Fluidity: The Strand Magazine | Vol. 65, Issue 5

f l u id i t y

Dear

reader,

When we sat down to brainstorm themes for this magazine, uidity came to us naturally. Maybe it’s because the past two years have been a tumultuous time, and we’ve felt a stagnation—a drought, if you will. Or maybe it’s because we’re university students and are familiar with the ebbs and ows of navigating our lives, both on and o campus.

We are in a period of our lives where we’re constantly re ecting—whether we want to or not—on our past choices, how they’ve shaped our present, and more importantly, how we want to move forward. Where are we going? What di erence do we want to make, if any? How do we t into the world around us, which is changing so constantly? Our sense of self and collective identities are uid; it can be hard to recognise ourselves from one moment to the next, let alone recognise those we surround ourselves with.

Our Fall magazine re ects our contributors' attempts to ask and answer these complex questions. We have multiple considerations on family: those found and those we’re born with, how they shape our lives, and how we shape theirs. You’ll hear re ections on societal and personal struggles, including literacy, neurodivergence, deconstructing the (academic) narrative we may have created for ourselves, and how sometimes we might feel like we’re drowning.

Creating this magazine would not have been possible without the help of our Features Editor, Sam Rosati Martin, our Co-Poetry Editors, Ishika Rishi and Emma MacKenzie, our Photo Editor, Kelsey Phung, and our Co-Art Editors, Shelley Yao and Seavey van Walsum. ank you for making this process supportive and collaborative, for being adaptable in moments when we hit rough waters, and for allowing us to pour our ideas into a shared pond.

We hope the pages of the magazine leave you paused, speechless, and hovering in moments of uid introspection and emotion. Don’t forget to take a deep breath before you dive in.

With ever- owing love, Janna and Rion Editors-in-Chief

Eugene Kim Maeve Ellis Wendy Wan Nicholas Tam

Yoon-Ji Kweon, Jennifer Fong Li, Callie Silverton, Arthur Hamdani, July Hu, Faith Dong

Romina Emtyazi, Sakura Armstrong, Riya Uxa

features associate copy associate design associate associate photo editor illustration team editorial assistants design team visual team copy team Janna Abbas, Rion Levy

CONTENTS CONTENTS

Chloe Loung, Wendy Wan, Janna Abbas, Rion Levy Nicholas Tam, Kelsey Phung, Nicolette Kemerer So ja Stankovic, Kieran Guimond, Faith Wershba

Janus Kwong

Sam Rosati Martin

Ishika Rishi, Emma Mackenzie Roensa Salija Shelley Yao, Seavey van Walsum

Kelsey Ngan Phung

editors-in-chief production manager features editor poetry editors senior copyeditor art editors photo editor design editor

Chloe Loung

air ow uidity and change collage don't ail sh goddess the death of a quiznos this bus stop was a coral reef once haikus brain so bonkers, willy wonkers the blue to come home to making peace with the ocean the uidity of literacy and why it matters in canada pan de esta static pressure

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Max Lees

Faith Wershba

Zoe Crepp Eugene Kim Anya Shen Ben Murphy Shelley Yao Amanda Solomon Geetanjali Kapre Angel Bella Subhi Jha Samir Mechel

Gabriel Sanchez-Ortega

Max Lees

Paused, speechless swallowed by a tea mug gentle whispers rise up: cinnamon, cardamom, ginger Footsteps fall leaves dance with the absurdity of Wednesday blown out of bounds by the eternal breath of October

airflow

So on the sidewalk sunbeams tiptoe across the earth and stream into a corner of the mind, projecting children shouting smalltown shu es candy apple poison lips suspended over open air every avour of now drips down to the fruit peeling the pit facing out e wind speaks a language that ngernails dragging through esh cannot hear nutmeg, allspice, going, gone Arm outstretched like a lover, palm open willow tree lowers itself to the ground take my hand yesterdays last yea rs tomorrows breathe d in tossed out swirl over pavement A branch reaches out to me –I take it.

words by max lees photos by max lees

When I was two, I had a green eece onesie that I wore non-stop. It practically became part of my body, blurring the boundary between where I ended and where the harsh, outer world began. My mom tells me that she had to wait until I was asleep to take it o of me so that she could put it in the laundry. So, it seems I never was particularly good with change.

For the past 20 years, home has been the brick-red house tucked inside a sleepy suburb outside New York City. My bedroom is the bedroom I slept in when I was three years old; I still have hazy memories of how the shadows danced across the walls as my mom told me bedtime stories. My life has been marked by familiarity, and I’ve grown to nd comfort in predictability. Sure, I nd exhilaration in surprises every now and then. But change—especially looming, anticipated change—creates a subsuming smog of anxiety. It lls my mind with nightmarish ‘what if’ scenarios and winds my heart up like a metronome. e greater the change, the greater the fear: joining a new club? Perhaps a smidge of social anxiety, but nothing I can’t handle. Graduating university and entering into the vast, unknown, chaotic adult world? Heart-shakingly terrifying.

I used to think I knew what I wanted in life. I was a science kid, someone who was on track to pursue a career in research. I repeated this narrative to myself over and over, committing to a version of myself that I was convinced was the ‘right’ one. Never mind that I had questions about the scienti c process beyond biochemical mechanisms. Never mind that I found working in the lab kind of miserable most days. Never mind that I loved my philosophy of science courses much more than I did organic chemistry. I would not allow myself to stray from the path I had envisioned: I am someone who follows through, I told myself.

I am now in my fourth and nal year of university. I am still studying life science, and I’m on track to receive degrees in Human Biology and Immunology. To be clear, I don’t regret my choice of study; I have genuinely loved my

courses, and they have expanded my thinking in ways I could not have predicted.

Yet I now face a set of questions. What next? Where do I see myself? What is the ‘right’ decision? In pondering such questions, I realised that each one is actually broken down into a set of choices: Do I follow my curiosities, pursuing what I truly love? Or do I follow the path that I set out for myself, the one that I think I should?’

I know that my interests have changed over the past four years; I can’t deny that. My brain lights up by talking about epistemology and research structure, not epistasis and cellular structure. Yet I feel a sense of shame in admitting such changes, as though my dispassion for scienti c details demonstrates something fundamentally wrong with me. Why don’t I feel passionate about this? Where has my intellectual drive gone? Am I just lazy? And then comes the dreaded ‘what if’ spiral: What if you can’t nd a job? What if you can’t make it in the adult world? What if you can’t handle change?

~

Oftentimes, change still feels like someone is trying to peel me out of my onesie, stripping me of its comfort and familiarity. Change feels like being exposed to a blizzard completely naked, the wind chiselling me into sharp, fragmented pieces until I’m nothing but a shrivelled core. It feels like a bar of soap slipping through my ngers in the shower, tangible yet elusive, tumbling downward towards the drain. Change feels hard.

I’ve been brushing up against these feelings lately: a sense of tension as I try to cling to the ever-shifting present, while change looms large in the periphery. I am all too aware of the temporality of my current situation, cognisant that I’m on the precipice of another stage of life. It feels like I’m on the edge of a canyon, trying to muster up the courage to leap across the chasm and reach the other side. Point A to point B, with only darkness in between. Perhaps this conception of change is what’s holding me back. Change happens in the small moments; it is made up of in nitesimal, uid, continuous transitions. It is not some binary between ‘then’ and ‘now.’ ere is no ‘four years ago self’ versus ‘present self.’ ere is just me. Learning, growing, changing, evolving.

Change is part of life. Life exists in dynamic equilibrium, a constant ux of actions and reactions that maintain universal balance. We are adaptive, resilient beings, responding to the vagaries of our unpredictable existences. e earth is always spinning, and things are ever-shifting. At the microcosmic level, such shifts may feel like disturbances, disruptions. But if I can zoom out and consider the greater picture, I might just nd an intricately balanced sea of experiences, ebbing and owing as they gently guide me toward where I’m meant to go.

words by faith wershba illustration by yoon-ji kweon

e process for this piece started with a base image of my grandparents, Clomin and Bill Smith, getting married. In a sense, this photo is a representation of the beginning of our mixed-race family, as they were the rst interracial couple on either side of my lineage. It highlights how with mixedrace children, people o en declare that a family only starts at the point where they ‘o cially’ become ‘mixed.’

e people in this collage are my cousins and me as children. e static I layered over these images represents how society chooses to ignore the ‘mix’ in us—people o en see me as fully white and my cousins as fully Black. I believe race is a uid spectrum, and with my work I hope to highlight how many people can exist within this range, all with their own unique experiences and appearances.

e poems behind the collage’s imagery are excerpts: one that I wrote called “People Always Tell Me” that expresses annoyance with white people’s perception of my racial identity and another by Maya Angelou called “Still I Rise” that famously engages with ideas of Black resilience.

is assemblage of media expresses my opinions on how people perceive my family and also the common experiences related to perception and confusion of mixed-race youth.

words by zoe crepp art by zoe crepp

artist sta tem ent

Don't Flail

words by eugene kim illustration by callie silverton

Amyriad of mechanical parts work in tandem, each performing a unique duty in order to produce a singular, uni ed movement, the summation of the synchronicity between appendages and limbs and trunk. In this manner, the human body, quite peculiarly, resembles a machine whose function is to produce a constant ow of movement, ceaselessly pushing forth. e ow of the body is unique in that it is incredibly malleable, contorting into many forms at the behest of its person—it is no wonder this ow has been immortalized in countless works of art.

Similarly, a body of water exhibits a continuous ow that can take an innite number of forms. Yet, while the ow of the body seeks to traverse, the ow of water seeks to immerse. What arises is a fascinating intersection between the two ows.

ere is no better way to understand the essence of something than to go through it oneself. I sat down with Varsity Blues swimmer and four time national champion Michael Sava to learn about his experiences.

The butterfly is known as the most difficult and tiring stroke. What made you decide to compete in that event?

Sava: “The fly has a lot of notoriety for being difficult and challenging, so people didn't really want to swim [fly] at practice. I was the only one who wanted to, and my coach was like, ‘okay, then you're swimming in these events at competitions.’ In Canada, there's not too many people who are into the 200 fly specifically, because it takes a lot of work and a lot of focus.”

e butter y is not necessarily a technique intuitive to even the most natural of swimmers, with a phenomenal amount of skill and e ort required in order to succeed. Perhaps this is a signi er of its ability to push the uidity of the body to its limit.

A competitive swimmer responds to the ow of still water. What, then, can the body do in response to a moving body of water? What happens to the ow of the body when it is redirected into the ow of a boat or another cra ?

In search of this answer I also conversed with Seavey van Walsum, who runs whitewater kayaking, to learn about their experiences.

How familiar do you need to be with whitewater? Do you need a good understanding of the flow?

Van Walsum: “Yeah, of course. No matter how good you are as a paddler, you always have to scout every rapid that you do. You have to scout from the top and the bottom, which is partially why on whitewater trips—even though you might be going where [the river] is carrying you—you won’t go as far as a atwater trip, because you have to get out and scout each rapid.

“What de nes whitewater is elevation, constriction, and volume. “[ e di culty of a rapid] depends on the rapid. You can have a rapid that’s very big, and it can look very scary. But the maneuvers are very simple and so it's easy to navigate. You can also have something that's much smaller, but it's a lot bonier, meaning more rocks and very low levels of water.”

at’s the beauty of a cra , acting as an intermediary between the oppressive ow of the river and the responsive ow of the body. For a swimmer, there is no such grace. e window of observation is replaced by the imperative need to move.

Sava: “With all strokes, there's a sort of a catch, a pull, and a recovery phase—I would say you could break [a stroke] up into three. Catch is when your hands first enter the water. They should be around shoulder width apart. You should try to feel your body on top of the water and press on it. Everything has to be smooth

in the water. One phase leads into the other. If it’s too robotic, it doesn't work; you have to build momentum and a rhythm and keep it going. “Then you get into the pull, which is the ‘power’ part of the stroke, where you pull back on the water. And you're supposed to breathe—I like to breathe every stroke, but that's mostly because it’s the 200m.

“When you breathe, you have to sort of extend your chin above the water and be completely flat. Can't go too high up, can’t go too low, because otherwise you would hit the water. It has to be just always going forward. “Then you get to the recovery—that's when all the photos are taken, Michael Phelps or Ryan Lochte or whatnot. You bring your arms over the water and your fingers, like, your thumb should be facing down. It should be nice, smooth, that's where you're supposed to be resting. But it's also, like, you’re whipping your arms forward.

To go forward is for the ow of the body to overpower the opposing ow of the water. In doing so, one exists not in that nebulous, quivering hesitancy characteristic of our mortal state of being, but in an inseparable ow of thought, movement, and habit. With the assistance of a cra , however, a di erent understanding becomes possible.

How would you describe the butterfly stroke to someone unfamiliar with it?

There are a lot of factors in determining the flow of the river and navigating the rapids. Can you summarize the general experience?

Van Walsum: “You pull the boats aside, you scout the rapids—so you look at it from the top, and you look at it from the bottom and you make landmarks, so that when you're going down the rapids you can respond to how the river flows. I get a very strong rush of adrenaline. As soon as the water hits, it's entirely calm. It's hitting calm and like the eye of the storm. I seem very stressed from the outside, but everything is apparent in what I have to do next.”

It seems like a fairly dangerous activity. What motivates you to continue doing it?

Van Walsum: “I like how I feel when I complete something that I wasn’t confident I was able to complete. And then I just perceive myself as a different person who can problem-solve. That's why I return to it.

“Also another thing is that it’s an individual sport that can very easily not be competitive because it's so creative. Oftentimes with sports that are route-based, you get people who are willing to help each other problem-solve.

“I’m really happy to have entered into that sort of space in terms of working out. I was raised in a very conservative environment—I skied, ran cross country, and played various different team sports. In those it was all about winning or finishing before someone else, but if you're on a trip, like an expedition where you have to complete whitewater, it's about getting everyone through. You have to uplift your weakest members rather than cut them from the team.”

Van Walsum: “It's definitely a collaboration—you can’t really defy the way that the river wants to go. You can get sucked into one spot, you can flip, you can get pinned. I think you need to be more respectful, but also a little bit cheekier with the water.”

What would you say the biggest difference of your relationship with the water as a paddler is compared to a swimmer who swims in open waters?

Whitewater in all its magnitude renders the need for a harmony in the ow of the body and ow of the water. One cannot overestimate the machinations of their body, for the titanic ow of the river will swallow them whole.

Still water has been defanged, so rather than a symbiosis, it is a severance, necessitating a reconciliation between the uid capability of the body and its ability to execute precise minutiae.

Sava: “You could be physically strong, but that only gets you so far. And then you could also just be naturally talented in the water, but if you don't go to the gym or go to practice, you won't get to where you want to be. You need a balance between good technique, and lots of physical conditioning to maintain that technique for whatever distance you're swimming.

“You can't just go to practice and go through the motions, you have to constantly be thinking.”

How do you reconcile making sure that you're performing the stroke correctly, but also, like you said, ensuring your movement isn’t robotic and has a consistent flow in the water?

Michael Sava and Seavey van Walsum’s words express the bilateral nature of the relation between the body and water, not dissimilar from any other relation. After all, we do not exist in a vacuum. Every flow, every movement can be connected to another, no matter how faint or palpable.

Van Walsum: “If you want to get yourself out of a hole, it’s a good metaphor. If you think about the flowing river, there's going to be the same features. So there's going to be at ease where it's something just like swirls. There are also going to be holes. So how do you dig yourself out of a hole?

“With whitewater, what you do is you curl up into a ball and try to sink down and swim underneath the water until you're out of that spot. So you could read that a couple different ways. If it’s facing downstream, you could try to swim towards where it's weak, like in the middle, and then swim down and then it'll flush you out. If it’s facing upstream that's impossible because there's no weaker spots. If you want to get to the weaker spots you would have to swim upstream and that just kind of puts you back into where it's strongest. I guess you could mix and match that however you’d like, especially if you're going through the flow of life like the flow of a river.

“My whitewater advice on it is curl up into a ball, sink, and swim the hardest you’ve ever swam. Don’t flail.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What advice would you give from your experiences?

F i s h G o d d e s s

by anya shen

A major source of suffering for salmon and other farmed fish is the abundant presence of sea lice, which thrive in the filthy water. These lice create open lesions and sometimes eat down to the bones on a fish’s face—a phenomenon common enough that it is known as the “death crown” in the industry.

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

Monster or lover. Predator or prey. Friend or food. O end not the species who wears the crown of death. Shouldn’t your mother have taught you better, kid?

Come closer. Don’t mind the gore, it will all be gone at the command of the next bidder with the highest price. Look into my eyes. I want you to remember them. My silver-green dark and mysterious eyes that once told stories. Crusted with vermin and de ating in my shredded cheeks, unblinking. ey will not close even after the end of the meal. Come closer; I want to tell one last story. You can touch my body if you want, if you don’t mind the slime and grease from the ngers of other children. e body of the dynasty’s last daughter of the sea, drying out on a bed of crushed ice smelling of lemon and guts. e bodies of humans have always been entwined with bodies of sh.

I can understand it. Love, lust, fear, and violence bind us together. It is only human instinct to revel in the thrill of conquering round, smooth, wet, confoundingly wonderful bodies with bare hands. ey like

to kiss esh with tongue when it’s still warm o the knife’s edge. ey like the danger of spending too long, getting too close, going too far on their imsy pieces of architecture, discovering our land which is not land. ey never discovered much. ey never gured out how to breathe in water without cheating.

What they did discover was science, history, poetry. It’s all stories. ere are beautiful, frightening stories that they tell.

ere are stories about the Tiktaalik, the sh that grew a spine and limbs and became man. Before you know it, your bones too, will end up in a museum for another species’ children to gawk at. In the anthropocene wing, no one’s going to remember what a dinosaur was. ere are stories about creation and home, about shell creatures that hold up the world for the people who came from the stars. ere are stories about old men and the sea and young men chasing whales with strange names; the men always come home with nothing at the end of the day, but they like to tell me about how that makes the stories important. Most of all, there are stories about pretty girls, dangerous girls, dead girls. Tell a sister to keep an eye on her sealskin, take good care of her wild green hair, send my best regards to Odysseus coming home late, and sink Columbus’ goddamn ship when she has a chance.

en there are beautiful, frightening stories they do not tell.

I would tell you that it comes in the night, because that is how the story starts when humans want their children to be afraid, but that would not be true. ere is no night when you cannot decipher the direction of the light under the writhing, bleeding, sinking bodies of your neighbours.

Neighbours, not siblings. We are not so close. We lose our

illustration by jennifer fong li

words

Water is the most beautiful thing in the world, and this world is a place worth fighting for.

siblings at birth,

naturally.

It is always coming. It is always night. In swarms, in hives, in chaotic splatters of wriggling legs, teeth, antennae. Order and violence are both natural evolutionary instincts. is is not natural anymore. ere is no order amidst the pulsing, frantic gore of violence like this.

What comes to mind when you think of salmon? Every harvest season, the salmon follow the stars home, so their children may begin their voyage from the same place as their ancestors. When I close my eyes, I think of the old faithful shimmer of travelling sh, silver under moonshine. When I open my eyes, I see sh shipwrecked with children unborn, and apologies too-late strewn across riverbanks, dry for the rst time in history. e dynasty of sh decays under the crown of death. e sh goddess of once upon a time lies dehydrating on the rocks like a common whore waiting for a cab that isn’t coming.

Still, if humans insist on being descendants of sh, I’d believe it. Sharp bones and vicious teeth and majestic monstrosity run in the bloodline. Silver hooks on mysterious lines bind us, one species with another. ey shouldn’t have toyed with chemicals they couldn’t control, and they’ve gotten too good at nding things that didn’t want to be found. But you all are my children still. It’s coming for you too, you know. None of this is anyone’s fault, I know. Water is the most beautiful thing in the world, and this world is a place worth ghting for. Truth and love and everything all boils down to that. Where there is life, there is water, and

where there is water, there is life. Water is the origin of existing in tandem—taking care of the others that keep us alive. at means holding your baby cousin’s hand as they taste their rst snow like it’s chocolate ice cream. That means call-

Water is the origin of existing in tandem—taking care of the others that keep us alive.

The Death of a

Derelict but dancing, He stands somewhere in between A grimace and a grin. What is he thinking?

The posters on his window Are rendered inconsequential. Every sale couldn’t Keep the doors open, Couldn’t keep the children smiling.

There’s a hole in the wall, His battle wound, A stinging reminder that he lost To the one across the street.

Rats and cockroaches Are his only customers now. For the three of them are alike; They are unwanted, unloved, unsung. They bind together, To trudge through life.

Quiznos

And that is why his glass windows still twinkle Even though wooden boards Keep the sun from ever reaching the tiled floor.

Asbestos pipes

Drip dingy water Onto unwiped countertops.

A plastic bag is caught On a loose nail that protrudes from the crumbling ceiling. It, like him, cannot move towards prosperity. Because before they can be reborn, Rebranded, They must decompose. Succumb to their faults And watch their rivals succeed.

Paper bags in the arms of happy customers Walk by his doors. And though the wrecking ball will come, He’s satisfied, At least those people still got a sandwich.

words and photo by ben murphy

waves crash on the shore the stone skips, bouncing three times reverberating

Creative: Kelsey Ngan Phung

Photo: Nicholas Tam

time drags on; fluid summer stumbles into fall as we drift along 25

24

24

illustrations by faith dong

Haikus Haikus

Model: Joyce Khanh Linh Nguyen

MUA: Karsen Patterson Support: Zach Dang

Brain so bonkers, Willy Wonkers

words by geetanjali kapre illustration by arthur hamdani

Maybe she was born with it, maybe it’s her ADHD prescription

When I did take them, it was for my mum. She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, with a bowl of fruit. Apples. Peeled and sliced. With a little fork. For me.

at’s the thing with ADHD. It hurts the people around you. It isn’t selfcontained. What the media portrays as a fun, distracted, TikTok-length, attention span isn’t that at all. It’s the toddler who just can’t sleep. e little girl who spends half of kindergarten in time-outs. e fourth-grader who wins an essay competition for high-schoolers. e 12-year-old who gets so sad she throws up. e freshman who gets straight A’s without studying. And now, the teenager who lashes out at her only friend—her mum. And Mum has a list, too. She paid for the piano lessons, the tennis lessons, the baking lessons, the painting lessons, the paintbrushes, the paint. She saw the paint princess, the baker’s knife, the suicidal anguish. ose slights, that quicksilver uidity.

How nothing ever holds.

She wants her daughter to write that philosophy essay for school. Her daughter also wants to write that philosophy essay for school. You’ll do such a good job, you just have to do it, the mother says. I know, the daughter agrees. I know.

I didn't believe I had ADHD ‘till I got on the meds. 36mg of Concerta, take a er meals. e bottle of pills sat unopened on my desk for two weeks.

is was my Pandora’s box. Opening it meant acknowledging something. And I refused to do that, to let whatever was inside that box spill out. Pills.

But she doesn’t write the essay. Can’t.

Two hours later, two women sit in the room, two pairs of reddened eyes. e mother is hugging the daughter. Both are wondering where they failed. How everything goes so wrong all the time. How there’s never a dull moment. How there’s never a bright moment. How the apple is now browning. Take a er meals, the prescription said. I ate the apple. I took the Concerta.

One minute passed. I felt normal. Two minutes. I needed to go drink water—crying makes you thirsty. ree minutes—I peeled my new FKA Twigs stickers o the sheet and stuck them to my laptop. Epicurus and FKA Twigs would make a good couple, I think. Five minutes—I didn’t think it was going to work. I should just start my essay anyway.

Seven hours later—complete essay, complete math homework, clean room. Um.

People want to know what having ADHD is really like. “What isn’t it like?” is my witty response, because I don’t really have an answer, because this is life, how it has been, how it will be in whatever time there is to come. When I’m on Concerta, I have linear, chronological thoughts. at’s what the ‘normal’ brain should do, I guess. Not operate on jump ropes. But that feels like I’m somebody else, like that one Wizards of Waverly Place episode where Alex got Harper’s brain. I don’t like Concerta. It gets stu done, but it makes the brain rigid.

Less creative.

at’s the ADHD paradox: forced uidity.You can go anywhere, think of anything, be anything; you just don’t get to decide what happens when. You’re nebulous, narcissistic, narcotic. You’re the nicest girl he’s ever met.

But he doesn’t quite get you, and you don’t know how to tell him that you don’t quite get yourself, because there’s nothing to get. Are you sure you aren’t bipolar, he says. Yes.

en I don’t know what to do with you. And I don’t know either. I don’t have autonomy. Even on my best days, I don’t have autonomy. I will never get to pick what my brain decides to do.

It’s like roulette.

And roulette can be exciting, too.

I can sit alone for hours on end with a funny electricity churning out psychedelic poetry.

I have a riveting graveyard of eight-day hobbies I can unleash at any point. Roulette is exciting, funny, thrilling, darling, even. Until it isn’t.

Until the assignments and dishes and unanswered calls and unwished birthdays start piling up.

I wish I had never taken Concerta because it showed me what ‘normal’ was. A mirror, telling me what life should be like. Smooth and cool and calm. Pandora’s box was never hers to open.

Living in India, it was a monolith of a privilege to get diagnosed. Very few do. In school, I was ‘too smart’ to have ADHD. In friend groups, there was the "hahaha even I probably have ADHD lol, I can never get o Instagram." In my dad’s car, "Doctors diagnose you with all kinds of shit so they make more money." It’s always interesting to me, to see what society chooses to accept. Percy Jackson can have ADHD. John Mulaney can have ADHD. Emma Watson ‘doesn’t seem like’ she has ADHD. Geetanjali Kapre ‘doesn’t seem like’ she has ADHD. e question of gender is inevitable when you talk about neurological diversity. Most psychological studies are based on monkeys and men. Very little psychiatric research about women exists. Autism and ADHD are brutally underdiagnosed in women because we don’t experience what society expects to see. Not all of us are loud, boisterous jocks who fail algebra and don’t care that they failed algebra. We don’t think it’s funny, being late to a cousin’s wedding.

We don’t think it’s funny, making your mother cry. But people don’t see that.

Society wants to control disorder. Put palmistry on paper. Snap and tinker and plate and play ‘till everyone is the same. It’s quite funny if you think about it. It always happens like this with uidity. Society wants to be progressive, wants people to be themselves, but only some people, and only when it's chic and cool. Harry Styles can wear a dress. Fluidity is en vogue. But Montero is ‘too gay and sexual.’ Spot the di erence. Booyah.

Race, gender, money.

All because of one failing neurotransmitter. e ADHD diagnosis is life-changing, but it doesn’t really change your life, not in the beginning, anyway. Having a lustrous label for liability changes the way people perceive and respond to your life. It changes how your family plans their future. It changes how Mum has to defend your intelligence at parent-teacher conferences. Eventually, it changes how you see your future, your past, everything in between. It changes your thoughts on your career: you can’t work a nine-to- ve desk job now, can you? It changes your thoughts on love: you can’t keep a husband now, can you?

You aren’t the wild horse, you’re the rider. e question of controlling water. And you don’t have the reins. How is that uidity?

A er nally accepting my ADHD diagnosis, I sunk into a long philosophical journey of narcissistic self-evaluation. I worshipped that methylphenidate mirror.

Not smart.

I had to take a month o school. My days roughly looked like this: wake up, Diet Coke, Jim Morrison fan ction, bowl of cherries, more fan ction, perhaps some chicken nuggets, then a movie, end chapter.

Critics (my psychiatrist) will tell you that this depressive episode ended when I started taking depression medication, but intellectuals (me) can pinpoint the exact moment I decided to embrace my brain: when my little brother came and told me I looked like Willy Wonka. Um. Not attered. I think I told my brother something along the lines of “and you look like Augustus Gloop.”

Not my best work.

But then I thought about it for a bit. Willy Wonka, I mean. And not him being reclusive, or psychologically abusing children to nd an ‘heir’—but his weird haircut, terminal entrenchment in that mauve trench coat, and, despite all, his OK-ness being himself.

Having ADHD means having to be okay with tidal waves. Okay with uncertainty. Okay with the fact that I probably would never get my driver’s licence because I’m highly distractible and should never be behind the wheel. Okay with the fact that friendships and relationships will never be easy. Okay with uidity.

e question of controlling water. Never a bright moment. Never a dull one. at quicksilver uidity. Let it pass, let it go, let it ow. You’re still the little girl from the time-out chair. e winner of the essay competition, the honour-roll student. e little girl Mum ghts so hard to protect. It's a neurotransmitter babel up there, but the world is still your oyster. And even imsy uid oundering oating oysters have pearls. (don’t fact-check the science on that)

Making Peace with

Over hot cups of tea, my friends and I sit in a quiet circle late into the night. e clock reads ten past three, and at 21 years of age I am still fearful it is past my bedtime. It is a swift realisation and often buried quickly under the loud reminder of my independence. But still there. I am still my mother’s daughter.

It is a reminder that strikes at the oddest hours, like when I am squeezing tomatoes or slapping watermelons in a grocery store in Chinatown. Truth be told, I am never sure how to distinguish a good fruit from a bad one, but I hold and bounce them just like she does. A series of actions I have observed

keenly and mastered skillfully over the years. I replicate it—I am just like my mother.

On this side of Lake Ontario, the realisation is comforting. But tucked across the Naini Lake when I sat on the oor next to my mother while she got dressed for the day, it unnerved me. Cream, Powder, Sindoor, Lip Liner, Lipstick, Kajal. We would stare into the same mirror, but my eyes would be glued on her. I could never imagine myself being a woman. Girls are allowed to scream and run and cling to their papa’s legs. Girls are allowed to be their mother’s daughters all the time. Protected by Naini Lake, I was a girl.

womanhood on me. ‘Your body is changing,’ ‘you’re becoming a woman,’ ‘you need to be more aware of how you move, Subhi,’ they whispered to me, like it was meant to be a secret. So, in my overworn PE shorts and my boxy volunteer T-shirts, I rejected their offers. ey could keep their womanly secrets and I would keep my girlhood.

In my teenage bedroom, my study table faced the Pattaya Beach. My mother thought it would be a peaceful scene for me while studying; the rhythm of the waves would keep me calm. I pulled the curtains shut. I found the waves too loud, the tides too high, the continuous motion intrusive. e ocean knew how resentful I was about every change and kept taunting me on a cycle. I am a shit swimmer because of this grudge.

My mother loves the ocean. She took long walks on Pattaya Beach and took a photo of the sunset everyday. I found her ridiculous. She threw themed parties for her friends, cooking, and eating together almost every weekend. ey would stay on phone calls planning out ts before every party for hours on end. It made me nauseous. I hated wearing lipstick and my kajal would smear each time. My attempts to look like my mother were met with crushing failures each time, so I stopped trying. How is someone supposed to be a woman if they cannot look like one?

It was near the Eastern Gulf of ailand where those allowances started slowly being taken from me. It was a feeling before it was an implementation. With ‘well-meaning’ nods to ‘talk softly,’ everyone kept forcing

On this side of Lake Ontario, I am only a orded time with my grandmother in 12inch frames on WhatsApp calls. Maybe it is the pixelated video ghting against poor internet connection, or just a memory covered in nostalgia, but she concludes almost every call in soft Maithili, “just like her mother.” It is whispered like it is sacred. I am a woman because I feel like my ma. I share her features physically now—same smile, same soft jaw and sharp eyebrows. But the thing that assures me in my womanhood the most is not that I can nally face myself in the mirror when we are getting ready; it is that we are both just girls. I relish the fact that I have her temper and how the same sharp eyebrows screw together in anger. We both tear up everytime we laugh. I am a woman because I, like my ma, am desperately holding onto my girlhood.

the Ocean

I found the waves too loud, the tides too high, the continuous motion intrusive

words and photo by subhi jha

The fuidity of literacy, and why it matters in Canada

Literacy is typically taken for granted in most countries in the twenty- rst century, and, at rst glance, the data seem to support this. ere are only 13 countries where a majority of the adult population remains illiterate [1], and 87 percent of adults aged 15 and over are literate worldwide, including 90 percent of men and 83 percent of women. ere are also indicators that the situation is continuing to improve. Literacy is clearly uid between generations. In Haiti, for example, only 15 percent of the elderly population is literate, compared to 83 percent of young adults [3]. However—especially for countries with near-universal adult literacy rates—it would be an oversimpli cation to assume that basic literacy represents the functional literary: to write or understand any texts an average person might encounter or need to create without signi cant di culty.

For example, with a vocabulary of a few hundred words, one may be able to write their name and age, but lack the skills to read or write on more complex topics. ese skills are not just academic concerns but have practical e ects as well, such as the ability to understand leases, contracts, and laws. Lacking these skills can lead to massive barriers in all facets of life. erefore, the question of literacy may be better answered not with a simple "yes" or "no" but with a scale of understanding, ranging from no

words by samir mechel illustration by july hu

knowledge of characters or letters to the ability of a literary scholar. Similarly, one would not simply say they understand a topic such as science or history in an abstract sense, but instead that they

ere is a generally accepted way of measuring this uid degree of knowledge. Between 1994 and 1998, 20 countries collaborated on the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) to determine a general literacy scale. While the survey is imperfect in its methodology - it mostly consists of wealthier Indo-European language speaking countries and includes no African or Asian countries - it is still the broadest source available on measuring the ability to e ectively understand information in texts, numbers, and basic charts. e IALS de nes ve categories of literary knowledge. Level one de nes those with rudimentary skills, who may be “unable to determine the correct amount of medicine to give a child from information printed on the package.” Level two consists of those with more knowledge than level one but would nd it “di cult to face novel demands, such as new job skills.” Level three is where full literacy begins, with skills “suitable for coping with the demands of everyday life and work.” Levels four and ve, not relevant here, include those with “higher-order information processing skills” [4]. is more nuanced understanding is useful in evaluating the uid distribution and range of literary skills among a population.

Despite boasting an o cial literacy rate of about 99 percent, 49 percent of Canadian adults cannot read or write above level two [5], while a minimum of level three is required to live and participate to a full degree in the modern world. In other words, nearly half of Canadian adults are at least partially illiterate, with 15 percent scoring at level one, functionally illiterate [6]. Instinctively, one may blame younger people for this trend, perhaps due to a lack of reading, or overuse of the internet. However, it is older Canadians who are less likely to be literate. is is due to declining cognitive abilities, lower use of phones and computers (which create regular exposure to written language), and, most importantly, lack of tasks involving literacy such as school and work.

pill bottles. 27 percent fall into level two, making four out of ve of older Canadians not fully literate, and over half functionally illiterate [7]. Between the ages of 56 and 65, the numbers fall to the still high percentages of 38 and 26 in levels one and two, respectively [7]. Literacy is not something to be taken for granted, and as Canadian and world populations continue to age due to various medical advancements, these older and less literate groups will continue to form a larger proportion of the population, further raising the overall percentage of individuals lacking basic literacy skills.

Literacy skills are not only uid among di erent age groups: they are closely connected with wealth, race, and poverty. For example, a 2005 Statistics Canada survey found that “a low skilled

have a degree of knowledge ranging from minimal to highly advanced. Not only is literacy uid in generations and countries, but it is uid in its very de nition.

Literacy, like any other skill, erodes over time with lack of use. According to statistics from the Centre for Literacy of Quebec, 53 percent of Canadians over age 65 fall into level one of the IALS measurement [7], making it di cult, for example, to understand prescription and safety information on

adult is two times more likely to be unemployed compared to a medium to high skilled adult” [8], low skilled meaning IALS level two or lower. e text also states, “[l]ow skilled adults are more likely than medium to high skilled adults to experience … labour force inactivity for six or more months” [8], due to the di culty in nding new jobs. Low literacy is an issue of social justice. Illiteracy means not being able to complete services like online banking. It means not being able to further one’s education, even if one does have the time and resources. It means being unable to complete applications or navigate websites for employment and services, further perpetuating the cycles of poverty that contribute to illiteracy in the rst place.

With this information, it is unsurprising that the situation is also worse for Indigenous peoples. While Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with similar levels of education score similarly on the IALS, a disproportionate amount of Indigenous people live in poverty and/or have a low level of education due to the history of colonialism, ongoing discrimination, and systemic racism in Canada. is has caused a higher proportion of Indigenous peoples to have lower literacy scores, ranging from 70 percent in Saskatchewan to 52 percent in Ontario (compared to 47 percent of non-Indigenous people in Ontario) [9]. While

Low literacy is an issue of social justice.

there are issues with the methodology of these surveys, such as including only those who live o -reserve, and not acknowledging whether a respondent's rst language may be neither French nor English, this does show the impact of underfunded services and racialized poverty on a ected groups’ education and skills. Even First Nations individuals with a level three or above score are still signi cantly less likely to be employed than equally skilled non-First Nations individuals, at 75 percent and 91 percent, respectively [10]. e

contains nearly four- fths of Ontario's and over a third of Canada’s immigrant population. Still, less than 5 percent of Ontarians, immigrant or otherwise, participate in adult literacy programs [13]. Because illiteracy is often shamed or used as a punchline, many are reluctant to seek out the help they need, not to mention accessibility issues, and the declining public access to sources of aid, as shown by Laurentian’s situation and the declining share of public funding of non-compulsory education in Canada.

federal government admits that “Non-Aboriginal adults aged 25 to 54 with lower literacy skills (level 2 or lower) were more likely to be employed than o -reserve First Nations adults with higher skills (level 3 or higher), even after accounting for other factors related to the probability of employment.” [10] is shows the power of the systemic racism and marginalisation that even more well-educated Indigenous individuals face, and it is especially relevant as Canada sees inadequate, reduced funding and opportunities for Indigenous education, such as at Laurentian University [11], whose program was shuttered after the institution’s nancial insolvency. Any conversation about literacy in Canada must centre these realities. Fluidity in literacy is rarely a passive phenomenon, but one that is actively enforced through social inequality. e impact of racism is also evident in the situation for immigrants in Canada, as “both low and medium to high skilled immigrants are disadvantaged in terms of employment, even compared to low skilled native-born adults.” [12] is is particularly relevant to the GTA, which

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in the 2012 case Moore v. British Columbia (Education) that all Canadians, regardless of learning disabilities, have the right to learn to read, this standard is far from realised. All this does not mean that basic literacy statistics are useless or intentionally deceptive. ey record what they intend to: the simple ability to understand letters and basic sentences. However, they do lack a degree of nuance in isolation, nuance which is especially important when examining the situations of, for example: the elderly; Indigenous peoples; and immigrants. Literacy is a liquid phenomenon, not a binary one, and it is only through such an understanding that this problem can be properly identi ed and acted upon.

Felluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical eory. Purdue U, 28 Nov. 2003, www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/. Accessed 10 May 2006.

[1] World Bank. “Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above),” https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS.

[2] UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “Chad,” http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/td.

[3] UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “Haiti,” http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/ht

[4] National Centre for Educational Statistics. “Frequently Asked Questions,” https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/ials/faq. asp?FAQType=5

[5] Statistics Canada. “University graduates with lower levels of literacy and numeracy skills,” 2015 November 27, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2014001/article/14094-eng.htm

[6] Conference Board of Canada. “All Signs Point to Yes: Literacy’s Impact on Workplace Health and Safety,” 2008, page 4, www.brantskillscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/All-Signs-Point-to-Yes-Literacys-Impacton-Workplace-Health-Safety.pdf

[7] e Centre for Literacy. “Seniors and literacy: Revisiting the issue,” 2004, www.centreforliteracy.qc.ca/sites/ default/ les/Seniors_and_literacy.pdf

[8] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Statistics Canada “Learning a Living: First Results of the Adult Literacy Survey,” 2005, page 214, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-603-x/89-603x2005001-eng.htm

[9] e Conference Board of Canada. “Adults With Inadequate Literacy Skills,” 2022, https://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/provincial/education/adlt-lowlit.aspx

[10] Statistics Canada. “Literacy and numeracy among o -reserve First Nations people and Métis: Do higher skill levels improve labour market outcomes?” 18 May 2016, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2016001/ article/14630-eng.htm

[11] CBC News. “Loss of Indigenous studies program would re ect poorly on Laurentian, prof says,” May 4 2022, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/indigenous-studies-program-cuts-laurentian-university-1.6013039

[12] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Statistics Canada. “Learning a Living: First Results of the Adult Literacy Survey,” 2005, page 206, www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-603-x/89-603-x2005001eng.htm

[34] Community Literacy of Ontario. “Literacy in Ontario,” 2005, www.communityliteracyofontario.ca/literacy-in-ontario-2/literacy-in-ontario/

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The impact of racism is also evident in the situation for immigrants in Canada, as “both low and medium to high skilled immigrants are disadvantaged in terms of employment, even compared to low skilled native-born adults.”

Pan de Fiesta

words by gabriel sanchez-ortega

“Se dice pan de esta,” My father says to me. Pan de esta, Bread for the feast.

I held the image in my hands, But never knew its taste.

In the playground of the school ey pull me by the arms. ey accuse me of things I haven’t done. ey do not speak my language.

ey do not understand.

Away from my home, I bury myself in another language, Hoping to be understood.

When my grandfather falls ill, In my broken tongue I tell him that I love him— He does not understand.

And with the years that pass Like haze over the hills

With the glow of ever-present longing, A memory returns:

My mother singing songs In my mother tongue. A family gathering, Where the children dance And sing.

Behind the wheel

I weave threads of silk between transports and caravans, dodge bullets that glide under the dash into a sea of stars.

You have a heavy foot like my mother You’re going too fast e underground lurches, squeals to keep up with the churning above, tensions and intentions slip out of alignment. You’re going to be late Rushing into the station, passenger train devours tracks –Welcome to Tuesday papers, please We’ve arrived early I le my head in the clouds, I can’t go back

Listen carefully, jump with both hands: Hit the target catch the second –I jump I knock on the door the minute hand misses,

I land

On the oor, trapeze artists swim through the air above I am getting up, on the oor, getting up, Hurry up

Get a grip Tidal waves slip through my ngertips Get it together e moon and the earth I grasp with each hand ey pull me apart as I draw them in.

s t a t i c

p r e s s u r e

words by max lees photos by max lees