Keys to truth & reconciliation

Other half and I made a long overdue drive and camp trip from Ont to Winnipeg, MB this fall, to see friends who are getting older and are not in optimal health. And we just like them a lot.

We all became friends thru helping trips we made with teens in 2010 and 12. They tend to the spiritual needs of the inner city indigenous community.

Another thing we wanted to so on this non-working trip was to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The exhibit that I keep thinking most about is something called the Witness Blanket on the 4th floor of the museum. And I really wasn't expecting this. It's a series of panels in wood that sort of mimics  the quilt blocks idea. But the content preserves detail about the residential school system, so that it never happens again.

In the middle of the panels is a doorway as if to a chapel. But it looks like something out of a horror movie.

There are artifacts the artist has collected or had donated to him, like alphabet blocks and hockey skates embedded in the quilt blocks.

One feature that caught my eye was a paltry few piano keys. This, in context with the horror movie chapel entrance, knocked the wind out of me.

I've been chatting with a grade school friend of mine over the last few years about the therapeutic benefits of playing music on memory retention and recovery. We were in the high school band together, she played percussion and I played flute. But her non-concert band instrument is piano.

Here was a situation in which the western church music tradition is associated with real life horrors.

The piano or organ keys were the only music representations on the blanket. If there were other ones, they didn't jump out at me as much.

Of course, that doesn't mean our indigenous friends aren't musical people. Just that this generational experience was particularly devoid of joy.

The next day, we met with another friend for a picnic in St. Vital park. When we picked her up, she caught us up on how she had been playing  something like an honour song or strong woman song on her iPod and dancing like no one was watching. Another part of the conversation was about drumming.

My family knows I'm obsessed with the Rumble documentary, about how indigenous music, including drumming and singing influenced rock & roll. I've watch that doc like 20 times. Music legends like Charley Patton, Mildred Bailey, Link Wray, Jesse Ed Davis and so many more.

So yeah, this visit with people I love and are patient with me showed me I need to always be prepared to have my most knee-jerk assumptions challenged. Reconciliation happens over a lifetime.