December 15, 2011

Taking their Place, Making a Stand

I just watched this video, made in reaction to an ABC special called Children of the Plains. I am not going to link up to the special, because it is probably a story made by good people, but broadcast by a corporation that wants ratings. I know, a corporation can't want, but in the United States and, I believe in Canada too, corporations have the same rights under the law as individual human beings so I contend that the corporate bot wants the ratings. And I'm not going to give them my eyeballs.

So this video -- More than that... -- is simple, and full of kids who really know how to tell their own story. It filled me with something I haven't been feeling this season. Hope. That's a pretty big gift.

So thank you, guys. I really needed some hope and I found it in your message, posted by a local Indigenous FB page of which I am an ally. Because you prove you are not the one dimensional caricatures of a television "documentary". You are kids, in the middle of a continent currently called North America. And you are part of a future I want to see, raise my children in, and be a part of too. Awesome film!

December 10, 2011

Trifecta Challenge: To Flirt

Here again is my response to Trifecta's weekly writing challenge. Under the wire at T minus 7 hours. (What does that mean, anyway?)

3rd definition of the verb, to flirt: to come close to reaching or experiencing something

The girl filled out the form and handed it in at the desk, with a small unsure smile. The receptionist, eyes hard with business, took it and placed it in a folder. She smiled curtly, the type of expression that lets you know you don't deserve what you are hoping you will receive. Who knew a youth filled with the pleasures of the flesh could lead to an inability to sustain all forms of a future?

A new life, a stable one, with a lover who saw her for who she might become, not who she was before. This is her reason to try.

This act of completing this doctor's form in raw honesty, to expose herself and her shame with fertility specialists certain to judge harshly for the life she had lived rather than the one she is living, this act is to flirt with a hope previously unknown.