EDGE-DWELLERS...AND PEOPLE LIKE ME.
- Nancy E. Brown
- Dec 19, 2025
- 4 min read
I spotted a T-shirt recently, worn by a neighbour from the Tsartlip Band, printed along his chest were the words,
“I am part White, but cannot prove it.”
Two thoughts ran through my mind like fire through pine beetle surrendered forests; the first, quickly delivered inside my own laughter sounded like, “He’s poking fun at me!” the second, as quickly delivered with a stun similar to the emotion carried by a falling tree was,
“My ancestors are poking fun at him!”
I am part Indian and cannot prove it.
But She, my one Indian ancestor I do know about, comes to me in my dreams, that One who was thrown out, ostracized, sent away, probably ended up homeless, raped and who knows what else.
All of Her and Her ancestors were thrown into a dark recess of forgetfulness, guarded with guilt and shame. (While her child was raised by white folk. Colonists. Those with older histories of trauma; land stolen, children murdered.) Like all recesses, they do not last long and are known for being shallow. I remember my ancestors because they have remembered me.
For that I am grateful and this is their story as much as it is mine.
I call my forgotten ancestor Magdalene because the name arrived with her.
She brings a torrent of my White ancestors with her. Like them, Magdalene was stripped of her name and of her heritage. She lives on through her ancestors; in me, us; my sons, my siblings and our ancestors. She lives on as if she has something to say; something so important that it will be carried on and on until the message has been delivered. This is how stories are never lost. They keep coming at us through our family members, through our dreams and creative work, through our relationships, especially the difficult ones. In broken, detached, separated and integral ways we live and relive, create and recreate these stories.
There is a purpose to this way of story living.
From my experience, it may be a way to find home.
Relationships for me are fraught with hardship, disappointment and ultimate and predictable failure.
Ask my children. They are resilient enough to tell you our stories while holding eye contact.
People like me are edge-dwellers. We live between worlds.
We can act as bridges for the communion of differences.
We are happiest when shoeless among nature, wherever that is; alleyways or foothills.
Edges throughout the physical world are important to us. We pay close attention to the edges of neatly folded laundry, to the edges between our houses and the garden. Magdalene’s people lived and thrived on the edges of the forest and the prairie. Like those in natural ecosystems, social edges are immensely diverse. Ever changing. Dynamic. If you are adverse to change, like I am, it is a very difficult place to dwell; to call home.
I have struggled with this all of my life and it has brought me through Strength and Courage, Resilience and Compassion.
I sound braver than I am.
Living here on this planet, being human, has been difficult. And I am not alone. It runs in the family. In a dark kind of way, the humour we seek when faced with trauma or death or fear, or navigating grocery aisles or having to make choices in the toilet paper section, has become a family joke. We often end long conversations with the words, “It’s hard being human,” as if those words might lend us some comfort from an undefined ancient space and time.
As if those words might jar some memory, the kind of memory that would bring peace.
This is important to edge-dwellers, because we are notorious for taking our own lives.
Magdalene drew me to work I am both passionate about and frustrated with. She lead me to open groves and wild rivers, to aspen trees and to the depths of my despair. I am just getting to know her now. I have known her forever.
I am Her.
I cannot prove any of that either.
She recently lead me to Richard Leblanc, the Executive Director of the Creating Homefulness Society and to Woodwynn Farms, a Therapeutic Community for the lost and forgotten ones, for people coming up from landing hard on the bottom of their barrels, for people who are living without a home, without dignity, without respect, for people who are being remembered by their ancestors. Woodwynn Farms is a community of people who care about each other enough to make a difference; to raise consciousness; to instill dignity and respect into their daily lives.
There are hundreds of similar communities on the planet. I am passionate about this work because I believe that it is designed to not fail. I believe that with the help of my ancestors, I can help build a world in which I want to live in and a world I want my and your ancestors to live in. I believe that we are not far from that reality. I believe that this beautiful, connected, kind, dynamic world I envision is closer to reality than the one we are living in presently. I no longer believe that I must fight for what is right and true.
Magdalene’s story revolves around three needs:
the first, to demonstrate the emotional courage to match the emotion of the one calling your name (see yourself in others and respond with compassion);
the second, to forgive (be forgiven until it is understood that there is no need for forgiveness);
the third, to accept the gift from those who are passing over (help others die well).
I do believe that the stories our ancestors are telling are being heard. I believe we are being sung Home.
But I can’t figure out their joke about the t-shirt.
By Nancy E. Brown . First Published in Island Gals Magazine . 2012 . Volume 2 . Issue 3 .
