Escaping with Prince: CBC Opinion piece

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/prince-conni-cartlidge-commentary-1.3550048

Escaping with Prince

I was approved! In September, 1979, I was allowed to be initiated into “the Path”, a spiritual group that I thought would answer all my prayers. I would see god’s light and hear god’s voice as long as I practiced a few simple suggestions. Non-violence, truthfulness, chastity, humility, special diet, selfless service and meditation were all that was expected.

Sounded pretty straightforward.

I quit smoking and drinking. I ate vegetarian food. I got married. I helped out with the group’s publications. I meditated every morning for at least two hours. And I never told anyone the five secret names of god I recited whenever my mind wandered. I corresponded regularly with my “master", a civil servant in India who didn’t claim to be god. But who also didn’t claim to not be god. He seemed like a nice man. All the others said so.

I was going to have a beautiful life.

My family and friends struggled. Some just walked away. My mom asked many, many questions, trying hard to understand. “I feel like I’m losing you,” she cried. And eventually, I was convinced that non-initiates of “the path”, including my own parents, were a negative influence on me.

I sold all my books. I sold all my favourite records. I packed up and I moved very far away to a state I had only visited once before. But it was a place where many other initiates lived. They were my new family.

As I settled in, I made friends on “the Path”. I enjoyed this clean living. I hosted parties where we ate cookies and listened to Indian music and talked about “Master”. “Have you met him?” “What’s he like?” “Did he look at you? No? Oh, too bad. Maybe next time he visits he will acknowledge you. They say he only talks to you if you really need it.” And we all tried to be so very virtuous.

But a little piece of the old me was niggling and wiggling and wanting out. If I was all alone, I turned on the television to watch the brand new channel called MTV. I secretly danced with Hall & Oates. I sang along with Madonna. I marveled at the newly transformed Michael Jackson. But nothing jolted me as much as the commercial for the upcoming Prince concert! I was mesmerized by his voice, his moves, his heels, his beauty. I had never heard of him, but oh, I wanted to see him live. However, I was sure that a good initiate would never go to such a show.

Then, as I heard the front door open, I hastily turned off the TV, made a mad dash to my cushion on the floor, and pretended I was getting in a little extra meditation time. 

Needless to say, I did not see Prince.

My shame grew daily as I filled out my required diary checklist, marking off the number of failures I had committed in thought, word and deed. Every three months, my forms were sent to “Master” and he would reply with a basic form letter saying, “meditate more”. And I dragged myself out of bed at four a.m. hoping I might see one tiny flicker of light from the heavens or hear one small whisper from god.

My daily diary of failures.

But meditation led to nothing.

Darkness. Silence. Guilt. Exhaustion.

Finally. Rage and rebellion. And a giant leap back to my home…my family waiting patiently, my old friends breathing a sigh of relief.

And all the music I loved.

No secrets.

No shame.

And Prince blasting as loud as I wanted.

I had escaped.

Over the years, as I watched Prince struggle and fight with music executives, I never ridiculed him. I knew what it meant to be controlled by another.

And finally, in 2011, Prince came to my city. After waiting thirty years, I saw him.

Live.

Independent.

We danced together for hours.

Free.

Written in loving memory of Prince. April 21, 2016.

© Conni Cartlidge

Feminism: The New F Word

1966

I’ve been hearing there’s a new F word out there, and coming from rural Manitoba Canada, I thought maybe it was frost or freezing or frozen. I thought it was that little four-letter word my mom won’t say out loud. But no, feminism is the new F word.

Okay.

So what does that forbidden term mean to me? It means a whole lot more F words.

It means follow,
                           failure,
                                        force.

As a teenager, feminism was called Women’s Liberation. There was much eye-rolling and many sarcastic comments about those bra-burning women’s libbers. Why didn’t they just stay home and take care of their families? Follow the natural order of things. Look pretty and shut up. I wrote a paper for school. The teacher failed me. He said I didn’t know what I was talking about when I presented my views on choice. I guess he didn’t know that my peers had already experienced pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions and adoptions. Our fears forced us into silence.

It can be futile,
                          fight,
                                   feminine.

The futility of the fight seemed overwhelming. We had to stage a sit-in at the principal’s office in order to gain permission to wear pants and jeans to school. Girls were supposed to wear dresses. I guess we had to look feminine. The big companies still push this on us. “You’re beautiful just the way you are”…but buy our deodorant so your under-arms are soft. Really?

It’s also fear
                      and
                              fault.

The fear of labels. A frigid bitch if you don’t want sex and a slut if you do. Catcalls when you’re young and silence when you’re old. Rape and assault tucked firmly into our minds as a constant threat no matter what we look like. And somehow, it will be our fault.

But the word can be fair.

What is fair? Equal pay for equal work. Safe spaces for all. Choices and opportunities and acceptance for everyone.

It’s freedom.

Now there’s an F word that works. Freedom is the word that means feminism to me. It’s a good F word. I think my mom would approve.

2016

© Conni Cartlidge
February 2016

Percentages

0% chance of cure means manicures right?

#icebergrightahead #fuckcancer

This was the facebook status I read. This was how I learned that my daughter’s first love was not going to make it.

Mary met Andrew at nursery school. It was not love at first sight. While he was a confident four-year-old senior, she was a timid junior, only three at the time. She sat at the playdough table watching the other children, too shy to join in.

When both children graduated to kindergarten, Mary attended a small community school. Andrew bravely took the bus to the French-immersion school in a nearby city. For many years, they lost touch, even though they lived only four kilometers apart.

Everything changed in high school, when their love of the arts reunited them.

All grades played and worked together on drama productions and symphonic concerts. Andrew’s seniority no longer mattered, and Mary was beginning to find her own voice. He drove her home after late night rehearsals of “The Crucible”. They laughed together in the back row of the school band as they kept the beat in the percussion section. She finally announced to me that they were “going out”.  Andrew was her first boyfriend. She was sixteen. She was head over heels.

When he started coming around our house on a regular basis, I was so happy for both of them. They giggled. They made silly videos, always including Mary’s little brother. They hosted parties for their group of self-proclaimed band geek and drama nerd friends. At Halloween, everyone wore costumes. Mary was a rag doll and Andrew was a ghost. They played hide and seek in the dark outside, screaming and squealing and stealing kisses, I’m sure.

Andrew charmed Mary’s grandparents by attending family dinners. His ability to chat with anyone put us at ease. And he treated Mary like a queen. They got all dressed up to attend symphonies and plays, she in her vintage black cocktail dress and he in a sharp suit, both beaming from ear to ear.

Ready for a night on the town.

But over time, some distance developed. Andrew moved into his own apartment while Mary was still finishing high school. One afternoon, as I was packing to go away for a few days, Mary came out of her room in tears. “Andrew broke up with me,” she sobbed. “I don’t know why.” I held her as she cried and cried and cried. And I was cursing him in my head, knowing that I had a plane to catch and couldn’t stay with Mary for very long. She assured me she would be okay and that she would get together with her best friend while I was gone. We talked on the phone several times a day, and when I returned, she seemed to have accepted the situation. I was probably angry longer than she. How dare he break my daughter’s heart?

Some time later, Andrew moved to Toronto. Mary went to his going-away party and I marvelled at her open-mindedness. I was still holding a bit of a grudge.

The going-away became Andrew’s coming out.

Freed from small-town Manitoba, Andrew found his true self. My daughter’s first boyfriend became her best gay boyfriend. Suddenly, it all made sense.

When she moved to Toronto a year later, Andrew was there for her. He took her to Nuit Blanche and they recorded a tangled video of themselves wrapped in string, laughing hysterically in the middle of the night. They posted YouTube videos, with Andrew giving garish make-up lessons to Mary. As I watched their antics from afar, I felt so relieved that Mary had a hometown friend with her in the big city. He was an anchor for her. He was a comfort for me. It was a new kind of love.

Glitter Fest 27th birthday party!

And now, Andrew has cancer.

It is terminal.

He is twenty-seven years old.

Mary phoned me last night. She was crying again. She had said her final good-byes to Andrew at a “funeral dance party” in Toronto. At the end of the night, Andrew said to Mary’s friend, “Take good care of my Mary”.

Andrew is headed back to Manitoba with his mom. He is coming home to die. He has planned his funeral. He wants glamour, glitter, Madonna and Cher. I know I will fly Mary home for this.

100% chance she will always love him.

Glamdrew

ÓConni Cartlidge

February 27, 2016

Ambitions: Child Care in Canada because it's 2016!

Sitting in a booth at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, I watched young children playing delightedly with the wooden toys my friend was selling. As a disillusioned men’s hairstylist in the late seventies, I thought I would scream if I had to attempt one more “John Travolta Saturday Night Fever” style on a balding middle aged man who would never measure up on the disco dance floor.

“These kids are so cute,” I commented. “Maybe I should work with children.”

My frustration led to new ambitions. My goal was to earn my degree in Developmental Studies at the University of Winnipeg and my Child Care Services diploma from Red River College. It was a joint program between the two institutions that intrigued me. It cost some money, but part-time barbering wages saw me through. In 1981, I packed away my shears and clippers and began work as an Early Childhood Educator (ECE).

Now I read that the Social Development Minister Jean-Yves Duclos is meeting with provincial and territorial counterparts to discuss their ambitions in moving forward with a national child care system. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/social-service-ministers-child-care-meeting-1.3433626)

I am sad that he didn’t stop by rural Manitoba. I would have been so happy to give him a cup of coffee and tell him about my thirty-five year career working with children and their families, college students, and dedicated but exhausted ECEs throughout Manitoba.

I would tell him:

·      About a roomful of two-year-olds chanting “Conni Bonni! Conni Bonni! Conni Bonni!” as I entered the centre that first hired me after graduation. I thought, “How lucky am I to have this hilarious, joyful job?”

·      About the distraught single parent, sobbing as she arrived at the child care centre at the end of a long day of college exams. I sat close and held her son for a while because she needed me to.

·      About the eight-week old baby I was trusted to care for, as her professional parents needed to get back to their jobs as doctors. I felt thankful and proud that they respected my education and expertise.

·      About the young boy who was diagnosed with the somewhat unsettling label of “oppositional defiance disorder” that I was tasked with caring for. I knew that everyday he would throw stones at me but he would never hit me, because he knew I was his ally.

·      About the nervous high school students that planned activities for the children at my nursery school, and then implemented them as best they could. The big kids helping the little kids. Everybody learning together.

·      About the hundreds of college students I worked with as an ECE instructor, with their own perspectives and ambitions changing as they learned that children were not just cute. They were smart and creative and dependent on the adults in their lives.

·      About the many, many child care centres and family child care homes that I visited over the years, where staff were enthusiastic, professional, worn-out, under-paid, nurturing, disrespected, light-hearted, frustrated, educated, loving people. But often, like the exasperated barber that I had been, they were ready to leave the field for new opportunities.

·      About the local politician that presented herself as an advocate for child care but then told me how lucky she was that she could stay home with her own kids and “didn’t have to put them in daycare”.

Yes, I would tell Jean-Yves that it is high time for a child care framework that ensures quality care for all the children that need it. A framework that supports Canada’s families, and respects their differences and their shared needs, is crucial. There will always be some families that do not need or want early childhood education services, but for those that do, Canada should be providing the best.

And like my post-secondary education, it will cost some money. It will take some work and effort. But if it is truly the government’s ambition to create change, come and have a cup of coffee. Early childhood educators can make some plans with you. They are a very innovative bunch. Parents can help too. 

The kids are counting on us.

©Conni Cartlidge

February 2016

A Wind of Change

"Windy Intuition" by Courtney Lynn

Make no mistake. I’m white. My mother’s parents came to Canada from Denmark and my father’s came from England. I grew up with a mom, a dad, two sisters, several pets, middle class home. Danish flags hung on our Christmas tree each year. A.A. Milne poetry was read to me every night.

An awareness of my privilege was non-existent.

My family.

Never questioned why I shouldn’t walk north of Manitoba Avenue in my hometown of Selkirk. Just knew it was rough up that way. Small houses. Big families. No running water. Same for Winnipeg’s north end. Always made sure to lock our car doors as we drove through.

Didn’t everybody?

Yep. I’m a WASP. Grew up admiring my grandpa. Wasn’t it heroic of him to move to Northern Quebec and build an Anglican church for those Cree people? How lucky were they? What a great adventure for him! He explained to me that they needed him to correct their animistic thinking.

I listened in awe.

Couldn’t understand why the kids that came to my home in the middle of the night hated me so much. We were good enough to provide emergency foster care for them, weren’t we? I just didn’t want them to touch my stuff. They didn’t have to glare and swear at me like that. And then threaten me at school the next day.

Geez, I didn’t do anything.

Except.

I’m a racist. A polite Canadian racist.

But I’m changing.

Over time, I’ve learned about colonization. Stolen land. Broken promises. Residential schools. Families torn apart. Tiny boys and girls, removed, stripped, scrubbed, whitened. Pins through their tongues if they spoke their own language. Parents in tipis waiting outside the fence, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of the children they loved. And the historical shame that became embedded in their hearts.

I’ve learned from my Indigenous students. I never thought the college I worked at was scary, till they pointed out that it was an imposing, intimidating institution. Looked like a modern day residential school. I didn’t know they had to pay their cab fare before the driver would take them anywhere. I was unaware their grandmothers had been raped by priests. That their brothers had been driven out to the middle of nowhere and dumped by the police. In the wintertime. And if these college students went for drinks after school on a Friday night, they would be propositioned by men, assuming they were for sale.

At school, one wore a t-shirt that read, “Got privilege?” and I realized I did.

I had more to learn.

Sage.

So I shut up during sharing circles. I spoke only when I held the grandfather. (Oh yeah, I learned that rocks are grandfathers.) And I attended ceremonies. Listened to elders. Sweated. Feasted. And beyond the tragedy, I discovered the beauty of traditional First Nations culture. The respect for nature. Love of children. Playful teasing. Courage. Strength. Honesty.

Medicine picking.

And finally, I felt ready to learn my spirit name. Nervous, I could hear the voices of some family and friends in my head, jeering “you’re not Aboriginal you know” and I wondered aloud if a whitey like me should even ask for my name. But the elder assured me that the teachings were for everybody.

She said, “You are Wind Spirit Woman. Like the wind, you can travel where you want, do what you need to do, say what you need to say. The judgements of others cannot stop you. Will not stop you. You are Wind Spirit Woman.”

Wind Spirit Woman

I cried.

Now I know that my words and actions should create change. Can make a difference. Howling in grief, I will blow you over with my frustration. Or cool you down with a light breezy story. I will surround you with gale force laughter. I might be gentle. Sometimes biting. Soothing. Fierce.

I am Wind Spirit Woman.

I have been changed.

Make no mistake. I will bring change.

Star blanket with my spirit colours by Viola at Neechi Niche.

© Conni Cartlidge, November 2015

The Christian, the Conservative and Me

One of us goes to church on Sunday mornings. She believes in God and Jesus. She is comforted and uplifted by the words the minister shares. She sings the hymns with a happy heart.

Two of us stay home on weekends and sleep in.

One of us leans to the right. She works hard and expects others to as well. She is disappointed with the last election as she watches the Liberals take control.

Two of us cheer Trudeau’s victory and feel optimistic about the future.

One of us questions society and supports activism. She will live in solitude rather than follow the flock. She gets frustrated with herself and others.

Two of us laugh and keep it light.

We three are friends.

We live our lives.

Side by side by side.

Loving our families. Raising our kids. Building our homes. Mourning our losses.

In different ways.

Together.

Peace is possible. 

Now.

©Conni Cartlidge, 2015