ELDER QUEER STORYTELLING WORKSHOP
19-23 AUGUST 2024
Pirates
I’m an army brat. I don’t have a hometown, an ancestral home. We moved a lot so my home was whatever room I slept in and my own strange, sparkly, anxious brain. I grew up in houses where there was so much talking for how little we actually said. Voices were often loud, angry, overlapping and when I spoke, I wasn’t heard.
I talked a lot, trying to be heard – my Dad used to say I’d been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. My Mom waved my report cards and told me my teachers said I was a good student, but I talked too much. I did talk a lot trying so hard to be heard.
Little curious, dorky, awkward me learned in public school that talking made me a target, of teachers, because my hand was always up, answering a question or asking one, and of other kids because I was a dorky, awkward, fat kid.
My story is like many others; I was a target for bulliesbecause I was different, awkward, fat. The reasons don’t matter - bullies bully and standing up for myself lead to more abuse. Teachers that told me to just avoid the bullies when I told them about any of it. My first month in a new high school, I had my fingers broken in a corner of the gym chasing a volleyball. I never cried or said anything about it. What was the point? I wrote essays and tests with my fingers in splints, and everyone just ignored why that was happening.
I fled that terrible small town. Ran head long into so much more than I could handle. I got accepted to university but didn’t really go (a story for another time) and when student loan money ran out so did my housing.
When you’re homeless you have no voice. You need to ask for what you need and if people hear you, they expect ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and for you to perform the script they give you. I could say what I liked, but I was judged on scorecards I couldn’t see.
In movies the passage of years is shown with calendar pages fluttering off the wall. See 4 years drift away. I found people who heard me, helped me. I’d only been out officially for about 6 months when I started using my voice in peer support groups and phone lines. I found my family, my people and they listened to me. For the first time in a long time, I felt heard and seen, getting support when I needed it, sometimes without even asking.
Watch more calendar pages drift over a montage of marriage, family of choice, jobs, social work school because that was what I was born to do – use my voice to help others see themselves as capable, valuable, worthy of good things.
On a cold, grey winter day in 2004 I am student social workerin a placement with the Toronto District School Board.
I’m doing an anti-homophobia workshop for Grade 9 students.
I speak about my experience of not fitting in, of my struggle to find myself, my place, my voice.
After the presentation I’m packing up and a 14-year-old boy shyly approached me and asked if he could ask me a personal question. I’d just spent an hour giving the class some pretty personal information so I smiled and said yes, of course he could.
He steps very close, leans toward my left ear, and quietly asks, ‘Do you like pirates?’
I blinked, not sure why this was his question, and said, “Yes! I’ve liked pirates since I was little.”
His face breaks into a huge grin and he starts telling me about a pirate RPG that he and his friends write and play. Suddenly I’m surrounded by Grade 9 boys excitedly telling me about their pirate adventures and cosplays. They laughed and talked over each other, showing me their whole hearts. I could only smile. They made me feel the salt air, the wind, and the adventure of the high seas.
A teacher is telling us that we need to finish up so the room can be set up for the next workshop. I look at all their sweet faces, and I say, “I’m going to tell you something. You might roll your eyes now but promise me you’ll never change. Stay enthusiastic and don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t be excited about things, that need to change.” Let that be the thing they remember from the workshop.
As I drove back to work, I wondered what I’d said that made him want to reach out. He might have been questioning his sexuality and wanting to make a connection with a safe, queer adult but….
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that those boys had heard my stories of feeling othered and excluded and they wanted to let me know that they’d heard me. We were others together. They’d heard me, my voice made a difference.
MY VOICE WAS HEARD. And yes, I still like pirates.
