranger will find you crying alone in a laundry room.

As in you’ll be pushed far but somehow never past where your limits actually are.

As in there’s a mix of chaos and reason in everything.

As in you will always have your writing.

As in you will unfailingly hold the sacred right to question.

As in you will get yourself away from him.

As in you will do whatever you set your mind to.

As in you will build the life your young brain dreamed of.

As in horrible things will absolutely happen, and you will survive them.

As in you have been given this life for a reason.

As in you’ll live for as long as you’re meant to.

As in you’ll draw pentagrams on your body to protect you.

As in you’ll read books like your grandmother used to, like she wanted to.

As in you will certainly not get all that you want.

As in you will eventually have all that you need.

As in everything makes sense even if it’s not comprehensible.

Not “everything will be all right” as in nothing bad will ever happen, but
“Everything will be all right” as in everything will be.