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!
It’s Emancipation Day, meaning that the abolishing of slavery throughout the British Empire came into effect 186 years ago.
But honestly? Where are we nearly 200 years later? Black bodies and Black minds are being murdered at an alarming rate. We are all quick to say it’s not “as bad” in Canada as it is in the US, but that’s not true. Anti-Black racism is a problem all over the world. We are just much better at playing the Great And Powerful Oz, while committing atrocities that receive less airplay.
In the US, the FBI has opened an investigation about the police killing of Breonna Taylor. Oprah Winfrey has given up the cover of her magazine for the first time in history to Ms. Taylor.
Ms. Taylor’s killer have still not been brought to justice.
Black Lives Matter protests are still happening, even though things are settling back into the way that white discomfort always settles – we are tired, we have short attention spans, and we go back to taking pictures of our lunch.
A month ago, I was trying to borrow books by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robyn Maynard, Desmond Cole, James Baldwin, Austin Channing Brown, Toni Morrison, Layla F. Saad, and others, waiting weeks for them to become available. Today, they are readily and easily available.
Please do not let the momentum that has been gathered by and for BIPOC over the last months run out of steam. Please remember that when we stop looking and fighting and talking, things don’t stop happening.
Do not go back to quiet ambivalence. Bring justice and real social change. Don’t stop filling your feeds and minds with BIPOC.
Until things really change, until we defund and demilitarize the police, until we bridge the pay gap, until we stop seeing black bodies choked to death we are not done.
Please keep learning. Please keep talking. Please keep agitating for real social change.
When you are chronically ill, or in chronic pain, it can feel extraordinarily lonesome. It can feel like no one understands and you spend a lot of time in your own head.
This book, though, Sick by Porochista Khakpour makes me feel understood. It’s the sort of book that has me nodding my head and whispering “yes, exactly”.
Even if you have a family and friend group that is understanding and supportive, it is not the same as someone who GETS it. Porochista Khakpour gets it. She lives it. She doesn’t overcome it, she lives with it and works with it.
If you struggle from any sort of chronic pain or illness, you will more than likely feel understood. You will hear yourself in her voice. I can not recommend the book highly enough.
My boys got up early on a Saturday to go run around and kick the football. They both came home sweaty and smiling.
This is a huge deal in our house for many reasons, but most of all because Daddy hasn’t had the energy for out of the house activities for a long, long time.
After cancer has not been as dreamy or easy as we had hoped; the pain and recovery and stress and anxiety and depression have taken their toll on all of us, but especially him. So when he tells his son to set his alarm because they are going to have a father-son day, it makes my heart sing. Hearing my son tell his dad “Thanks, daddy, that was really fun. What are we doing next?” gives me so much hope for our family’s future.
Welcome back to another exciting edition of Fibro Flare Friday! Today we are looking at how and why my body hates me!
For those who are new, Fibro Flare Friday is the day of the week when my brain and/or my body takes it upon itself to remind me that I have fibromyalgia! This reminder is always exciting and most welcome because it brings with it:
migraines
aching joints
irritated skin
breakouts
mental fog
neck and jaw pain
the feeling that even my hair hurts
fatigue
blurry, unfocused vision
And those are just today’s symptoms!! Sometimes, when I win the lottery, I get to add debilitating depression and/or anxiety to the above.
Why does my body hate me? Well, doctors don’t know exactly why – it could have been: A) a childhood virus B) stress C) something that I ate D) an extension of my other chronic illnesses E) an injury F) psychological trauma G) chemical imbalance H) lack of sleep I) giving birth J) an operation K) death of a loved one L) no flipping idea, but have you tried yoga?
All in all, fibromyalgia is a ball of fun. You can see it in my face. Look at all that fun. Nothing like it.
If you have questions about fibromyalgia, please know that fibromyalgia is the disease that they diagnose when they run out of options. There is definitely something wrong with you, but they can’t figure out what or why. So you are diagnosed with essentially generalized joint and muscle pain. And then you go to yoga.
Be patient. It’s the diagnosis of no diagnosis, but over time, science figures these things out. When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, they weren’t sure what caused it either, but now they have entire diets based around what to eat for thyroid health. I mean, back in the days that my sister studies, they thought that our health was determined by humours.
So one day they may know what causes it and why my body hates me, but in the meantime – have you tried yoga?
Reposted • @nowandgen This is a reminder that everyday it is our responsibility as women to strive for a safer, inclusive and just society. We must speak out during times of hardship to support our sisters. We won’t rest until lawmakers take action and change is accomplished. Let’s come together and raise awareness about these global issues. It’s time to get loud! 🔈 #ChallengeAccepted
Posted @withregram • @beelzeboobz I have received several requests that wanted me to share this as a post as well. So here goes. I hope this will be able to inform people as to what is going on in Turkey and why the black and white photo challenge exists. Thank you all for sharing this information.
“We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States #2020VISION” ~ Kanye West via Twitter, July 4th, 2020
Less than a month ago, Kanye West tweeted his desire to run for President of the United States in 2020. In the midst of recurring, heartbreaking, painful news from COVID-19, police brutality, the fight for equality and social justice for BIPOC, the idea of a notoriously self-aggrandizing rapper-turned- designer-turned-church-leader with a beautiful, intelligent wife and the world’s most famous children running for president was the balm media agencies and celeb-watchers across North America were looking for.
But for me? For people like me, who see his mental illness in ourselves? For me, the way that the media in general has handled West’s presidential bid, and the public response has been highly triggering.
Since West became a staple on the celebrity circuit in the early 2000s, he has been known for his unpredictable behaviour – sometimes angry and sullen, sometimes loud and outspoken. He has interrupted acceptance speeches, worn MAGA hats and called Trump his brother. He has publicly dictated the way that his wife presents herself, and then turned around and become publicly angered by how she dresses. He designed the most spare, mausoleumesque home for his family, where they seem to live in empty concrete rooms. He has spoken erratically, and often dangerously, about the history of slavery, then presented himself at a Black Lives Matter protest, only to turn around and make more inflammatory remarks about the history of Black people in America.
In our 24 hour news cycle, someone like West is excellent for content. No matter where, or what is happening in the world, if he is doing something, it will generate content. His intelligent, media savvy wife has carefully curated what the world sees of herself and her family, turning how she wears her hair into something that is discussed by millions of people. Kim Kardashian West rarely missteps, and when she does, she is quick to course correct and the misstep is soon forgotten. Comparing the two in their approaches to the public is like comparing apples to frogs. There is simply no comparison.
On July 4th, I was texted by several people informing me that West had announced his presidential bid. I quickly checked online and all of my social media, and all of my usual news outlets were blasting that as a headline; based on the following tweet:
Source – Kanye West Twitter
“We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States #2020VISION”.
Kanye West – Twitter
My initial reaction was “what? He can’t run now! He doesn’t even have time to campaign in the US!” Then my heart sank a little. I thought back to 2016 when it was announced that he was in the hospital for a “psychiatric emergency”. I remembered his discussions about his mental health and his bipolar disorder. I wondered if this was the first part of a downward mental spiral.
I didn’t wonder for long. Within days, his tweets, announcements and comments began to come at such a pace that it was clear that he was having a breakdown and needed help. As with any celebrity news relating to a public breakdown, West became daily headline fodder. Commenters wondered what Kardashian West thought of her husband’s behaviour; discussions were fast and furious by young people that they would rather vote for West than for anyone currently on the ticket; news outlets began hunting for the candidacy paperwork to discover whether or where he had filed his candidacy.
I began scanning articles quickly to see if there was any indication as to where his kids were. If they were with him, or safely out of harm’s way. By harm, I am not speaking of potential physical harm, but the emotional trauma that kids are exposed to by a parent who is sick, and becoming sicker. For the media, West is content. For the public, he is entertainment. For North, Saint, Chicago, and Psalm he is Daddy. For them, this is not funny or “crazy”, it is literal insanity and harmful.
I am outspoken about my daily life with anxiety, depression, and mental health overall. I have learned to notice the triggers and harbingers, and have learned to reach out for help to my family and friends, if not for myself, then for my kids. In the media, as that nameless, faceless entity that spews content, informative, entertaining, harmless, and harmful, mental health is still vastly misunderstood. We read about Britney Spears locking herself in the bathroom with her son, and shake our heads thinking how crazy she must be. We press our lips together, express desire that she ‘gets help’, but then voraciously consume every update about her condition, a little disappointed that when she feels better there are no more umbrellas smacked at cars, or middle of the night head-shavings. We forget that there were kids being held by their mother in a locked room for hours. We forget that there were custody battles. We forget that there were two little boys who had to be protected from their own mother.
Reading this coverage is painful. It is a shock to the system. It reminds me there is a long way to go before mental illness is understood. It is a reminder that those of us with mental health issues that we are still the sideshow freaks – Watch the crazy man! See what he says next! He might laugh! He might cry! He may do both at once! He might wear a MAGA hat! Pull out your cameras, folks! This is a show you do not want to miss!
While I strongly believe that representation is important, and I truly feel that the more we talk about mental illness, the better chance we have against it, I do not believe that talking about people with mental illness and glorifying their breakdown is the way. What am I proposing? I don’t know. I do not know how to tell people to cover something that will bring them advertising dollars. I do not know how to tell people that it would be best to leave him and his family in peace while they try to figure out how best to move forward.
All that I know is that from the tweet on July 4th until now I have felt my own anxiety surge when I hear someone say “can you believe what Kanye said at his campaign rally???” All I know is that the headlines make me want to cry. All I know is that his tweets make me want to wrap him in a blanket and take away his phone. All I know is that I breathed a small prayer of relief when I read that he was several States away from his kids right now.
Somehow, there needs to be a more sensitive way to cover mental breakdowns. There needs to be respect for people like West, and his family. We need to stop consuming this media and allowing it to be what sells. We are working hard to be more just and sensitive to all marginalized groups, and it is important that those of us struggling with mental illness are not forgotten. We are not your freaks. We are not here for your entertainment. We are falling apart in spectacularly devastating ways, and we need your help. We are doing the best we can. Kanye West is doing the best he can.
My sister suggested that I bring a Kitchen Witch into my home to help ward off negative spirits and bring in the good spirits and encourage productivity.
I found Hermione, and put her in my kitchen.
Thus, Kitchen Witch!
According to Wikipedia (always the least accurate and most utilized of information on the internet), the following is a short history of a Kitchen Witch:
« There is some debate over the exact country in which the kitchen witch originated, some claiming Norway and others Germany,[4] but consensus points to it stemming from older European customs.
The poppet is supposed to depict a “good” witch who inspires productivity and safety in a kitchen, but also counteracts any ill-will directed to the home. It is considered good luck to give a kitchen witch to a friend or family member. So that those unfamiliar with the kitchen witch can understand its meaning, sometimes a note will be hung around the witch’s neck stating something similar to:
“The Legendary Secret of Goof-Proof Cooking: The Famous Kitchen Witch
For centuries, Norwegians have hung this good witch in their kitchen. They believe she has the power to keep roasts from burning, pots from boiling over, and sauces from spilling.” »
Kali J Desautels 