Resisting Exile

16Aug 2020 by Linda Bayley

Monolith

Musings

In 2004 I self-published a chapbook of poems that I called Estrangement: Poems. My father had left town suddenly the previous September, and I was angry, confused, and grieving, and my psychologist gave me the assignment of writing about it. The result was a set of poems that I felt really good about, good enough to want to share them with the world. My mother’s reaction, when I finally gave her a copy, was to say, “There’s an awful lot about your father in here.” Only the first six poems were about him, but the way she said it I wondered if she thought she should have had equal time. I suspect now that if she were to read this blog, or my morning pages, or my journal, she would…

11Aug 2020 by Linda Bayley

Satellite

Musings

For a time, my father lived on Montague Street. It was a small, two-story house, two doors down from the laundromat and across the street from an empty lot. He had the main floor and the basement; another tenant lived upstairs, though truth be told I think my father spent his share of time up there with her, too. I remember a lot about that house, though it’s possible that I am conflating those memories with other places that he lived throughout my childhood. The bedroom was painted a deep teal — I remember helping him paint it — and the living room was some sort of peach or tangerine, maybe a deep yellow. Whenever I stayed over, I slept in the bedroom, and he slept on the pull-out couch…

13Oct 2019 by Linda Bayley

Found Out

Uncategorized

This is the story of how I discovered an ugly truth about myself, and lost a friend in the process. Who was the friend? She was my one Black friend. Not my “token” Black friend; just the one friend I had who happened to be Black. What was the truth? I am racist. I already had an inkling of this. I already had a fear. I didn’t understand how deeply it ran until pictures were published showing Justin Trudeau wearing blackface. It’s hard to explain all of this, because I am feeling deeply ashamed of myself. But I’m going to try anyway, because I owe it to myself and to my friend to own this, and to learn from it. For a couple of years now, I have been reading…

20Jul 2019 by Linda Bayley

The Granny Cart Conundrum

Musings

This morning I made a jubilant Facebook post about my granny cart: Wheeled transportation does not have to involve motors... I forgot I had this granny cart, and have been astonished by how much more independence I have now that I’m using it again. Milk and orange juice and yogurt in the same grocery run! 😁 And then, being me, the person who worries constantly about being caught in a compromising position with any ism, I had a long conversation with myself on the walk home about whether or not my post was ableist. And whether I was not, just a little bit, letting my privilege hang out. I decided that the question is not complicated, but it is complex. The first part: is this ableist? Not intentionally, but maybe?…

10Jul 2019 by Linda Bayley

Extra Censory

Action, Affirmation, Uncategorized

It's been a long time since I've come to this space. Not because I haven't had anything to say, but because I've had too much. And I've been afraid. I think I've said before that I am terrified of offending anybody, but it's even more complicated than that now. Every time I feel ready to speak, some part of my reality shifts, and I learn another new way that my world view has been incorrect all this time. And if I had spoken when I wanted to, I would have been in danger of being called out for something, any one of the isms that I am either unaware of, or don't sufficiently understand. I would be found out as someone guilty of being a bad person, and that is…

18Nov 2018 by Linda Bayley

On the deaths of heroes

Musings

I was eighteen when Isaac Asimov died. The moment that I learned of his death is still very clear in my head: I came home from school, the radio was on, and the newscaster was describing a man whose accomplishments seemed very much like those of Mr. Asimov. I started to feel shaky, and had to pull out a chair at the kitchen table to sit in while I waited for confirmation of what my gut was telling me. I remember crying, and not being able to stop. I remember my stepfather scoffing at me when he learned who the tears were for. I said, "Didn't you ever lose a hero?" He said, "You don't know what a hero is." Asimov was a giant in my life. I was a…

23Jul 2018 by Linda Bayley

Content notice

Musings

Today I read an excellent article on the writers' website Mythcreants. It was about the need for what they call Content Notices, known more commonly as Trigger Warnings. Apparently, and I didn't know this, some people scoff at the idea of warning people at the beginning of a written work that there may be unpleasant or disturbing content in what they are about to read. (These would be the people who lack empathy, and who don't understand the real danger that comes when a person is subjected to written material they weren't ready for.) Well, I don't scoff at the idea. But until I read this article, it didn't occur to me that my blog might need to be flagged with a content notice. A content notice allows a person to…

16Jul 2018 by Linda Bayley

Everything you carry

Musings

Lately I've been feeling heavy. Not just physically heavy, though there's that too. Emotionally heavy, mentally heavy, morally heavy. Imagine a sponge that has absorbed so much water that you think it can't possibly hold any more. And then plunge that sponge deep into a bucket of bilge water, and weigh it down with a brick. That's me. I am sponge heavy. Part of it is coming from the relics of my past, some of which I have already discussed here. Part of it is coming from paying attention to the media, social and mainstream. Part of it is just the daily weight of living: pulling my exhausted body out of bed, plastering a smile to my face, pretending that I am not screaming in the echo chamber of my…

02Jul 2018 by Linda Bayley

May proceed, but not

Action, Musings

The other day I came across my final exam report from the University of Waterloo. In my second term there, I failed three of my five classes: Calculus, Algebra, and Physics. I had gone to Waterloo with $19,000 worth of scholarships, a congratulatory letter from the Prime Minister of Canada, and the expectation that I would be a brilliant success. I left sixteen months later under a cloud of depression, the copper taste of failure in my mouth. I was there to study Mathematics, with the intent to specialize in Computer Science. If you had asked me when I was thirteen where I was going to go to school, I would have told you Carleton, to study journalism. Same thing if you had asked me when I was fourteen. I…

05May 2018 by Linda Bayley

Rescue

Action, Love

There's a new girl in my life. Her name is Daphne. She may be three years old, she may be younger. We don't know, because she was a stray. She was picked up from the streets of another city not far from mine, went through the lost and found process without being found, and eventually made her way to the SPCA branch only a half-hour's walk from where I work. I haven't written much in the last month, being paralyzed as I was with grief and uncertainty over what I should do with myself, now that Jazz is gone. For a few weeks I didn't do much of anything but struggle through the day and cry through the night. By April 7th I was starting to retch whenever I got…