We took this photo last year on a farm visit to one of our Canadian ingredient sources. I love this time of year when the land is going to sleep, sheathed in rainbow leaves. It’s a time for gratitude, especially this year. So much has happened, and continues to happen, and if I’m being truthful I have spent a lot of time being overwhelmingly sad and angry.
It has been important for me to take moments away for gratitude, acknowledging my blessings and my privileges. I think that by taking moments to name what I am grateful for, I am also creating space for accomplicity. We can’t use our privilege if we cannot name it’s presence. So here are some of the things I am grateful for, not an exhaustive list:
1) I am grateful to the Indigenous communities who agreed to share this land, and I acknowledge that the treaties have not been honoured by my Non-Indigenous community. I make a commitment to try and right relations everyday, even on days when I am not showing up as my best self.
2) I am grateful to have been educated, a gift that was paid for by the generations of women who came before me — my great, great grandma who worked on the sugarcane plantations, my parnani who could not read or write but believed in educating her daughter, my Nani who went to a missionary school and travelled to England to become a nurse, my mom who worked three jobs as a single mom and still had time to practice reading with me.
There are so many more — but I am running out of caption space. If you are looking to learn more about privilege, I have found “White Privilege: unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by P. McIntosh a good starting point.
Love, AD