Dear Aging Activisms,

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Coming back from a medical leave this year, still in the middle of pandemic life, I made this little video to honour and reconnect to some of what I have been learning through Aging Activisms and in Nogojiwanong since I moved here in 2013. I made this in January 2022, while at home (again/still) riding the Omicron wave, feeling not-so-safe in my body, watching convoys fly hateful symbols that make my ancestors shudder. Making this has been a momentary balm for me in a world that feels so crushing, so unjust, so unequal, so hateful. I hope watching it will feel like that for you too.

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I wanted to offer you a bit of my own story - turn the mic back on myself after so many years as the researcher - and let you know that your stories have shaped mine in so many ways! Of course, this is just 5 minutes and one tiny piece, but I offer it in gratitude for all you have shared with me. 

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This video is most explicitly a response to our last Aging Activisms gathering pre-Covid, in late 2019, when we came together to ask: How do we imagine livable (just, beautiful) futures in this community? 

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It is more than that too. It is about groups of amazing kids who I have had the joy of learning from. It is about olders and elders who have shared wisdom with me. It is about students and their courage and struggles in these times. If is about dear pals I am making on this journey. It is about dipping in Odenabe on hot days in lockdown. It is about reclaiming, and resisting, and respecting, and re-learning, together.  

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It is also inspired by my own beautiful kids, Alex and Cam, who are finding their voices now, and who have been ever-present over these last 699 days of pandemic parenting! Maybe you met them when they were still small?

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If you are watching this, then you are part of it. Thank you. Miigwech. 
May