Well, we made it to summer and the longest day of the year in this part of the world. The covid19 pandemic has slowed the travel of planes, and the city skies are becoming a delight. If you squint and stare into the sky, you can see way more stars than I ever have since my childhood. i am hoping to see the Perseid meteor shower and more shooting stars in the next while. The world with its cruel injustices and casual cruelties is sometimes too much And the spectre of illness and uncertainty that dogs us all…

Still, the act of typing a few words in spite of the malaise and depression that’s gripped me so unseasonably, is a little victory. And in drawing the beauties of this humble urban nature, which fights for triumphancy amid the cement, concrete and asphalt.

Flowers found in hot summer, blooming and scenting and shedding in a delirious cacophony. It seems the blooms are hardly here, and then they are gone. New plants take their place. This month, I’ve been enjoying showy crimson roses, delicate white ones, vibrant pink heirloom roses, and golden petaled beauties whose scent is thick and nearly fruity and whose heavy heads are bowed over, lushly petaled and too heavy for their pale green delicate stalks. Meanwhile the garden is slowly growing, sucking up the heat and humidity as much as the water we give it.

June is a month for many intertwined liberations-Black, Indigenous, Refugee/Stateless people. It’s important to think about decentering power, our relationship to land as non-Indigenous peoples and our relationship to Canada. Because I have never felt welcome in Canada, I lived an “in spite of” existence, I had not enjoyed its flora and landscapes. They seemed alien to me. Small towns struck me with terror. But the pandemic is teaching me to look for beauty in some simple things close to “home”. Peonies, roses, hummingbirds, colours, are summer seductions. June is also LGBT Pride Month, and although the corporate takeover of a fierce political movement is saddening, it seems the simplest definition of Pride in our contexts is desire among consenting adults, so a drawing about that too!