FMFL

Hello whomever is out there reading this space.  And thank you for doing so.

On top of a gazillion things going sideways in my life the past week or so, I now am in need of urgent dental care but neither dentist to which I have been in the past few years here is available to even discuss getting an appointment to have a badly paining just broke last week tooth extracted. Mmmm.  Being homeless and penniless is not good for your denta. If that’s how they are referred to. Brain’s on fire. So much crap falling down around me (metaphorically or something, not literally.)

It took me a week to recover from having my van (my home at the moment) towed without notice and without mention of where it had been placed by the local government goons here on Bowen.

No sooner did I start adjusting to the new and very inconvenient and very upsetting emotionally spot they chose than another tooth decided to insert itself into the mix.  (There have been three extractions of infected teeth in past three years.) A premolar I guess… broke where an old (like me) filling had been and I think over the weekend I experienced it dying. Blessing in disguise perhaps. Jaw is numb there now, just as if a dentist had numbed it purposely.

I started suspecting things weren’t well with the tooth several days ago, but not much noticeable swelling was there (in selfies - hurray for phones) but today, although the swelling has stopped increasing it’s not going away.  

No idea how this is going to look on screens so if it’s really gnarly please send a note (probative@substack.com - just for blog stuff, mind) and one day when I have spare brain cycles and a quiet place to sit I’ll try to sort it all out.

If you’re still here. Thanks for listening.

I do need funding. Have run through the couple hundred a couple of friends and strangers sent. Money doesn’t go far in an overpriced tourist trap.  It did however keep me from breaking by allowing me to be indoors at establishments and therefore not the open game season target that I am when outside. That was the case for enough days for me to gain some strength to get in the van again.   Thank you for saving my sanity.

That note I shared on FB (can’t talk to anyone) came about because I was in tears in public and people not able to handle what happens when I get talking about the traumas that have been and are being delivered to my system by the fact of there being no shelters here and me almost broken.  Tired of being admonished in public with ‘you shouldn’t get angry with people for asking if you’re okay’ … from someone who obviously has no idea how life is out here… I am in a state that takes my head to an extreme level of logic so even the fact that I am dissolved in tears sitting at my table and someone thinks I should respond politely to the inane “are you okay?” … grates much.  And eventually my oh so logical system makes me stop and say “do I look okay?”… some are able to listen, hear and not take my anger as directed at them… not many but some.  So there’s hope. Maybe.

To save my sanity and energy now: no talking to anyone except people who are already safe for me to talk with no matter my state.  A handful here but available only if when I happen to be in same spot as they.  So intermittently being heard, but not so sure any of it is understood because although for two full years now I’ve been obviously homeless in the middle of this town and not quiet about what’s been happening to me nothing has happened that would suggest this town intends to create shelters or social housing for people here who need them.

Not the Canada you were expecting, right?  Not the Canada I want to stay in either.

So here we go Universe.  I need lawyers to unwind and end this ridiculousness on Bowen Island but I’d really like to have my 1979 issued US Resident Alien status reinstated.  If that happened I’d be making tracks to Georgia.  A place where people aren’t afraid to do what’s right when it’s needed. Without asking.  Have not felt as safe in my own country as I did down in Georgia when my abusive marriage was in its death throws.  And a neighbour came to my door with his teenage son to tell me that if my soon-to-be-ex came back, all I had to do was call and one or both of them would cross our front yards to help.

Never in Canada have I experienced this.  He’d heard what happened on that short street during the day.  That’s all it took.  That’s what good people do.  That’s who I need to be among again.

For the record, I did not voluntarily return my card to the US authorities.  Canadian border people took them from me without informing me that they had no right to touch these US documents. At all.  My son had same card then.  That was August 1981.  No internet. No way for me to know that my life was being messed with by folks with nothing better to do at midnight on a long weekend.  Canadians yet! I have since been told that I could possibly get both of them back - if I have a good lawyer.  

Within six months of trying to keep myself and kids housed, fed in south central Ontario I was ready to return to where the piddly amount of support would have allowed a much better lifestyle: Perry, Georgia.  

One of these days…