Happy Persons Day

 Rebecca bought two tickets to the LEAF Edmonton's Persons Day Breakfast, entitled "Contested Legal Personalities: Indigenous Women".  

Rebecca shared one of the tickets with me; I attended

... Professor Val Napoleon ...

virtually -- I think the moderator said about 350 people had gathered together.

The speaker was Val Napoleon, whom I think of more, as a friend.

This morning I saw that the ReconciliationofYEG blog did their reflection on Val's talk.   I was curious as I read, thinking how reading someone else's notes capture thoughts I heard but didn't write down.

I was doing my reflections on the event in yesterday evening,  rereading the notes I had taken.  

I am lucky for I was in a class taught by Val and I am familiar with the Gitxsan story of the mother who raises triplets without the help of her family or community.  All abandon her.  The story has a happy ending: resilience from her and reconciliation with her family and community when her family is older.  I am left wondering about the bracketed story, the one of a lifetime of mothering in the absence of help from loved ones or community.

... painting by Val Napoleon ...

I thought I would read the Gitxsan story again, knowing that I have it in my notes -- but that is the trouble with my continued pattern of living with my loved ones across Canada -- Victoria, Annis Bay BC, Calgary and Montreal.

I have a string of notes, housed thousands of miles apart.  I love those notes -- not that I can always find them, but that I made them, know I have them, love them and know I will keep adding to them.  That is what fills my life with such happiness.

Thanks to Val yesterday for more ideas to collect.

Arta