Originally intended to simply focus on book reviews, over time, KaliDesautelsReads has morphed into its own entity.
I write about issues that are near to my heart, be they political, feminist, motherhood, mental health, or, as the title holds, books.
A thirty-something Canadian woman in my mid-thirties, I have been “super married” to my high school sweetheart since 2006, and together we have two crazy, clever, kind, hilarious, wonderful kids.
My first book – How Not To Blog: Finding Myself, One Post at a Time is available on Amazon (in eBook formats for you clever tech readers, and paperback for those of us who love that new book smell!)
I have tried a podcast – it’s still on Apple and Google Podcasts – but writing is where my heart is.
My life changed dramatically when my husband was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer in 2018, and I am now a writer for a leading Canadian Cancer Non-Profit.
I am lucky enough to have a family that loves me and pushes me to be my best, even if it is outside of my cushiony comfort zone. I have a village of friends that nourish me, mentally, and spiritually.
Welcome to my thoughts. Sit down. Stay a while. Enjoy a cup of coffee!
How to put the end to a hard day? How about a nice mix of Four Sigmatic Mushroom Chai Latte, mixed with a packet of Mushroom Elixir Mix with Chaga?
Today wasn’t the best – my kids both have their typical February colds, and I had a therapy session that was both good and hard. (As anyone who works with a therapist knows, the hard is what gets to the good. You just have to get through the hard first.)
So this evening, the kids are in bed, my roomba is sweeping the living room, and I am going to take my Four Sigmatic and climb into bed and shut my brain off while I watch Criminal: France.
I adore my Four Sigmatic hot beverages when I need to relax and know that I am doing something that my brain and my body will thank me for.
Hi! I’m Kali (pronounced Kaylee), welcome to my blog! If you are new here, something you can expect are: •posts about my kids and cat •posts about social justice (just a heads up – I am an unapologetic leftist, liberal snowflake) •posts about feminism •posts about antiracism •posts about reading •posts about writing •posts about marriage •posts about mental health •posts about chronic and invisible illness •posts about the outdoors •posts about and dedicated to my favourite humans •reposts and the amplification of BIPOC and WOC voices •posts about politics •lots and lots of posts about coffee and coffee mugs
Basically, posts about my life and the inside of my brain. For the past 4 years, KaliDesautelsSpeaks evolved from KaliDesautelsReads, as I find my own voice, as opposed to simply reviewing the voices of other writers. There are still lots of books and book reviews, but that’s not all there is anymore (scroll alllllllll the way back to see what the first posts looked like and all the changes that have occurred over the past 4 years).
I talk about my first book – How Not To Blog – which was released last May; and my contributing authorship in Jason Eaglespeakers anthology Indigenous Peoples for BlackLivesMatter. I was also honoured to be chosen as one of @vancouver_mom’s Top 30 Bloggers in 2020
Welcome! I hope you find something that interests you! 🙂
This is my brother, Ty. He is the COO of @maketafi and @insta_daz3d, and tonight he was a featured on presenter at the @ethos.lab, helping to bring to his knowledge of avatars, video gaming, and entertainment to BIPOC kids and families in Vancouver, Canada.
As you might imagine from his appearance, he is quite knowledgeable about avatars. While this is a portrait of my brother, if you saw his avatar, it’s nearly identical. 😉
It was so incredible to get to watch my brother share with a new generation of kids the joy he found in digital art and video games. I am so grateful for this opportunity to watch him and his panel interact and share their knowledge and insights with kids, including the well-spoken young lady who served as Youth Host.
I am so proud of him, and his work to bring inclusion to the digital realm. I was honoured to watch him and his co-presenters, Adam Rudder, and Realije in an accessible space for young people (and their parents, like me…)
Proud big sister over here. Lucky to have such an impressive brother who works hard to use his privilege and platform to bring exclusivity to the online world.
Before KaliDesautelsSpeaks, before KaliDesautelsReads, there was Kalijd. There was a lot of life in the before.
I tend to talk a lot about this season in my life as something I had to get passed to get here, and yes – I had anxiety and depression and an eating disorder and an unhealthy obsession with the size of my waist, and the perfect behaviour of my kids, and a messy house, and a general lack of insight into how other people felt, but it was also colourful and full and beautiful.
My kids had the unfortunate disadvantage to be born to a mom with mental health issues. My family had the unfortunate disadvantage of a self-centred daughter/sister/granddaughter/wife. My friends had the disadvantage of my anxiety and social anxiety and my demanding nature stemming from those anxieties.
BUT there is beauty in this chaos. I was blessed with the most beautiful children, with souls that I could only have dreamed of. I was blessed with a family that was patient and loved me enough to not give up on me. I was blessed with friends that remain, more or less, by my side today.
In honour of #BellLetsTalk day, I am reminding you, me, and anyone else who needs to see it that 8 years ago, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Today, most of the time, I have found my way out and the pictures that I took with me remind me that even if some things sucked, even if somethings make me scrunch my face in shame when they pop into my head, there was, and still is
Posted @withregram • @holocaustmuseum Each year on January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—we gather as a community to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
More than 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz, including nearly one million Jews. Those who were not sent directly to gas chambers were subjected to forced labor.
We remember and honor the memory of the victims and help carry forward the messages of survivors.
Photo: Belarusian State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography
As I listen to my kids bicker and fight over everything and nothing, I am scrolling through my phone looking at pictures where they at least pretend to get along.
Watching these two, and hearing my own attitude coming out of her mouth towards her younger brother, I am reminded of all the times that I had that tone of voice with my brother and sister. I am reminded of all the times that I had an overbearing and imperious attitude. All of the times that I thought I was smarter and more correct than them. All of the times that I made them feel less than, and then turned around blamed every fight on their unwillingness to “listen to me”.
Why on earth would they listen to me? I was just their sister. I was not their parent. I had 16 months more life experience than my brother and 5 years and 3 months more than my sister, but that did not make me more “right”.
There are many times when I am reminded of a situation or a verbal exchange, or wrestling my 12 year old sister to the ground for “stealing” my socks (which is especially ridiculous when you consider that I go out of my way to NOT wear socks…) and I think “good grief. They must really love me to still be my friend after all of these years”, because they don’t have to be. Many people aren’t close with their siblings in adulthood. Many people don’t have siblings that bring over entire computer desks for your child, or who book time into their week to bake over FaceTime from the opposite end of the country with your child. They don’t send snoopygrams, or just because cards through the mail. They don’t take care of your kids when your life is hard. They don’t text you when you are struggling. They don’t share their secrets with you and keep yours. They don’t maintain a shorthand for text conversations that is 90% movie quotes.
But mine do. So I hope that these two love each other more than they annoy each other. I hope that they come out of this part of childhood loving each other and appreciating each other. I hope that they get through their teenage years, and come out still friends.
And I am glad that my siblings let me live to adulthood, and to have the karma of kids who repeat our behaviours.
About 22 years ago this week, he asked me on our first date. For those doing the math, he was 14 and I was 16. We have been together ever since.
“Awwww… that’s so cute! High school sweethearts!!”
I hear that all of the time, then I tell people we met when he was in my brother’s kindergarten class, and they nearly swoon.
It’s not cute, though. Well, it is and it isn’t. In 22 years there are so many phases in a life, and we have lived them together. Some of them were cute, some of them were sweet, some of them were fun, some of them were hard, some of them were painful, and some of them nearly broke us into a million tiny pieces.
Over the past year and a bit we have struggled to regain a sense of normalcy post-cancer, and it has been hard. Issues that we ignored pre-cancer could no longer be ignored; COVID saw us in each other’s pockets constantly; recovery and mental health issues continued to be harder and longer-lasting than we anticipated.
It has definitely not been cute. It has been hard and it has been long.
But the thing about 22 years is that it feels worth the work. It feels worth the hard, and just like every other hard phase in our more than two decades as ‘us’, it is worth the work. We choose to put in the work, and we choose to keep going.
Even if it is hard.
Lately, I have seen the cute coming back. We are making each other laugh and talking. We are sharing things, and talking about the things we avoided pre-cancer. I still think he is funny, and smart, and lovely. We still like to spend time together, and just like every other challenging time, we will be ok.
Actually, this time, we will be better than ok. 22 years means that a lot of habits – good and bad – develop and patterns emerge. This time, we are working to break the bad habits and to notice our patterns so we can find our triggers and develop new, healthier patterns.
After 22 years, this man’s smile still makes me smile. He still makes me laugh. And he still gives me what our daughter once called “true love kisses”.
Today, something special happened! I had the extreme privilege of watching my sister in her element as she presented her academic thoughts on decolonizing medieval studies.
Her panel was engaging and interesting and I could not be more proud of my baby sister, who is clever and intelligent and well spoken!
As a non-academic this was my first opportunity to see her share her work. It is one of those silver lining moments of the global pandemic – the hallowed halls had space via Zoom for me to watch today.
Mental health does not negate physical pain!!! Prejudging his health based on his honest disclosure of his medically-controlled bipolar disorder is a further example of why Canadians living with mental health issues are reluctant to share.
The stigma does not end with friends thinking you are “crazy”. The stigma does not end with coworkers thinking you are lazy or flaky. The stigma does not end with friends and family asking “are you off your meds?” The stigma follows you into the hospital where you are not trusted to define your pain.
When we see headlines like this in Canada, how do we continue to argue that is “not that bad here”? How do we argue that we are a country that puts all people on equal footing? We have our own systemic racism, ablism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, religious bias, as our neighbours to the south.
This needs to stop. Not improve. Not make some “changes” – this systemic prejudice of those living with mental health issues needs to STOP.
Thank you to @thebookofbrenna for bringing this story to my attention.
Kali J Desautels 