Aiteach Issue 7 Nov/Dec 23

CW/TW: Death, cancer, loss, alcohol abuse, addiction

COOKIEI CRUMBS (CON’T)

than not. It seemed disrespectful to not eat the kiss as well. I tried to make them after she passed away, but I couldn’t find kisses in Ireland so I used large Cadbury’s Buttons. Not the same. Some things will never be the same.

I’m sure of it now, it was definitely “I love you. Don’t cry.” Because she wouldn’t have used so many words.

But I was crying. Probably the hardest I had ever cried.

Later that week, I would be told that it’s harder on the person passing if they see the family members upset and I would question if I had somehow made it harder for her. Not that I could have stopped if I had tried. People say the worst things sometimes. Death is awful to witness and anyone who has seen it would know that. The mind doesn’t want to die. The body forces itself over the mind until the last things left are the eyes, and then nothing. It’s not like the movies. At least not this time it wasn’t. She wasn’t perfect, but she certainly didn’t deserve that.

Of course no one was more aware of her failings than she was. She didn’t have an easy life, and she struggled to contain a rage fuelled by some unknown shame. Many was the time I would cry and shout in private over the litany of offences I felt victim to even over the shortest visits. Over time, she softened a bit, as we all do, and her anger would subside, letting her hurt show more. She drank to quell the chaos in her conscience and like so many who fall for that trap, she found that the drink only added to it.

One Christmas morning, she woke up still drunk, or got drunk early. One, the other, or both? I was a teenager trying to still enjoy Christmas, but in a more mature way, as evidenced by my nonchalant emergence from my bedroom after the adults, thank you very much. Gone were the days of showing my unbridled enthusiasm and being brought down by adult annoyance. This year, I had properly bought her and my dad presents with my own money, earned in bagged groceries at the Kash-N-

COOKIEI CRUMBS (CON’T)

I tried to once, after the divorce, when she showed up at my college apartment drunk. I told her I didn’t have it in me to watch another parent fall into alcoholism. I had lost my whole family that year, moved out, and had started college. I was living on my own for the first time, my father’s parting words of encouragement being “you move out you stay out: you won’t be coming back here.” I said if she wanted to be in my life she would have to get sober. And she did. Ish. Mostly though, she just kept it from me better and/or I chose not to mention it. Of course, the hypocrisy of my ultimatum was that I also drank to cope with all the loss of the time.

Sometimes, I would be able to tell she was drunk during one of our frequent phone calls and I’d pointedly say “I was just talking to so-and-so about you having gone sober, how long has it been again?” After a pause she would say and I would reply “amazing. I’m so proud of you.” We were both lying and we both knew it. Cruel. But I never walked away for good.

Maybe her hurt was too obvious. Maybe we were trauma-bonded. Maybe she was literally my only chance at having a parent figure worth two shits. Probably some of all of the above. And love. She looked in when others looked away and I loved her for that. Her Christmas cookies were one of the only constants in my life for a long, long time. They always found me no matter how far from her I was.

She never gave birth to any children of her own, part of a constellation of traits that I believe point to an intersex biology. She also didn’t have her first period until eighteen, when they finally had to medically induce it. I found that out just before she died, but before the hospice. By then, I was very used to knowing things I shouldn’t.

She handled my transition better than she had handled me coming out as gay. Well, I say “coming out”: I was dragged out by my drunk father one night before dinner. Earlier that week, Tori Amos had sung to me “skating around the truth of

I

WELCOME TO THE DIVISION, RATHER THAN DIVERSITY

BI DATING! OR IS IT MORE BYE BYE? (CON’T)

WHERE DOES HEAD MEET HEART MEET BODY MEET SOUL IN THE DATING GAME?

BI DATING! OR IS IT MORE BYE BYE? (CON’T)

POETRY

By: DORN SIMON

RAINBOW LEADS TO POT OF GOLD The length it took to find my tribe When all my life there was a pride Both maned and animalistic Lovely, colourful, fantastic The rainbow colours now proudly stand As many gather hand in hand A wondrous community

The talents here are a minefield All so different yet be the same This is the nature of communities game Finding those who may feel lost Embracing diversity to bring out the best Words are failing me to describe

Offering all-inclusive unity Whether a gamer or Neurodiverse An ADHDer or suffer worse

The very essence of our Wexford Pride I waited decades to jump in

A myriad of alphabet letters

Could not have found a better union

The community keeps getting better

My writing tends to be of dark

Arts, crafts, and movie buffs Animal lovers at all costs In, Out and all about Ready to take a stand and shout Advocate for Mental Health Trans rights, or for fair wealth Clued in to many a field

The Goth in me doth tend to hark To ancient times to seek a spark Alas, Wexford Pride has hit the mark!

- Dorn Simon

PARENTING By: CC DARLINGTON

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS My partner, Marty, and I are both true lovers of the written word. Sadly though, we grew up without much diversity represented in what we read.

White, cishet families were all I ever saw in books as a child.

Someone with a disability?

Not a chance!

A character in a fat body?

Only if they’re the butt of the joke!

Naturally, as a literary lover, when I became pregnant, one of the first things I wanted to do was buy some kid’s book! As a non-binary parent, however, I began to recognise more than ever the importance of representation in promoting the values I wanted to share with my son.

In our quest for stories that mirror the beauty of a diverse world, it would be an injustice not to highlight how frustratingly whitewashed the norm is. How, to have a

bookshelf with characters who represent the very real diversity of human existence, I really have to look very fucking hard. It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t have to search for terms like ‘radical’ or ‘social justice’ to find books with black, brown, disabled, fat or queer characters in them. But I do.

And that sucks.

That being said, we found some pretty great kids books that I am happy to share with you.

1. "Don't Hug Doug (He Doesn't Like It)" by Carrie Finison Don't Hug Doug is a book about the importance of consent, respecting boundaries and understanding that expressions of affection can manifest in different ways for different people.

In the story, the main

character, Doug, models vibrant celebration of the saying ‘no’ in a variety of myriad ways bodies come in ways and the beautiful different shapes, sizes, illustrations feature a cast of colours, genders, ages and characters with a range of abilities. With vivid, colourful skin colours (including illustrations and, dare I say, purple), abilities and everyone represented in the neurodivergences. Doug’s lively, dynamic pictures, I autistic traits are challenge anyone to sensitively read this book and portrayed in his feel truly in I SHOULDN’T not aversion to awe of the HAVE TO physical beauty of contact, diversity.

SEARCH FOR passion for TERMS LIKE If I have one loud ‘RADICAL’ OR criticism, it’s harmonica maybe bands and ‘SOCIAL JUSTICE’ that there could love of TO FIND BOOKS be more collecting older WITH BLACK, rocks. representBROWN, DISABLED, ation Needless to in the FAT OR QUEER say, this book book. That is a firm being said, CHARACTERS IN favourite in our I’m really THEM. BUT I home. It’s fun, splitting hairs DO. AND THAT here. Most it’s interactive and it taught Móg pages have at SUCKS. the very important least one elderly skill of high-fiving! person somewhere in the busy scene and 2. "Bodies there’s a beautiful section at are Cool" by the end where two scenes, Tyler Feder side by side, show how the characters have grown, aged Bodies are and changed over time.

Cool is a

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS (CON’T)

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS (CON’T)

SPIRITUALITYBy: ANDREI BOYD

THE JOURNEY

Something I’ve noticed of wishing I could just go back late in my energy is this to how I was. But then one feeling of excitement for day I wake up and I feel like something that I’m not I’m a new person. I have a consciously aware of. On the totally new perspective and I surface I’m actually quite feel lighter and more anxious about my path and grounded in my energy than the direction I want to take ever before. I look back at but I can’t shake this what might have been a tremendous anticipation for month of absolute misery something that I feel and think, ‘oh my is coming into my God, I get it! I see world. This is why I went PAIN AND where I become through all of STRUGGLE HAVE very aware of that’. how the spirit BEEN MAJOR It’s like the spirit and the body FORCES OF can see my can work on CHANGE IN MY future and different levels. knows that I’ll It can be very LIFE come to this place difficult to look feeling stronger and past what we see in better equipped to front of us. We focus on move through the next stage what we can do and forget to of my journey. The spirit will just ‘be’. In my experience send us little signs to let us the spirit has always steered know we’re on the right path me right. Of course, when we or that a period of struggle is are in the depths of a leading to something transformation it can feel like wonderful. In our pursuit of we’ll never feel joy again. I achievement we often miss certainly spend much of my these signs. I like meditation time cursing my path and

THE JOURNEY (CON’T)

for the better.

I remind myself that without pain we could not experience pleasure. I align with the belief that contrast is the necessary evil in understanding who we are. We must be faced with that which we are not!

Healing and growth come in the most unlikely forms but I bet if you look back at your life you will see how you are YOU because you never gave up and you never let your pain defeat you. And so your spirit jumps with joy. It celebrates the experience. It rejoices in your success and it knows why you had to experience what you did even when YOU didn’t.

This is the journey!

- Andrei Boyd

JOIN OUR COMMUNITY EMAIL YOUR PHONE NUMBER TO WEXFORDPRIDE@GMAIL.COM AND WE WILL ADD YOU TO OUR WHATSAPP COMMUNITY

THERE IS A REASON THIS TIRED OLD DEBATE IS ROLLED OUT EACH YEAR

TITLE (CON’T)

RECLAIMED

THE UNION OF STUDENTS IRELAND

AN FOCL’OIR AITEACH / THE QUEER DICTIONARY

LGBTQQIPA/LADTACIPE LESBIAN

Leispiach

GAY

Aerach

BISEXUAL

Déghnéasach

TRANSGENDER Trasinscneach Aiteach QUEER QUESTIONING Ceisteach Idirghnéas INTERSEX PANSEXUAL

Painghnéasach

ASEXUAL

Gan-ghnéasach

USI.IE

MUSIC IN ENN

NISCORTHY