RYERSON WAVING FEATHERS

a poem of unity

in this most difficult time

 To my second family, Ryerson University,

Mon nom est Steve Pelletier,  je suis Brayon, je vie La Madawaska. Je me Souviens.

For almost 2 decades I have been fixing the classrooms, conference rooms and labs of this institution.  My best friend, Ken’eth Sook’hai’e, got me in. Lee’la’Ram’par’as, my hiring manager, almost fired me on my first day as a full-time employee for opening my big mouth. If not for a kind letter from a thankful faculty member which she received that same day, my sojourn would have been record breakingly short. Those who know me well can attest to my big mouth, but they also know where my heart is.  They take the good with the bad, that is what family and love is all about. I love this institution and it loves me.

As I sit here this holiday season, laid up and unable to do my job for the first time in my life, suffering from the side-effects of the vaccine, I am forced to sit and reflect on the past and wonder what comes next.

I’m not going to lie, when they first announced the lock-down, a sense of relief came onto me.  I was exhausted, I needed rest badly, 2019 was the hardest year of my life bar none. After a week of “rest”, the true impact of the situation hit me. I was resting, yet I felt more tired than I have ever felt in my entire life. The energy of community was gone from my life. This energy that helped me in 2019 was no longer there to replenish me, no amount of “zoom beers” were able to help. 

Some of us thrived in lock-down, some of us died in lock-down. Most survived.

The psychological impact of isolation and loss of in person community put a massive stress on our society and culture.

Prior to the lock-down, we were a society at a crossroads. Echo chambers of social media and its reverberations in mass media put a wedge in the dichotomy of humankind. Man-Woman. Liberal-conservative. capitalistic-communistic.The Ego and the Id.  You name it, we are all tortured souls trying to make sense of polar differences in our experiences and our efforts to understand one another.

The wedge of these computational algorithms is separating both sides so much that what keeps us together, culture, is being cancelled. All with good intentions.

The Free are upset at themselves for being... Free. 

There is only one truth in life,  In order for something to live, something has to die.

I come from oral traditions, most of the educated people in my family history were women, they became nurses and teachers whilst being mothers, us men, were laborers. My grandfather, my father and I all started work at 9 years of age. My grandfather, son nom était Camille Pelletier, Je me Souviens. He was gifted with strength, he was sent to the woods to help bring money to the family. My grandfather never had the luck of going to school, but he made sure my dad did. He forced him to both work, in order to understand the value of money, and study, so that he would not suffer as much as he did.  My father did the same for me, albeit in a much less strict way. My dad was a hippy, a hard working one. He had 120 first cousins, I have None. He was at Woodstock backstage as a reporter, to quote another steve "my dad was many things, he was no bullshitter". The reporter part is a lie, a charismatic French Canadian gets into a lot of places. He used his expired Quebec legislature press pass to get a police escort past the traffic when he stumbled upon a major traffic jam on his way home from visiting family in Boston. The rest is legend... Son nom était Jocelyn Serge Pelletier. Le seul vedette de son village. Je me Souviens.

It took 8 weeks of arguing to be able to return to work in person. The powers that be wanted to reduce the liability of exposure. At one point we were told to subcontract our jobs. No way. What public health benefit is it to have me stay home “to reduce the load on hospitals” but to send a sub-contracted crew in my stead. This made no sense to me. Thankfully reason prevailed.  

I cried the first week back in the presence of my co-workers. I could count on one hand the amount of people that had seen me cry before that day.  For me the lock-down was over. For many of us it was just starting.

Our jobs never went away with the lock-down. In fact, the jobs became harder and more expensive, those that did not do much before, did less, those who worked hard before, worked more. Some found perfect work life balance.  Most of us were thankful that we still had a job, most of us doubled down on our work in order to make the situation outside easier to handle. I know I did, at least with a purpose, I was able to better cope with the new harsh realities of the downtown Toronto world I Live in.

Many of us that live on the edges did not survive. A young woman I had helped in the stairways of Ryerson in February of 2020, died at the hands of security guards working at the local hospital. Nobody is to blame and everybody is to blame.

Trauma is real and street drugs help. I know this from experience. I survived. Many did not.

Those that were barely hanging on before the lock downs, lost everything. 

Our great folk poet Felix Leclerc, Je me Souviens, once sang:  (translated from french)

“There’s a hundred thousand ways to kill a person, but the only sure way to truly kill a human is to stop them from working by giving them money”

This is a message from our ancestors, this is a message as canadian as maple syrup. This is as Canadian as a solo canoe camping trip, which, by the way, is a right of passage into Canadian culture.  Our culture understands these words, but every generation has to be reminded that it is true.

We have all been affected by this pandemic, many of us will never be the same. Some will be permanently disabled. 

I’m Covid positive, I think most of us in Toronto have it, or had it, the rest will get it shortly. This new variant is unstoppable and it does not discriminate, vaxed/un-vaxed, no difference. No amount of public health measures are going to stop it, nor slow it. Covid won. It is part of us forever. We managed unbelievable uncertainty, some of our institutions failed us and some of our institutions made us proud.

Some of us went to work everyday, not from home, in person. Some of us got covid, recouped, went back to work. There were no holidays for the emergency workers, nor was there any for most of us. Everybody supported and cheered on.

Then the vaccines arrived, great!  The same emergency workers that showed up everyday were now told that they needed to get vaccinated or lose their job. Most did. Some were conscientious objectors. That is what freedom is. And it needs to be protected.

The strongest act of solidarity I personally saw with my own eyes was on the lawn of Queen’s park by police/fire/paramedics first responders. I was disgusted that the media instead chose to show a small group of anarchists on queen street and paid little to no attention to the real heroes of the pandemic and their call for help. No one listened, why would they, the vaccine meant that we would get our lives back. Did It?

If we all look into our hearts, We all have blood on our hands, we are all guilty of shaming/demaining and worse, Judging others that do not see things the way we do and have lived a different truth.

The Vaccines are a miracle of modern science, they gave hope to those working tirelessly to help us in this crisis, they gave hope to our heroes. Those who sacrificed their lives to help those in pain. The vaccines are an unbelievable achievement of science and a great international co-operative effort, it should be applauded by all of us. But they are not a magic wand. There are risks, they are not perfect and we are currently living what the scientific process is. It’s an educational event. If our culture survives, We will all be better for it. 

I Learned my culture from my paternal grandmother and her village. Son nom était Grand-maman Paule. Je me Souviens. This is how traditional knowledge is passed down. She was born in 1919 from a mother who survived the typhoid epidemic that ravaged French Canadians and Irish during the early industrial revolution, My great grandmother, son nom était Aglaé Galipeau. Je me Souviens. She had long straight dark hair and complexion before typhoid, when she woke up from the fevers, her husband had died but her daughter, Matante Nana, Regina Houde. survived. Je me Souviens. Tragedy and hope. A beautiful poetic hard truth.  Her hair grew back red and curly and she was no longer able to be in the sun. She became a ginger from typhoid. She remarried a man who had lost both parents and four of nine siblings to the same fate. He was raised by his brother, he was my great grandfather, Pépère Domon. Je me Souviens. He lived to 87, he is the only male French Canadian relative that I know of who saw his, albeit forced, retirement. He got old and sold his farm. He was once the mayor of his village. I still talk weekly to my Grand-maman Paule’s 98 year old sister, Matante Rita. I am lucky to still have that connection to the old world. 

Half of all French Canadian families died of typhoid, typhus and cholera. This was nothing compared to our collective memory of the loss of our brothers and sisters from measles, anthrax, small pox, tuberculosis, etc. Countless cycles of disease, pain and death. This pain is in all the hearts of Americans.  Some do not want to remember it, it is painful, it makes us cry instantly, but it is our history, it is our culture, it is who we are as the peoples of the New Old World. Nobody is to blame and everybody is to blame.

This collective pain still resonates today, I don’t know how many times I cried reading the transcripts of the truth and reconciliation commission. I know the pain, it is the pain of our people, our history. The proof that these things were happening under the noses of modern doctrine is unconscionable.  People on the edge of society never get a fair shake. I hope to change that one day. I hope we can all change this someday. The will is there.

The strange reality is that good intentions led to the almost demise of the last true traditional peoples. The Cree, Les Innus, le peuples rieures, as they were introduced to me by a mentor, Le Grand Homme, Mr. Serge Bouchard. Je me Souviens. A boy raised in my Matante Rita’s neighborhood. They are the people of the Hudson and James bay watershed, they lived with nature in their ancestral ways for over 300 years after the arrival of the world on their shores.  It was not until the Hudson Bay Company had to stop buying their furs because city folk started shaming the use of traditional sustainable harvests and crafts, this crashed the fur prices and made their only source of income disappear. This led them to places like, la Romaine, where they almost lost everything... Do yourself a favor and discover these beautiful people.

The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Je me Souviens.

This leads me to a most difficult question our community is pained with. It's a hard, polarizing question.  What do we call this new place we are hopefully all returning to shortly?  And why should we cater to an anonymous mob dead set on cancelling history? Justified or not, the stories we tell ourselves are what keeps us moving forward. This is our culture.  And no, most of it should not get cancelled.

Je me Souviens.

The Ryerson I know is the most inclusive, friendly, loving community that I have ever been a part of, it has always felt like a small town in the heart of the biggest city of Canada, a true family. 

In recent years I have seen more and more divide, and I have not seen any valid reason for it.  I blame social media, that is easy for me to do, I have never had a social media account and I have seen all my friends disappear into their phones and into a virtual life. They seem happy about it, but our relationships have suffered.  I can’t believe a phone has become more important than a real person talking to you in person. Put your phone on silent and finish your conversation.

From the outside looking in, I see many people in constant emotional reactions, this is what the algorithms want, this is how they sell ads and justify the mind boggling amount of energy and money needed to drive these services. Our pension plans, banks and institutions are now completely dependent and drunk on the money that is being generated.

As much as I try, I fail to see a net benefit of all this.  Hopefully time will prove me wrong. A new innovation is always around the corner, I know I am working on one.  I hope it works out. Many people are trying to figure this thing out. Hope is one of the great human concepts.

My histories tell me that Egerton Ryerson does not deserve to be cancelled, he was a liberal and moderate of his time. Life was difficult in the 19th century, game animals had all but disappeared. Starvation, death and disease were ravaging our populations. Most peoples of the Americas were suffering.  Education, mandatory education, was seen as a way to help for the future. The conservatives of the time looked down on French Canadians and the Irish, they were appalled that people would waste tax dollars to teach no good hooligans things that their limited brains would never understand. Yes, this is our history. It hurts. Racial superiority was taught in Universities and the same social science measurement tools that were used to justify race theory are still being used today to justify just about anything.  Be careful in what you choose to believe, don’t marry yourself to a concept, always try to poke holes into your own opinions and especially that of the ones trying to sell you something. 

Those policies put forward with good intentions, helped a great deal of people. But it left behind a most important part of our history. The people that taught us all how to survive and thrive on this land and more importantly the people that inspired our culture of freedom of speech and liberty.

Yes, Native Americans of the North understood the concepts of freedom of speech and lived Free. They inspired the US constitution, they inspired the French revolution, they inspired the concepts that have made North America the superpower that it is today.

Their inspiration is integral to the American way of life, From protecting the balance of nature to the core concepts of our institutions to as far down the line of traditional practices of hunting and fishing and the North American motto of Wildlife Conservation.  

Je me Souviens.

Our Native brothers and Sisters are finally starting to regain their numbers and all of us are listening, even the United States Supreme Court is listening! It's about time!

I would like to pass on the story of the great Kondiaronk, le rat, un pétun, chef huron. Je me Souviens. He was  known for his ability to be everywhere and his skillful ruse in negotiations. He spent three years in a canoe gathering the tribes of the great lakes to meet in Montreal in July of 1701, our own motto, one dish one spoon, is also called the Great Peace of Montreal. He contracted a fever and died the night of his great speech that cemented The Final Great Peace. My direct ancestors were there, they signed as well, we kept up with this tradition, I can bet my life on it. It is part of my traditional teachings as a Canadian. Some forgot. Many forgot. That is human nature. Short memories. We trust books too much and forget about intuition. Because intuition is a great skill that takes a lifetime to learn.

If not for the terrible history of diseases, Canada would look like a much different place today.

Let us think about that as we recover from a great disease ourselves.

Je me Souviendrai.

Most importantly let us hope that our core concepts of Freedom inspired by our native brothers and sisters will not be taken away from us by worldwide forces that look to destabilise our society by paying our tech companies to spread disinformation.

Anger and destruction will not heal our wounds. Empathy and Love will.

I am inspired by My Mother, Her name is Sandra Larkin. Her intuition tells her we need to go outside, her friends have difficulties leaving their house. Our elders are suffering. Pick up the phone and call them. Write them a letter. Respect and love them. Don't ever judge them for having a different truth than yours. Her heart tells us we need sunshine. A lot of it. It is the number one place you can't get covid. Outside. Also, it's the number one across the board cause of hospitalization with severe covid, Vitamin D deficiency. Her intuition is right, people need to go outside. She hopes to see Yonge Street, originally named after the great Lajeunesse family; they criss-crossed all of North America and left their legacy everywhere. Some of them had to change their name in order to ”speak white”.  Je me Souviens. She would like to see it become a permanent summer pedestrian street, an urban outdoor market and park. To add to the great dichotomy of humanity and the poetic nature of culture this road is crossed by Dundas Street in the center of Toronto. The freedom road from South to North, intersected with the old world and it's hard truths that we should never forget and never erase, adjustments are needed, of course, that is what culture is, it grows and morphs into beautiful complicated stories. Without the understanding of the past we will suffer in navigating our future and be doomed to repeating our mistakes. My mom has great intuition, she has seen and lived more suffering than most of us. Ask anybody she has ever met if they have ever seen anything else but a smile on her face.  I would bet my life they would say no. Her maternal grandmother is Germaine Morency. Je me Souviens. The most important person in her life was her maternal grandfather, Er heisst Carl Alexander Pehlemann. The only direct member of my family who graduated from University. He was a pharmacist. He saved my mom's life, and many others. He was a great human, a great teacher, a wise soul. Je me Souviens.

I encourage you all to re-learn your own cultures, look into your hearts,  realize and remember. We are all the same. We all wish for the same things. We all love to share a home cooked meal with the ones we love. We all like to talk and tell stories, our communal culture, as humans, is what keeps us living, laughing and most importantly loving. Love is the only way. It is the acceptance of all emotions.

Je me Souviendrai. 

I WILL REMEMBER.

I hope to see a maskless return, vaxed and un-vaxed, we all got covid now,  we need to all look each other in the eyes and say I love you and I miss you. Shake hands, hug and go back to what makes Toronto special, to what makes life special. Acceptance.

We are all in this fish trap together, let's make the most of it.

All the best looking forward

With love and unity

Always and forever yours

Steve Joseph Pelletier, Je me Souviens.

Spring is coming...