Feet dangle from ankles and toes dust the floor, all except the pinky ones. Is that what the little toes are called? I’m loose and more than a little adrift in the murky fog of big things completed. The first draft of my first memoir and an appearance on a national television show. Days feel…
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I'm an Associate Professor in the School of Health Studies at Western University in London, Ontario. An anthropologist who works with sex workers, people with HIV/AIDS, and Indigenous populations, my special research interests include sexuality, gender, and the politics of health. Along with academic writing and activism, I regularly write social media articles about sexuality, relationships, dating, and popular culture. I'm currently working on a memoir that explores my hilarious, humbling, and sometimes harrowing dive into the darker side of dating apps. I live with my cats Elliott and Jhona in London, Ontario. Yoga, art, reading, cooking, and finding new ways to experience the world are some of my favourite things to do.
The Woman in the Hills
The sierra is skin and seeds It grows as you see it Pink and curved like a wet flower Bigger than life Through the garden and the apricot trees Water hose coiled like a grey snake We walk in a group of five Ingesting everything you shed With Maria Chabot The architect who became friend The crumbling pueblo two centuries old Was reborn It…
Read MoreSpiny Oyster Shell
My Orange Beauties His tawny orange eyebrows match the shade of his hair. It’s the same colour as the vintage Navajo earrings he scoops into my hands. They’re made of spiny oyster shell, an ancient coastal animal related to scallops that live up to 50 ft below the surface of the water. They first appeared…
Read MoreWhat’s it like to write a book?
Some writers begin their work with a prayer, and some turn off their Wi-Fi. Others enter the flow when the kids are sleeping. Like Sylvia Plath, like so many women. There are authors who start with the last sentence, which feels God-like and scary. Some, like me, share their work widely along the way and…
Read MoreMavericks
After parking the vehicle a few blocks from the venue, we take an inaugural selfie and scamper down Queen Street. The early evening sun dapples our faces as we walk under the big trees while squealing: “She’s here…Alanis is in London!” I don’t own any of her albums but wanted to see the concert after…
Read MoreWhenever I think of Sylvia Plath I cry
It’s not a happy cry. It comes from below the surface, where the ovens line up for us. They do that. But the oven isn’t simply about the end or quitting the violence of Ted and illness that led her there. The oven is about her fight for herself and the love for her children.…
Read MoreTen Years
Ojibway poet Richard Wagamese begins his magnificent book of meditations called Embers by saying: “Mornings have become my table.” Like the table, his life has been battered and scarred but also full of sacred energies, which he channels in the hollow stones that surround my neck every time I turn his page. The neck is where we…
Read MoreYesterday’s Hallway
Every time I lean against the kitchen counter or make a slow move to grab something from the closet, I am grateful. I feel heavy and grounded and light and spacious. Even when my mind is doing a frightening array of tasks at the same time, whirring speedily, I know I have the space for…
Read MoreMirror in blue
SENSITIVE CONTENT* His eyes travel the canvas of my skin and I retreat into that internal space many women enter when men gaze, uninvited, at our bodies. It can look like a bitchy dismissal or a funny play along, but it’s really just us trying to hide in plain view. Where can we go? When…
Read MoreBoomerang Memories
Sabbaticals are twelve golden ticket months that appear in the academic calendar once every seven years. It’s when we get to focus on research, personal development, graduate students, and writing. Travel to a sister institution or to work with colleagues in different parts of the world is often part of these venerated breaks from the…
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Treena Orchard 