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!
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Remember a couple of months ago when I shared my “behind-the-scenes” photos from Ty and Danielle’s Wedding 2.0? Well, I can now show you some pictures taken by a professional photographer with an actual camera who knows what he is doing! There was snow on the ground sunshine, Rugby 7s, high heels where there ought not be, lots of laughs, and lots and lots of love. Celebrating a 10th anniversary has never been more fun!
It is not possible to be anti-racist as a white person, without listening to, learning from, and accepting pain from a person of colour. Reading books that describe the experience of Africanized people does not come close to the experience of a lived life, but it is one of the things that I can do, to do the work of understanding what it feels like to not be the “expectation”. For example, in this book she discusses the role fiction authors have played in telling stories where whiteness is the assumption and blackness is the Other. If an other does not expressly say that a character has dark skin, or kinked hair, then the reader assumes that the character has a pale complexion.
As much as I love Toni Morrison’s fiction, her non-fiction work belongs to my list of lifelong learning. The work that it takes for a Métis (mixed First Nations) woman, with pale skin, green eyes and generically brown hair, to understand, is more than what can be found in a slim volume by a Nobel prize winning author, but as post of a curriculum, it is at least a start.
This book will be added to the As Seen On The Blog List in my Storefront!
Impromptu Cinco de Mayo dinner with my family and friends – vegan tacos for my pescatarian niece, and I, beef fajitas for the rest of the table. Last minute dinner celebrations are often the best. .
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I think it’s also important to understand the history of Cinco de Mayo is not simply an excuse for white people to nuts of Mexican food and tequila – the truth is much bloodier and less fun. Per the @history channel, « Cinco de Mayo, or the fifth of May, is a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War. The day, which falls on Sunday, May 5 in 2019, is also known as Battle of Puebla Day. While it is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, in the United States, Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a commemoration of Mexican culture and heritage, particularly in areas with large Mexican-American populations. » .
Check out my Amazon Storefront for some books and other Cinco de Mayo goods!
For years, communities have pointed to the high number of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls in Canada. As of March 31, 2010, Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) has gathered information about 582 cases from across the country.
Aboriginal women face life-threatening, gender-based violence, and disproportionately experience violent crimes because of hatred and racism. According to Statistics Canada’s 2004 General Social Survey (GSS), Aboriginal women experience much higher rates of violence than non-Aboriginal women. Statistics Canada reported the following findings:
Aboriginal women 15 years and older are 3.5 times more likely to experience violence than non-Aboriginal women.
Rates of spousal assault against Aboriginal women are more than three times higher than those against non-Aboriginal women.
Nearly one-quarter of Aboriginal women experienced some form of spousal violence in the five years preceding the 2004 GSS.
Statistics Canada reported that Aboriginal women are more likely to experience more severe and potentially life-threatening forms of family violence than non- Aboriginal women.
54% of Aboriginal women reported severe forms of family violence, such as being beaten, being choked, having had a gun or knife used against them, or being sexually assaulted, versus 37% of non-Aboriginal women
44% of Aboriginal women reported “fearing for their lives” when faced with severe forms of family violence, compared with 33% of non-Aboriginal women.
27% of Aboriginal women reported experiencing 10 or more assaults by the same offender, as opposed to 18% of non-Aboriginal women.
While the number of non-Aboriginal women reporting the most severe forms of violence declined from 43% in 1999 to 37% in 2004 the number of similar attacks against Aboriginal women remained unchanged at 54% during the same time period.
Today is May 5th, and I ask you, on behalf of my Indigenous sisters whose voices have been permanently silenced, in a country where we have been Othered to near extinction, to remember the stolen sisters. Wear a red dress today to remind people that thousands of Indigenous women go missing and are murdered every. single. year with very little interest, recourse, or even investigation. Wear a red dress today, so that when our neighbours see us, they see us in solidarity with the silent and the lost. Remind people that cultural genocide has occurred and continues to occur in the most vulnerable spaces of our society. Wear a red dress today to remind those around us that we remember and that we speak for these women and girls and will not forget and will continue to work to bring them the justice that they deserve. .
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Today, wear red. Fill social media with our determination. Flood the feeds with red dresses and the hashtags #mmiwg and #mmiw. Speak for my sisters. Speak for your sisters. Speak for the voiceless.
I don’t know how to not be scared. I don’t know how to keep my fears in a box and pretend they aren’t there. Don’t get me wrong – I can wrestle them into the box, and I can push the box away from myself, but, like the mythic Pandora, I am unable to stop myself from opening the box again, and “with [my] hands and scatter[ing] all these and [my] thought cause[s] sorrow and mischief…”(Works and Days ~ Hesiop)
I have this bipolar desire to both hide from things that scare me, and to pull my fears out, and lay them on an examining table with a microscope. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to think about them, I don’t want them near me; and yet… and yet I am afraid that if I don’t peer into the box and poke at them, they will spill out of the box from some secret crack that I didn’t know to stopper. I insistently tell myself that my fears will not rule my life, that I am in charge of my emotions and reactions; I have nothing to fear. But then the crack shows up, I will notice it out of the corner of my eye, or imagine that I do, and I will rush to pull out all the “diseases… bringing mischief” (Cont’d Hesiop) to my soul. I scatter them on the table and feel the tightening of my chest, the fight or flight, the desire to escape, matches by my desire to climb under my favourite heavy, green blanket and to remain there forever.
What is it about fear? What is it about it’s power? How can I control my life when I am constantly pulled back to my fears? How does a looming deadline, exacerbated by a cancer setback, followed quickly at the heels by my son getting hurt physically while out with his friends, and my daughter feeling hurt emotionally suddenly feel like it is all too much to bear when our Employment Insurance comes to an end, and my Caregiver Leave does not get paid? How do I teach myself to handle the stressors, without giving into the malignancy of the fear? How do I remember that this is a season of life, and for better or for worse, it will pass? How do I find my centre, when the centre keeps moving?
“Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for ere that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Aegis-holding Zeus who gathers the clouds.” (Cont’ Hesiop)
Does hope still live there, even when my fears are scattered around me like ashes? I think so. I think that hope is the only thing that stops my fears from winning and the only thing that gives me the strength to wrestle them back into the box. I think that the hope, or the belief, or the faith that things will get better.
“King Solomon once searched for a cure against depression. He assembled his wise men together. They meditated for a long time and gave him the following advice: Make yourself a ring and have thereon engraved the words ‘This too will pass.’ The King carried out the advice. He had the ring made and wore it constantly. Every time he felt sad and depressed, he looked at the ring, whereon his mood would change and he would feel cheerful” -Israel Folklore Archive # 126 Origin of “This, too, shall pass”
So, like King Solomon, in the night, as my fears overtake me, I look to the dainty, delicate semicolon butterfly tattoo on the inside of my left wrist, and I remember that my fears are not new – they are different, and they are bigger, and they are volatile, but they are not new – and that I have survived before, and I will survive again. I look at the elaborate tattoo on my right hip bone and see the reasons that I must keep hope. The reasons why my fear must be wrestled back into the box again, and again; and I hope against hope that I will learn to leave the box well enough alone. That I will learn to handle my fears before they find the crack through which they might seep, and that, I will learn to be more hopeful and less fearful.
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There is a day for everything these days: National Ice Cream Day, National Selfie Day, National Coffee Day, National Bean Day, etc. But one day that I love to celebrate each year is at the beginning of May. I love the “punniness” of Star Wars Day – May the Fourth Be With You. The first time I heard it, it made me chuckle, and for the subsequent 8 years, I have enjoyed watching one of the films (classic or new) annually. This year, we chose to introduce our daughter to the incomparable Jyn Erso and the compliment of Rogue One. Felicity Jones’ Erso is one of my favourite characters in the Lucasverse, with her bravery, cleverness, and love of her father; a perfect example for little girls and little boys of the power of women, and the power of team work.
Do you celebrate Star Wars Day? What is your favourite of the space operatic saga? Do you have a favourite character?
Check out my Amazon store front for some fun Star Wars products!
Taking time for myself does not always mean something fancy. Sometimes it looks like this – deciding not to work on a Saturday during my daughter’s dance class, instead laying in the backseat of the car with a cushion and blanket (brought especially for this purpose), drinking my pop and finishing my book. Nobody needs me right now, and I don’t need to be busy. I can just be.
Bren – that’s not quite an aphorism, but close enough. 😉
Family movie night! The 5 of us went to see Avengers: Endgame. It was REDACTED. We also REDACTED when REDACTED and REDACTED REDACTED. The REDACTED is so REDACTED.
Kali J Desautels 