Last year, The Albertan Queer Affirmation Review identified the importance of empowering Queer story tellers. Through its ways, Treaty guarantees that Two Spirit folks & others should be able to live in our cities and schools. Queer people have the grand joy that, in being true to ourselves we make room for & affirm Treaty; the same Treaty that allows us to be our own true selves lets others do the same. Through this, Queer spaces become magic spaces, and stories maintain that magic. By grace and good fortune, we've raised enough to gather Queer writers and promote their stories. Today's story does that in its own way; what follows comes from being Queer in Treaty 7.
The Sweetest Raspberries - A story by Mattie Nighean McMillan
Whenever I have the chance and the go-ahead, I am a berry picker. I didn’t always admit it but I knew it, mainly because berries are so damn delicious.
For the low cost of a low squat or bend I can fill my hands, my mouth, and my pail with pockets of sweet and tart and caloric-punch. It can be hard to find or get that many berries, especially on common paths. Any beaten path that would give me an edge to get to those glorious berries no doubt make it easier for others to get there ahead of me. Any absence of a path brings all sorts of language from me as the scrapes and scratches amount, but at least there will be better berries ahead; if I don’t see them when I’m done, I mustn’t be done, and so I go on.
Every summer of my boyhood, berries would be a priority. I would find my handful of berries and look out to the lake to see adults of all sorts boating about the water; by sail, by motor, and by far most elegant of all, the well timed dips of paddles from canoe-a-plenty. Into the water, a heavy pull, a quick and gentle slide out to repeat the task.
By the time I had a personal introduction to puberty, all I wanted to do on that lake was to move about on my own accord, my own paddle, away. To wander to the rocky outcrops to lounge, or picnic, or even sample a berry or two from another shore. Those summers came with all sorts of strength and muscle that could flow into that once little me. That new strength meant I could take even the metal freighter canoe out of the bay, to the creek, and well beyond. I could do it, but the cost of getting there was steep for me.
That first puberty - the introductory one - was not my cup of tea. Though many saw me as a good man, I was anything but. I was trans & keeping as safe as I thought I could be deep down in a Prairie closet. Scars of that puberty will always be with me but I eventually got about stopping the damage; I took hormone blockers to stop what I made too much of locally & took preferred hormones to fill the gaps.
Though many saw me as a good man, I was anything but.
And after a long autumn, and a longer winter, spring brought an invitation back to that water and I made my return back to that lake.
I hadn’t the confidence to wear a swimsuit, so I didn’t.
I barely had the confidence to get from home to the lake, but I did.
I saw that canoe, looked at it, thought a bit, and knew it was something I could do.
So at the first chance to escape from others, to get my own time with the wind and with the water, I hopped in and wandered out. Just like before.
I was doomed
I slipped away from the shore and as the depth gradually grew the boat made its way out of the bay. With just a hint of the greater lake, and just as a smile came about from the light wind on my face, I did the math and made the stark realization that I was doomed.
The strength that made it possible for me years earlier to so easily harness that canoe, the strength that came with that introductory puberty was gone. As the canoe began to pursue its destiny in the wind, I tried fighting it but I had another smirk come across my face. Like Mario running out of a Mushroom, my body was at its normal & it’s normal wasn’t enough to overcome that breeze with ease anymore. I smiled affirmed because this was the normal that made me feel normal. But it also left me doomed.
The canoe drifted further across the lake and I managed to keep any anxiety of the situation at bay and began working the problem. “If I don’t have the might, I’ll flag a boat down to make it right.” It rhymed much easier than it produced; managing only to flag one boat down. “Ahoy” is the standard maritime greeting I was familiar with, but I was greet with the slightly less used greeting, “Show us your tits!” Again I was affirmed, certainly a different kind of affirmation, but still doomed. The type who would yell that kind of dribble often overlaps with those who do not necessarily like the styles of early-mid transitioning Trans folks, such was the case when they moved in and then moved on.
The canoe drifted further and my approach had to match. If I couldn’t go against the wind I could at least aim to get out of it. Though already fatigued, I used the reserves of my strength to make the paddle strokes necessary to cancel out the wind and the extra strokes in between to tuck into and behind a peninsula enough to get to land again, instead running the full run of the lake. It was not where I wanted to be, but I wanted to be there instead of the alternative; I made it.
There was lake, there was shore, and to get anywhere beyond, there was up.
With the horizontal in control, it was now a matter of the vertical. There was lake, there was shore, and to get anywhere beyond, there was up. “Up, 100 metres onwards, and mainly upwards” I muttered, as I motivated myself, stowed the canoe for later recovery, and began my way overland. Exhausted, fatigued, and with stains in my brand new white short shorts & scratches most elsewhere I advanced. Up I went, one flip flop then the other, one breathe after another, my hands holding the rocks through all odds. While my mind held the dream of still getting in warm meal and bed before the day’s end, by my poor hands moved from rock to rock to rock until they grabbed hold of pure pain, nearly dropping me from all the height I gained.
After a large yelp, after a hard climb, after a hard social contact, after a hard paddle, & with more to go, I discovered there in my hands were thorns and ahead of me, berries. The biggest, juiciest, and sweetest raspberries.
Elsewhere, they would have been gotten by a hiker or a bear or perhaps even a turkey or two, they would have been gone long before ripening so splendid, but here they flourished. Found in the right place at the right time by someone who would do them right. Oh and I did.
I gorged, I paused, and gorged again.
What was gone in strength was made up for, and then some, in that immediate short term sugar rush which got me to the summit. I added bright pinks and vivid reds to the variety of earth tones accruing in my formerly white shorts as I smacked my hands against them and began by return to the road and the kilometres journey back to base, one flip flop short short step at a time.
Affirmed, exhausted, doomed and back again, I had found the sweetest berries.
Find more from Mattie Nighean McMillan through their substack; by engaging with the Queer Springtime pilot project, which gathers writers in a salon setting and promotes their stories through this substack & podcast and through honouraria; and by collaborating through their pro bono work for community as a policy scientist and principle of Cupola Policy & Strategy.
The Queer in Treaty 7 Podcast is produced here in Treaty 7 territory, and is a call to action from The Albertan Queer Affirmation Review; an ongoing work by community curated by Cupola Policy & Strategy. You can find more, read more, and hear more through this substack, and more on the policy science behind it all at CupolaStrategy.com
Thank you for sharing your time, and for entrenching the Treaty Queer.
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