Also by the Author
Short Fiction
Islands of Decolonial Love
The Gift Is in the Making
Non-Fiction
Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back
Albums
f(l)ight
Islands of Decolonial Love
Anthologies
The Winter We Danced: Voices from the Past, the Future, and the Idle No More Movement (Kino-nda-niimi Collective)
This Is an Honour Song: Twenty Years Since the Blockades (edited with Kiera Ladner)
Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations
THIS
ACCIDENT
OF BEING
LOST
SONGS AND STORIES
LEANNE
BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON
Copyright © 2017 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Published in Canada and in the USA in 2017 by House of Anansi Press Inc.
www.houseofanansi.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Distribution of this electronic edition via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal. Please do not participate in electronic piracy of copyrighted material; purchase only authorized electronic editions. We appreciate your support of the author’s rights.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Simpson, Leanne, 1971–, author
This accident of being lost : songs and stories / Leanne Betasamosake
Simpson.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4870-0292-3 (hardback).—ISBN 978-1-4870-0127-8 (paperback).—
ISBN 978-1-4870-0129-2 (epub).—ISBN 978-1-4870-0128-5 (mobi)
I. Title.
PS8637.I4865T45 2017 C813'.6 C2016-901823-7
C2016-901824-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958924
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
To Adikwag,
wish you were here.
CONTENTS
I.
rebellion is on her way
under your always light
Plight
to the oldest tree in the world
22.5 Minutes
song for dealers
Coffee
i am graffiti
Doing the Right Thing
caribou ghosts & untold stories
Brown Against Blue
II.
a witness on unkept-promise land
constellation
Seeing Through the End of the World
travel to me now
Akiden Boreal
this accident of being lost
Leaning In
A Few Good Reasons to Wear a Long Skirt
road salt
Big Water
how to steal a canoe
III.
stealing back red bodies
minomiinikeshii sings
Circles Upon Circles
these two
Unsubstantiated Health Benefits
Tidy Bun
Selfie
Pretending Fearless
Airplane Mode
there are two thieves in this tent frame
Situation Update
Acknowledgements
Notes
About the Author
I.
rebellion is on her way
under your always light
after they stole you & you fought your way out, no one was going to fuck with you ever again. get your own gun. set your own net. shoot your own moose. get two husbands & a wife & make them all feel insane with good love. give birth to a nation in an inglorious way, crawling through feces & urine & dirt & the bloody underbelly of betrayal.
She says:
“use scar-weapons to hold the land around them”
“infect tiny bodies with the precious things they beat out of you”
“remember: they are everything we could have been”
kwezens falls asleep cradling the body of a duck while he weaves stories from bobcats & chickens & luck.
maybe-kwezens steady-slices through whitefish, while gwiiwizens finally speaks.
they all aim & fire.
standing up straight against this rock, i catch your fugitive eyes. before i turn & lay my head down, i’m thinking of Her escaping through these spruce, walking across these rocks, walking over this moss. i’m thinking of Her escaping past stolen, walking across lost, walking over shame, holding fire in Her heart, like all her descendants so effortlessly do, under your always light.
PLIGHT
Lucy, Kwe, and I walked through the neighbourhood last fall, when all the trees looked like the time Nanabush hid his Kokum in there — like the maples were being swallowed by flame-arms of red and orange. We marked each one with a spray-painted purple thunderbird so that when their leaves were gone we would know which ones were the sugar maples the following spring. Really we should be able to tell by looking at the bark and the way the branches hold themselves, but we’re still too new at it. Kwe was so pregnant I made her stand back from the paint fumes. Lucy made a stencil so the thunderbird would look like a thunderbird and not the death mark the city puts on the trees when they are about to cut them down for safety reasons.
Now it’s March, and we have thirty tin buckets, thirty new spigots, tobacco, a drill with two charged batteries, a three-eighths-of-an-inch drill bit, and thirty flyers. The neighbourhood we’re going into mostly votes NDP or Liberal in provincial and federal elections, and they feel relief when they do. They have perennials instead of grass. They get organic, local vegetables delivered to their doors twice weekly, in addition to going to the farmers’ market on Saturday. They’re also trying to make our neighbourhood into an Ontario heritage designation; I think that mostly means you can’t do renovations that make your house look like it isn’t from the 1800s or rent your extra floors to the lower class.
We know how to do this so they’ll be into it. Hand out the flyers first. Have a community meeting. Ask permission. Listen to their paternalistic bullshit and feedback. Let them have influence. Let them bask in the plight of the Native people so they can feel self-righteous. Make them feel better, and when reconciliation comes up at the next dinner party, they can hold us up as the solution and brag to their real friends about our plight. I proofread the flyer one more time because everyone knows white people hate typos.
Hello!
We are collecting sap from this Maple Tree from March 21–23. We will be by to collect it once a day, and we will pick up the bucket, lid and spigot on March 23. Thank you for your support in our urban sugar-making adventure.
FWP Collective
The Fourth World Problems Collective is us three Nishnaabekwewag, plus baby Ninaatig, plus Sabe, but Lucy and Kwe don’t know Sabe is here. I’m the only one that can see him and only sometimes.
We’re meeting in my backyard to build a fire, smudge, and make some offerings before we begin. We’ve had several meetings about the forty-eight words on the flyer in order to get the proper balance of telling, not
asking, while side-stepping suspicion. No one feels good about hiding the fact that we are Mississaugas and that this is us acting on our land, but no one wants to end up a dinner-party conversation either. I fought hard for the word “adventure” because it is such a signifier with these people. It makes them part of it; they can be part of the solution without doing anything. Their only job is to file the flyer on top of the fridge with the bills and the permission slips and forget about it. This is the perfect get-out-of-jail-free card. Feel liberal in all its glory. No need to call the cops or the city; it’s sustainable. Help the Indians and their plight.
We debated framing this as performance art, well I debated framing this as performance art because white people love that and if it were the fall and this was Nuit Blanche we’d be NDN art heroes. We could probably even get a grant. But it’s the spring and we actually don’t want an audience; we just want to make syrup in my backyard without it being a goddamn ordeal.
Sabe texts to say he is running late. Lately he has been texting me more than showing up in person because he has other clients. He rolls his eyes when I say I’m his client. Kwe is sitting on a white plastic lawn chair, breastfeeding baby Ninaatig into a sleep coma by lifting up her “Not Murdered, Not Missing” T-shirt. She is laughing, saying, “This is the least queer thing I do.” I try to think of something smart to say, like that there’s nothing in the NDN queer rulebook that says you can’t have a baby or breastfeed, but she already knows that, so I just smile and nod. I’m thinking the curve of her breast is sacred and sexy as fuck. I’m thinking how much I miss prolactin. I’m wishing the gentleness Kwe has for Ninaatig, Lucy had for me.
Lucy is wearing my black leather motorcycle jacket, chain-smoking out of range of Ninaatig. The baby carrier is at her feet, ready to carry. They act tougher than they are. For NDNs the tougher we act, the purer our hearts are, because this strangulation is not set up for the sensitive and we have to protect the fuck out of ourselves. I wish they’d soften for me. I wish they’d drop it sometimes, and let me in. I wish they could feel my warmth in the way that would compel them to give it back. I wish loving Lucy wasn’t so lonely.
I mumble some Anishinaabemowin and put my offering in the fire. I think this in english because I don’t know how to say any of it: This is our sugar bush. It looks different because there are three streets and 150 houses and one thousand people living in it, but it is my sugar bush. It is our sugar bush. We are the only ones that are supposed to be here. Please help us.
I think: Maybe I should be more specific, because the magic of the spiritual world is never super clear to me. Obviously I need their help. I’m an endless, wandering pit of need. They must know that, but I also know it’s important to ask. So what am I really asking for? Help remembering everything? Help remaining undetected? Help collecting the sap the next day and boiling it down for twelve hours in my backyard? Help dealing with the authorities? Help while I sit at the edge of Lucy?
I watch the flames as they disappear my tobacco and carry my thoughts to those that care. We each take our turn walking around the fire in the right direction, smudge the gear, and put it into our backpacks. But we are not done feeding this fire. Kwe takes off her ceremony skirt, the one that she sewed tobacco into the hem but sometimes resents being forced to wear, and puts it on the fire. Lucy pours one shot of whiskey into the fire for their Auntie who passed away three years ago. I smoke my pipe even though there is blood because I am powerful and beautiful and sacred and I always deserve to be reminded.
Then we carry the buckets and Ninaatig to the car. I have three pieces of maple sugar from last year in my pocket in case we need to distract Ninaatig from reality for a few minutes. In case we need quiet.
I think: If I get caught, hide my kids.
We drive the car around the corner to the first tree. It’s darker and colder than I thought. I wish I wore my winter boots instead of my running shoes with plastic bread bags inside them to keep my feet dry. I set down my backpack on the packing snow and put a tiny pile of tobacco at the base of the tree. Kwe takes Ninaatig out of the carrier and sits nursing. I see salmon, eel, caribou, eagle, and crane circling our sugar bush at the end of the street. Lucy rubs their hand on her bark. Sabe kisses my forehead, steps back, and then disappears. I hesitate, and then I take out the drill. I hope this doesn’t hurt.
to the oldest tree in the world
i’m worrying about
what you’re drinking
you’re worrying about
what i’m breathing
i like you
because you
never
talk
too loud
i breathe it out
you breathe it in
i like you
because you all hold
this all together
with the parts i can’t see
i breathe it in
you breathe it out
you: eleven times my age
me: draped in clouds of youth
i think i know what you’ve seen
i think we’re the same
but it’s not true
i don’t know
i don’t
i don’t know how to say this
without embarrassing you
but i do know
i believe in saying things
i do know
i believe
in the telling
your wrinkled grey skin is gorgeous
&
i hope you don’t know what’s happening.
22.5 MINUTES
I am 10 minutes and a bottle of cheap wine away from falling in love with you, which means I already am in love with you and that this fact was discreetly caged in the space of the unspoken and the unwritten and the unsung. Being in love with someone you’ve never met and only text still falls in the realm of unhealthy even though everyone is doing it and whenever the odd person suggests critical thought we just all go back to loving strangers on the other side of our screens.
Eventually this will just be normal. Remember when you could get addicted to the internet? And now it’s just normal. Still, I’d like to do a little test, a little experiment, shall we say, on how real this relationship actually is, since there is no physicality to it at all. Nearly everything we do is confined to probably no more than 500 characters, so theoretically you should be easy to quit, because theoretically you don’t actually exist. I’m going to start by not thinking of you consistently for 45 minutes every day. Each week I am going to double that time, even though that sounds extremely ambitious right now, but math says doubling things gets things done fast and I need fast because probably I don’t have enough time to just think and text you all day.
I set the egg timer — ok not the egg timer, the timer on my phone — for 45 minutes and I am not going to think about you or anything connected to you for 45 minutes. Go. Ok. So I should have made a list of things to think about before starting the timer. Maybe I should stop the timer and make the list. Maybe I should make the list as part of the 45 minutes. Ok. Ok. Think. I’m going to focus on each topic for 2 minutes so that’s 12 topics I need, well, 12.5 but the 0.5 will be my end reward. Or part of my end reward.
Topic 1: Kate Middleton
I am so fucking glad I’m not Kate Middleton. Like even if for the sake of argument we just set aside the whole colonialism/settler colonialism denial delusion and just focus on the day-to-day meaninglessness of her life. Shake a hand here, attend a polo match there. Kiss a baby, watch a tennis match with a fake grin beside gross William who’s in an ugly old man suit and is also wearing a fake grin. And then the nylons. Like how many pairs of nylons does she go through in a year? I’m making it a point to never ever wear nylons again. Except I think I might have worn them one time last year to a talk because it made me look way more dressed up than I actually was.
Why is England obsessed with nylons? And fitted jackets and matching skirts? Why does she have to match so much? How come no one tells her you can overdo matching?
Topic 2: Getting Old
I think getting old is about doors closing, opportunities lost, and a series of things you do to trick yourself into thinking you are going to have fun, do something meaningful, or have a break in the tediousness of life. I should do something about that, like before it’s too late.
Topic 3: Doing Something About That
Ok. So the thing about getting old is that you know by now you can’t really do anything about it. You can’t. You can try. You can read self-help books. You can go to therapy. You can jog, I mean run, or read books or spend all day shopping at the farmers’ market and then make healthy meals or do hot yoga. But whatever you pick to do, eventually something will happen and you’ll stop and it won’t be a forever lifestyle change and you’ll be back to drinking red wine before 10 a.m. and making kraft dinner for every meal because you’re focused on your maybe-novel.
Topic 4: I Can’t Think of a Topic Even Though
There Are Lots of Topics Other Than You
I’m staring at a postcard with a painting of a moose. The moose is staring at me. On the left-hand side the moose’s antlers are skyscrapers and on the right-hand side there are trees growing out of the tips. I don’t really know what I am supposed to get out of this painting but I like it. I like it mostly because the moose is staring right at me. I have its undivided attention. I could easily have trees growing out of one side of my head and apartment buildings out of the other. Maybe they aren’t apartment buildings? Maybe they are long marshmallows? Or ghosts? Or square pelicans without beaks?
Topic 5: Body Image
Good one! High five! I have to fake that I have a good body image around the kids because that’s what good parents do. Love the body you are in. All bodies are beautiful. I don’t have any imperfections, just a storied tapestry I call my beautiful body. That’s not really how I feel. I hate my body like everyone else. For one thing I think I have unusually large shoulders because my mom said, “You have shoulders like a football player,” but my sister says that’s ridiculous and that after 35 years I should let that outlandish and untrue idea go. Mostly I hate my upper arms because they are old fat grandma arms. I apologize to all the grandmas out there reading this. It is 100 percent me, not you, and remember Tomson Highway likes that in a grandma even though not really because he is 100 percent gay. Ok, so I hate my arms. I also hate my stomach. I was under the impression my flat stomach with abs was coming back even after 2 humans had stretched everything to oblivion but that’s really, really not true. Let’s pull up People magazine and click through the bikini section. I can tell who got plastic surgery after childbirth because they have alien belly buttons. You’ll be able to tell too. Yeah. A LOT of things get stretched out and A LOT of things are not going to snap back in place. One of the most important things that gets stretched out and doesn’t snap back is your nerves. I know you thought I was going to say cunt, because remember when that white lady from Weeds said sex after childbirth was like throwing a hot dog down a hallway, and everyone laughed so hard and I couldn’t let it go? Also I say cunt because I just read a tweet that said vagina is latin for sword sheath and OBVIOUSLY it is.
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