Beauty Emergency

I stumble through the unfamiliar room. Probably about 5:00 a.m. Trying to find the bathroom Without disturbing the others at this writing retreat. 

 No glasses. No hearing aids. I find the toilet and go as quickly as I can. I just want to get into my warm bed again. It's too early to be up. 

 As I fumble my way back, the front door flings open and the retreat leader, Lauren, startles me with, "Emergency! Quick!" 

 "What? What emergency? Is there a fire?"

 I'm panicking till she starts to laugh. 

 "Not an emergency. A beauty emergency!" 

 "A what?" 

 "A beauty emergency. Grab your jacket and come see it. Quick!" 

 Okay, now I'm awake and I understand. There is something that I have to look at right away. 

 I trip over my suitcase as I grab my glasses, my down coat, and my rubbery sandals. I step outside.

 Though it is May, this B & B's yard, on the shore of Lake Winnipeg, is frosty. Lauren leads me out to the edge and there it is. Beyond the grey boulders, the beige sand, the scraggly tree branches, and the cracked, crumbling ice, is a sky that blazes. 

 Smoky paprika, jack-o-lantern orange, baby-chick yellow, with a tiny sliver of the sun peeking above the water. 

 We wander out to the dock where the ice is snap-crackle-popping like a massive bowl of Rice Krispies. Birds are tweeting each other to get up and look. My rubber Birkenstocks become as hard as the frozen rocks below. Though I am wearing flannel pyjamas under my parka, I shiver. 

 Wow. 

 Wow. 

 Wow. 

 We snap photos. Record videos. Futile attempts at capture. 

 We grab fuzzy blankets and mugs of hot coffee. Curled up on Adirondack chairs, we watch. Within minutes, the sun lifts, expands, rules the sky. Pale blue appears as the day begins. By 6:00 a.m., the show's over. 

 We head back to the house to stoke the woodstove and wait for the other writers to rise. 

 Conni Cartlidge 

 December 2025 

 Note: There were four of us at this writing retreat, all working on different projects. We learned about beauty emergencies from the book "Dear Writer" by Maggie Smith. She says a "beauty emergency is what we call something that stops you in your tracks, Something you have to look at right away, before it's gone."

Chicken Bones Goes to School

Chicken Bones had walked by Devonshire School almost every day because she walked with her mom almost every day. They went to the post office to pick up the mail from Box 838 and they walked to the library so Chicken Bones could take out another Raggedy Anne book. The high wide building with the huge stone steps was right on their route. Chicken Bones’ mom told Chicken Bones that was Devonshire School and that she would go there when she was ready for kindergarten. But when Chicken Bones looked at the metal wire across the windows and the chainlink fence around the gravel playground, she knew she wasn’t quite ready for kindergarten. She held on to her mom’s purse (it was easier to reach than her mom’s hand) and kept walking right by. One day, Chicken Bones mom told her it was time for a new outfit and a scribbler and a pencil because Chicken Bones was five years old. It was time to start school. Chicken Bones was very excited about her new plaid jumper with the yellow velvet belt and the white blouse with puffy sleeves and the white ankle socks with brown leather t-strap shoes. Her new school supplies made her feel grown up, too. After she got her picture taken in front of her house, she walked with her mom just like always. Down Sutherland Avenue to Main Street, then all the way to Eaton Avenue where the big kid patrols helped them cross. At the bottom of the stone stairs, Chicken Bones’ mom said goodbye. HER MOM SAID GOODBYE. And left. Chicken Bones had never been inside the prison fence. It felt very different from being outside of the fence and her stomach knotted. Her mom waved as she walked away. HER MOM WALKED AWAY. Chicken Bones dashed to the fence and clung to it. She tried to squeeze her hand through it. She tried to reach her mom. She tried to reach her mom’s purse. But her mom was a fast walker and was already a block away. Chicken Bones started to bawl. Chicken Bones cried and clung until the bell rang. Finally, the teacher saw her and led her to the basement classroom. Chicken Bones did not know the other kids. She was embarrassed that she was still sobbing a bit. But she found a place to sit with three others, on pink benches at pink tables. Mrs. Hollinger was a kind lady. She taught Chicken Bones how to print her name neatly and how to colour pictures inside the lines. Chicken Bones kept wondering why there was wire across the windows but she got used to it. Chicken Bones’ mom did not want her to be a spoiled child, so she told Chicken Bones that she would not be walking her to school anymore. Instead, she had found some friends for Chicken Bones to walk with. They were Nicholas, Ronnie, and Lionel. Together, the four five-year-olds made the trek to kindergarten for the rest of the school year. And Chicken Bones learned how to glue and how to skip and how to not cry. Chicken Bones went on to finish elementary school (where she never got the strap) and junior high (where she was too scared to use the washrooms) and high school (where she was uncomfortable except in drama class where she could be somebody else). Chicken Bones even finished college and university and became a teacher herself. She tried to be gentle like Mrs. Hollinger. But Chicken Bones told her students that they could always colour outside of the lines. She told them to make their own lines. And to reach out. And to cry.

Conni Cartlidge July 2025 In celebration of my 50th high school reunion.

Crane Rescue

Crane Ascending
by Genevie Henderson

 Crane Rescue

One thousand orphaned children cling to her wings

Full Moon pulls 

them to rocky cradles

One thousand tiny victims of war hide in her feathers

Full Moon pulls them 

into a nightlight glow

Far from the earth

Saved babies sleep in peace.

Conni Cartlidge

October 2024

Inspired by the painting "Crane Ascending" by Genevie Henderson

Who Needs More Like Me in ECE?

This is written in response to the More Like Me in ECE initiative, in which Early Childhood Educators who represent gender diversity in the field, share their photo and pronouns. I suggested the conversation could be expanded to parents/grandparents/caregivers of children being raised beyond the binary. In turn, I was challenged to write about my experience. Here it is. 

Who Needs More Like Me in ECE?

I’m a privileged, white, straight, cis boomer. There are lots of us in ECE. But give me a minute to share my story.

When I was studying child development and sociology in the 1970s, I came across three little books in a series called The Gender Gap. I found them at the brand new, alternative bookstore, Prairie Sky Books. I liked them because they had cartoony pictures and simple language…a nice break from my university texts. I read them because they were very readable! A lot of the content focused on workplace wage gaps. But there was more than just the money issue. There were all the gender-based expectations and limitations placed on people in our society. And all the hopes and predictions of parents, based on the shape of their baby’s genitals.

As I began my career in Early Childhood Education, I worked hard at providing all kinds of play materials for all children. Boys could play with dolls and girls could play with trucks. As a parent, I did the same. I felt progressive. 

I hadn’t yet learned about pronouns. I didn’t know what a “binary” was. Or that there was anything beyond it.

But now I’m a grandparent of four; one boy, two girls, and one child who has not yet decided what their gender will be. When each of those babies was born, people said, “Congratulations! A boy or a girl?” And with three of my grandchildren, I announced their assigned gender. But with my fourth, I said, “they’re a healthy baby!” or “their parents aren’t assigning a gender” or “they haven’t decided yet” and people nodded and scanned the child quickly to see what they were wearing. If the child wore sparkly pink sandals, people assumed she. If the child was bundled in a brown snowsuit, people assumed he. And when I used they/them pronouns for my grandchild, people asked where the other baby was.

There is confusion. There are misunderstandings. Mistakes are made. But I’m here to say, it’s not that difficult. As a four-year-old recently stated, “we can be girls or boys or theys!”…or maybe some other wonderful being that we could never imagine! We are so indoctrinated into the categories we have learned, that we limit the pure potential of children. I don’t want to return to the 1970s! I’m excited to watch my grandchildren grow in unlimited directions.

So to all the wonderful ECEs out there, question your assumptions. Check pronouns….and share yours! Listen to the children and their caregivers. Maybe we can all move beyond the binary.

Someone recently asked me if my toddler grandchild had chosen their gender yet. 

Nope. They only care about me singing Row Row Row Your Boat over and over and over.

And that they can wear yellow pants because yellow pants are the best.

Note: Thank you for the minute. Thank you to my family for sharing their experiences and helping me understand. For some additional beautiful insights, follow @alokvmenon on Instagram.

Conni Cartlidge, BA, ECE lll  (she/her)

Treaty 1

February 2024

Crokinole

Chicken Bones avoided the game. It was stored in the basement, next to her chalkboard and her Barbies. Whenever her dad asked her to play, she tried. But with every flick of her bony finger, she missed the checker and slammed her nail against the oak octagon. It was stupid. Why did her dad love it so much? What did he do differently? His fingers could flip without a flinch. His checkers knocked hers flying and he always triumphed with that final land in the centre hole. Apparently there were rules and points, but how could she possibly learn them while her finger throbbed and her cheeks burned? Stupid Crokinole. Stupid game. She sulked off and her dad shrugged his shoulders as they reached stalemate. He found other players and she conjured up new ideas for the board.

Chicken Bones was intrigued by the eight angles and eight sides of the wooden base. It was the perfect floor plan for a miniature modern home. Unlike her own house, which was a boring rectangular bungalow, the octagon was wild and unexpected. She gathered her plastic doll furniture and sorted out the rooms along the lines of the board. With no right angles, the tiny couch slanted one way and the teeny beds veered off another. The ditch around the perimeter was a glamorous circular driveway for her Dinky cars. And the centre dip could hold a pretend pond or a minuscule Christmas tree. 

Chicken Bones never imagined that she would grow up to buy her own modern home that had one little octagon window and an octagonal spiral staircase! One that she would climb daily, carrying groceries or a briefcase or a newborn grandchild.

Chicken Bones didn’t know that she would watch her dad teach the game to friends, neighbours, kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. To international students and visiting Australians. And later, to residents at his personal care home. And she never expected that he would continue to play after the unfortunate snowblower incident which took several pieces of his right hand. And even after his dementia stole other abilities. 

Chicken Bones certainly never considered the idea that one day her dad would be gone. And then her mom. 

And the old board would be left to Chicken Bones’ youngest child. And that her youngest child would teach his children how to play Crokinole. And send her pictures over the phone so she could see them score and laugh as they learned their great-grandpa’s favourite game. 

Chicken Bones did not plan to save her brittle doll furniture for over sixty years, but she did. So that heavy octagon could still be a dollhouse, too. Though not quite so modern.

Play your own way!

Love,

Conni aka Chicken Bones

(With thanks to Jim Barrault for giving me my perfect nickname when I was a scrawny newborn baby.)

December 2023

Bedside Manner

Dear ER doctor,

Do not tell me that you refuse to admit my mom

Before you have even seen her.

Do not tell me that there is no medical reason to keep her in

When she’s had nothing to eat or drink for four days.

Do not tell me that other people need the bed

Like she is a waste of space.

Do not tell me that her care is a family matter

When I am the only family here.

Do not leave your abrupt manner smeared around the hospital room

For nurses to mop up with apologies and bright smiles.

Never mind doctor. I know you’re not listening anyway.

Conni Cartlidge

June 8, 2019 

Call to Action #73

We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action)

Not yet two, he sleeps

Cozy on his grandma’s bed

Under star blanket cover

Does he dream of his busy morning play group?

Spoon music

Bracelet beading

Singing “I’m a little Metis from head to toe”

Grinning 

Giggling

Does his great grandmother’s spirit visit him?

Reminding him

That he is lucky like her

Fair skinned

Able to pass

Just a toddler, he naps

Unaware of the search

For unmarked graves of 

Dead children.

His missing family.

Conni Cartlidge

May 15, 2018