Laurel
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laurelfynes.bsky.social
Laurel
@laurelfynes.bsky.social
8.4K followers 1K following 8.7K posts
learning from the world, my family, students, birds, trees, plants, waterways, relationships. unlearning. biophiliac. growing roots along great lake ontario. settler. she/her.
class site: https://bsky.app/profile/k2westacres.bsky.social
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laurelfynes.bsky.social
I don’t love fb (I don’t post there but I hold on for the private, professional groups I participate in) but I LOVE our Toronto Parks and Forestry folks who alas, aren’t here.
Post from fb, screenshot with photos accompanying text. TORONTO Nature in the City - Toronto You won't find better Black Friday deals than this. Trees. FREE. https://www.toronto.ca/services- payments/water-environment/trees/tree-planting/ Parks. ALSO FREE. https://www.toronto.ca/ explore-enjoy/recreation/walking-hiking/trails/ Winter Forestry talks and tours added in the New Year. 100% OFF. https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/parks-recreation/program-activities/arts-hobbies-interests/nature-eco-programs/forestry- talks-tours/ Photos with text: TREES NEW STOCK! FREE PARKS HOT DEAL! FREE Talks and Tours WOW!”
November 29, 2025 at 9:58 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
It’s dangerous to go alone.
Take this:
A black morph grey squirrel perched in the crook of bare tree branches at my head height, looking cozy amidst the bramble.
November 29, 2025 at 7:59 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Adding in a perfect quote from @daanis.ca’s Niikinaaganaa Foundation newsletter, penned by a settler thinking about his responsibilities in a thoughtful, informed way. A guiding principle…
payyourrent.ca/the-privileg...
Excerpt from the newsletter linked in the post. “We are not responsible for the rigged system our ancestors created, but we are responsible for what we do with the unearned privilege and power it affords us at the continued expense of a group of people who have been stripped of everything they cherish and everything that makes them them. We settlers have an important role to play in redefining the relationship between Indigenous people and settler Canadians. If we choose not to accept this role, we simply continue to accept the blood-stained benefits of white settler privilege-a decision that will continue to destroy our shared humanity (which should be reason enough to dismantle a deeply unjust and murderous system).”
November 29, 2025 at 7:56 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
And Jesse’s answer to that thoughtful question, above…
“That you are enough that you are here, and that is the greatest achievement that a human can achieve is to be here. That your ancestors will never challenge you with anything that they don't know you can overcome, and they are challenging you now with this because they think you need to learn from this. And it's OK to be mad at your ancestors in this moment, because I know I shook my fist at them a few times over this. But I see the wisdom now that they understood that this was something I would need to understand in this way, as opposed to other ways you can understand it. And know that for those for whom they don't know their people and their people don't know them, know that that is a different path than what we're talking about. That is not the same thing. And that your communities are waiting for you and they know you, and you're welcome back.” Jesse Wente on Thomas King, Commotion podcast November 28
November 29, 2025 at 6:59 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
“Two things that you said there that I kind of want to pull on a little bit bc my next question was going to be, hey, if you were to say something to Thomas King right now, what would you say? But I'm not going to ask you that.
Instead, I'm going to ask you the flip side of that…” Cont in alt text
Text excerpt continues the conversation in the post, spoken by the host Elamin. “Because you described the idea of a tender act of resistance. And I'm holding the contrast of that kind of lightly because I think that's not a concept that I have heard or thought about before. The idea that acts of resistance can in fact emerge out of tenderness. And I think the thing that you just did is a tender thing to talk to people who are reeling, the people who are having a hard time with this one because this is somebody that meant a lot to them. He meant a lot to you, meant a lot to a lot of other people who work closely with him, who revered him, who thought, you know what, this is a model of how to be an indigenous person in the world. And for them, they're a little bit shaken. So maybe instead I'll give you the opportunity to say something to those people specifically because you have been there. What's the thing that you want to say to those people?” Jesse Wente on Thomas King, November 28
November 29, 2025 at 6:52 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
It’s such a good model for how to interrogate complicated issues around identity, truth, belonging, and legacy. I love the way these two people honour everyone while holding their stories up to the light. Such care taken to explain why it all matters, how we got here, who gets hurt, whose voices…
Text excerpt from Elamin Abdelmahmoud’s show Commotion. (Host speaking): “He (Thomas King) talks more about amendments to BillC-31, the federal legislation that governs who gets status. It's hard to listen to that. I think right now there's a bit of cognitive dissonance that you hear. He's using a lot of we, a lot of us. Knowing what we now know, what do you do with that? What do you do with the truth about stories?” Jesse: “I mean, about that specific thing or the whole Massey lecture?” Elamin: “Maybe the dissonance. I think the dissonance of hearing that and saying, the things that you're saying are true, but this is not the person that perhaps should be saying the thing.” Jesse: “Well, so I would say a couple of things. I would say those things are true. And in some ways, if Tom King had said them as a non-Indigenous person, maybe they actually would have been even more powerful.” Excerpt continues. Jesse: And that's not to say that Indigenous people shouldn't say them. We say them all the time. That's not the issue. It's that we say them all the time because they're not often heard and then built into action, right? And this has been my experience as someone who has advocated for Indigenous all sorts of stuff for many years now, both publicly and in the highest political halls of this place behind the doors, right? So we say it often because it seems required to say it often. It might be more powerful if folks who actually had power and were the folks that benefited from our dispossession were to actually say that this was also true, right? And so this is the thing with this issue. And there's a way, you model it quite well, Elamin, there's a way to be part of the solution, to be an ally. If you want an ally, I prefer accomplice. Like there's a way to be an accomplice… Excerpt continues, but a few moments later. Jesse: To take that space and to communicate these things so that they can help advance these causes, right? And so like that's sort of the frustration is that there's a pathway for folks who want to be a part of whatever they see that is attractive that doesn't require having to take this part of us. And the reason that's important is because when we, and to respect, again, to respect indigenous people, First Nations people, as like having agency, if you want to be an ally, you should respect us enough that we should be the ones who choose our advocates and we should be the ones, do you know what I mean? Which may be a non-indigenous person, but give us the ability to choose, come to us with who you are. Let's do that as opposed to saying, I need to be you in order to advocate for you, because like I, on some level, but on the other level, the way, the only reason I do this stuff is because I knew my grandmother…
November 29, 2025 at 6:18 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
“…one of the Qs we now get to ask is: if we sort of take this person as a rigorous historian, does it fall upon us to say, you know what, you got to turn that rigor inwards. You got to turn that rigor into yourself in a sense. And he's someone who wrote and thought deeply about indigenous identity.”
Excerpt from Jesse Wente on Thomas King on the podcast “Commotion” November 28. “I'd rather, like what I really want to live with is the idea that when these things happen, I will be able to maintain my peace and be able to maintain my relationship with myself as I move through these sorts of events. And that's it. And if I can do that, then I'll be okay.” Elamin (host): Jesse Wente is here with me in studio. Jesse, the thing about Thomas King is that he's kind of built this reputation as a historian, right? And as a rigorous historian. And the thing that Tanya Talaga mentions in the Globe and Mail piece is, one of the questions we now get to ask is like, if we sort of take this person as a rigorous historian, does it fall upon us to say, you know what, you got to turn that rigor inwards. You got to turn that rigor into yourself in a sense. And he's someone who wrote and thought deeply about indigenous identity.”
November 29, 2025 at 5:58 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Phew…
Adding alt text but nothing else because the OP’s framing is perfect.
Passage from Elamin Abdelmahmoud’s memoir “Son of Elsewhere” … possible answer to that question. Clinton needed to look 'presidential' for a day. If you look like me, here is something you understand internally, before you're ever told: in America, when presidents need to look like they're doing some-thing, they take it out on Brown and Black bodies. When governments need to look like they're in control, they exercise that control over what can be subdued, and that is often places where our bodies exist. Those bodies—my body, and the bodies of my neighbours-are vulnerable to the whims of America, to the needs of insecure men. They understood this in Iraq in 2003, when a reeling America needed to look powerful. They worried about this in Iran in the late 2010s, when political commentators casually suggested that an erratic president's path to legitimacy lay in waging war. It is often Brown and Black bodies that bear the cost of America's assertion of strength. We are the canvas for brutality. This is the real meaning of Infinite Reach.”
November 29, 2025 at 5:04 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Does your neighbourhood have a house everyone knows? Bickford Park does. Not as famous as nearby Christie Pits cookie house, but definitely a head-turner.
A red-brick two-story semi-detached home with a front yard so full of stuff you can’t see the bottom story. Among other things in the yard under a black arch are manikin heads, wooden busts, plaster busts and friezes, street signs, sections of stone walls, and random toys, all with a figure of Darth Vader high over it all on a pole. Closeup on the pole with a painted bird which might be an owl shape but has a cardinal crest, and above the bird leans Darth Vader with antennae on his helmet. Zoomed in look at the curated collection of figures and oddities in the yard, facing a bit south. Zoomed in look at the curated collection of figures and oddities in the yard, looking more northward.
November 29, 2025 at 3:40 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Bickford Park area trees. Tulip poplar holding onto their leaves, frosted leaf litter featuring red oak leaves.
Golden tulip poplar leaves on slim branches in morning light. The sky is blue with faint scattered cloud. Mixed leaf litter including northern red oak leaves turned brown, other leaves in pale yellow, orange and green, all dusted with frost. More mixed leaves in a pile with frost: oak, silver maple, and others.
November 29, 2025 at 3:14 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Those juncos, in a taller tree nearby and still unperturbed.
November 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Out for a morning walk in the sunny cold weather, watching for birds.
This clumsy hawk really thought they could snatch juncos out of the tree they were hiding in. They’d been at it for a while when I got close enough to see - goofy thing.
November 29, 2025 at 1:41 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
This is me, roughly 9 or 10 yo. These are my darling ducks, Dottie and Heidi (I think… might be Quackie, not Heidi. Hard to say without seeing their backs).

Safe to say I have always been like this.
Me, a kid brown-haired lying on my back in the grass with two ducks lying on me, bellies up and feet flapping. Their necks are bent so their bills are over their bellies. I am grinning. These are the best pets I ever had.
November 25, 2025 at 4:34 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
a movie that takes place where you’re from

(Well, I’m from a rural area an hour north but I’ve lived here for over 30 years now so it’s close enough)
Promotional photo for Pixar’s “Turning Red” with the huge red panda standing several stories high in front of the iconic red brick Flatiron building at Church and Wellington Streets in Toronto. Behind it are financial area tall glass towers like the TD Canada Trust Building, below it on the left are lower Georgian style red brick buildings.
November 23, 2025 at 7:10 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
I like to go for a good walk on weekend mornings, so I took an alley walk after dropping the kid to work. Seen in my travels: got wheels, nowhere to go. Asters in November, after snow?!
A pair of brown suede roller skates with bright orange wheels left out on the pavement beside a red brick garage. Fringy white asters with yellow centres and dark green foliage.
November 23, 2025 at 1:42 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
The encore that made a hush go through the room… they played the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald on a dark stage under wild waves (presumably Superior). Tim’s voice is perfect for this one, and the dark made it even more intense.
Alex Lifeson, Don Kerr and Dave Bidini in silhouette on a dark stage with a black and white video of a Great Lake storm.
November 23, 2025 at 4:19 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Rheostatics, the Great Lakes Suite.
Alex Lifeson with an electric guitar, Dave Bidini with an amplified acoustic guitar, playing on stage in front of a large screen showing ice floating on water. Hugh Marsh playing violin, Kevin Hearn playing piano, and Alex Lifeson playing guitar on stage in front of a screen showing a waterfall spray.
November 23, 2025 at 4:13 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Tonight’s a good one. We’ve been looking forward to this for months… though @gordasm.bsky.social was already here last night, too.
Memories of those Green Sprouts Music Week shows I used to go to at Ultrasound (in the 90s).
The front side of Massey Hall, an elegant brick music hall with a red neon sign over large red doors. It’s night, tall buildings are lit behind it. Poster for the show has the Great Lakes in streaky blue on black. Text reads: “RHEOSTATICS The Great Lakes Suite LIVE NOV. 22, 2025 TD MUSIC HALL DAVE BIDINI, TIM VESELY, DAVE CLARK, DON KERR with KEVIN HEARN, HUGH MARSH, + ALEX LIFESON • SPECIAL GUESTS VISUALS BY NICHOLAS DE PENCIER + JENNIFER BAICHWAL ALLIED MUSIC CENTRE, 178 VICTORIA ST. 4TH FLOOR”
November 23, 2025 at 12:15 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
She even has one long white whisker like Alice! They could be sisters.
A fluffy tortoiseshell cat lying on a blue bedspread, her poofy grey-black tail stretched out towards me.
November 22, 2025 at 9:23 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
The angle from the sidewalk wasn’t great, but this beauty gave me lots of looks as they patrolled the grassy hill of the highway off-ramp nearby. Stunning bird.
November 22, 2025 at 2:26 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Big, fluffy hawk mere feet from the busy road. Looking majestic, paying no attention to all the traffic rumbling below.
A round red-tailed hawk perched on a wire against a clear blue sky. The bird has a mottled brown back, fluffy cream breast and chin, and dark head. It’s leaning away but the head is turned over the wire on the right. The hawk in the same spot, head rotated directed over me but looking far over my head.
November 22, 2025 at 2:19 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Did I stop on the way home from work just because a red-tailed hawk was hanging out over the bus stop? I did.
Come on… as if you wouldn’t. Look at the majesty.
November 22, 2025 at 2:12 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
The silkiest and the weirdest cat I know. Stepping all around my feet until I stop and give him attention. He LOVES the whomps. Instant purr.
November 22, 2025 at 1:44 AM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
Morning sun disappearing into clouds, and a delightful gathering of buffleheads off shore.
Good morning!
November 20, 2025 at 1:10 PM
laurelfynes.bsky.social
🎵🥁🎺🪘It’s the most wonderful time of the year… 🥁🎶🪘
A brightly coloured poster with an illustration of a large orange moon behind whimsical celestial spirits in a dark sky. Text reads: “IGNITE THE LONGEST DARKEST NIGHT 36™ ANNUAL KENSINGTON MARKET WINTER SOLSTICE PARADE & FIRE FINALE RETURNS SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2025 6:00PM - 9:30PM NON-PROFIT HAND-MADE COMMERCIAL FREE EVENT For more info: IG @redpepperspectaclearts or email:redpeppersepectaclearts@gmail.com LANTERNS FOR SALE $30 RED PEPPER SPECTACLE ARTS”
November 20, 2025 at 12:52 AM