# This Little Light of Mine: Addena’s Substack This Little Light of Mine is a monthly newsletter about my thoughts, new writing, readings, workshops and interviews with the artists and community movers and shakers that inspire me. # This Little Light Of Mine: Addena’s Substack April Newsletter ### April’ Newsletter [Addena Sumter-Freitag](https://substack.com/@addena) May 01, 2026 Welcome back to “This little Light Of Mine” everyone, and if you have just subscribed, and this is your first time joining us, …Welcome. Thank you all for taking time out of your busy life to come and just chill and relax together and take time to enjoy a few musings, stories, and Poetry and things that relates to _Whaa Gwan_ now, and has gone in our lives and in the world around us. April, …. another one of my favourite months, has just flown by. You know… I just realized I usually say, _the month flew by,_ and that is because at the end of each month it doesn’t seem like you’ve just experienced 30 whole days of your life, and /living. Do you feel that way too? Anyway, we’ve just experienced April. I love April, because it’s the beginning of Spring. To me, Spring is a time for hope, and for new beginnings. You can consciously feel inside your body. Outside, you see it in the buds coming out on the trees, the Spring flowers bursting out of the ground and fixin’ to bloom. You experience that feeling of hope in the warm Spring Showers that bring everything back to life, turning browns into greens, and greys into blues. When Spring started tiptoeing in, I noticed changes in the Willow Trees first. They are the first trees to come to life after Winter. In Winter, they lose all their leaves, and only their long spindly finger- like bare branches hang from them. In late March, and April, they began to flower. Fuzzy gray buds come out and cover all the branches, and then those buds quickly turn into male flowers and they push out stamens and cover the whole tree in a Yellow, powdery, fuzzy- like flower. Those flowers attract the first bees and butterflies and we know **for sure** Spring is here. Next thing you know, the fuzz falls off the Willows and green leaves begin to grow on them. Ahhhhh what a splendourous cycle to watch. My friend Jaymejo and I Celebrating The Willows ♥️♥️ It’s April, and Spring has Sprung ♥️ Another reason I love April is because is “National Poetry Month” in Canada. It was so designated in 1998 by The League Of Canadian Poets. The main purpose of National Poetry Month is to promote the visibility and culture of all of our poets, and to help people realize the importance of poets and poetry. The month also focuses on connecting people through poetry and hopefully making more people realize and understand why poetry is a universal language. ``` -0:26 [Download](https://addena.substack.com/api/v1/audio/upload/04a0e2bd-fb10-49f1-83b6-0668d1f9bfb6/src) Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. ``` I often say: _I’m a Storyteller, and I come from a long line of Storytellers._ That statement is really true. Like so many people in my family and like so many of my Ancestors, I love telling stories. It was how so much of our history was shared and passed down. Storytelling is just one of my passions. I also love writing and performing poetry. I’ve been writing quite a lot of poetry lately. Probably, because instead of waiting for my Muse to come and bless me with a burst of creative brilliance, I am currently enrolled in two poetry groups that the Federation of BCWriters offers its members. The poems from one of the groups are usually inspired by a prompt. I like that method of inspiration, even though it hasn’t always worked for me in writing groups/classes. I’ll give you an example: #### Writers Class Our instructor yells, _Write!_ My pen doesn’t move Instead I look around the room There is a photo on the wall of a waffle I stare at it It looks delicious I pretend that I can smell it But I can’t I pretend that I can hear the ghost’s music From their old Blues tunes Pounded into the soul Of the ancient piano in the corner. As I gaze at you across the room at you Your perfect cleavage, Alabaster smooth Rising and falling Like a boats on the rough sea Diana, who sits nearby me, Curses She’s trying to write too But to no avail Damn! This is frustrating. The walls of the small studio Seem like they are closing in on me I feel like I’m suffocating The same way I feel when I’m in Banff Squeezed in the centre of the towering mountains Longing for the _flat_ of the Prairies Where you can see …forever Where you can lie down arms and legs outstretched In a field of Clover And disappear into its Honey-sweet scent Instead, here I am Surrounded by dead flowers Disguised as art To accompany the canvas You propped up on an easel In the centre of the room For inspiration. © Addena Sumter-Freitag Writing from prompts as inspiration reminds me of the writing poems inspired by the Art pieces of Brian Gleckman instillation at the Sidney and Gertrude Zach Gallery, that I shared with you a few months ago. I loved doing that! In this Newsletter, I will share a few of the group poems I wrote, and for this National Poetry month issue. I will also include other poems, and memories/stories. I hope you have fun! ##### Poetry Group poems: the prompt for the first poem **Was to answer: “what was “my mission on earth, or why did I come here”?** **My Mission** **I didn’t particularly wanna come here to this planet.** **I was most reluctant!** **I arrived here, planted in the womb of the most intensely volatile woman, who frequently told me,** **(and anyone else she was** _**performing**_ **for)** **that I was born on the coldest, most miserable, and stormiest day in March,** **and when the nurses came to tell her she had delivered a girl she told them,** _**“I don’t want a girl !”**_ **She made that obvious throughout my and my Sister’s whole life.** **Truth be told, she probably only wanted the two male children, (she had three)** **that were amazingly, handsome, and fair-skinned,** **because she thought that reflected her beauty.** **And she was physically beautiful!** **Despite some awful truths about of the family I was placed with,** **somehow deep inside I knew my** _**mission**_ **on this planet was a necessary one.** **It was a mission: to run through the gauntlet of woe and heartbreak** **in order to learn how to truly appreciate Joy,** **and seek out Love.** © Addena Sumter-Freitag ### Dreams Every night I dream. Every night. It’s exhausting! In my dreams, coloured images, fantasies, memories, and hopes loop and whirl and flip like a shuffled tarot deck All the while a song playlist plays continuously under the dream. It wasn’t that way in my Warrior Dream Phase then, every night, (I swear) I travelled back in time. I’d come into my body and I’d be riding on horseback Galloping full speed Surrounded by my fearless warrior women tribe dressed in battle armor Fighting fiercely. Battling with our swords swinging and slashing at our foes. Many of those nights I’d wake up from my dreams sweating, feeling utterly exhausted, my whole body ached And as I lie there in bed I’d trace deep scratches on my face, my neck, and on my shoulders. Thankfully I never dream when I fall asleep in the day. © Addena Sumter-Freitag The second poem, or thoughts, came out of the prompt: “the unexpected revelation of what it’s like to consciously realize you are human.” #### Privilege In the unexpected revelation of what it’s like to consciously realize you are human, the first thing I realized is: my privilege, the gifts bestowed on me The ability to walk upright on land breathe the Blessed air feel the heat of the sun as it warms me the breeze as it gently kisses me. … like I could’ve been a fish!… It wouldn’t be so bad to be an ocean fish, a big, powerful- Creature Fish that ruled The Fish Kingdom (as opposed to being a tiny aquarium fish ) swimming back-and-forth back-and-forth, agonizing as to: _why the hell am I relegated to this hell- of -a- life existence?_ although… just to exist Is far better than the alternative. © Addena Sumter-Freitag I just told you one story about my mother in one of the poems above, and this story brought up a memory of another poem I’ve written about another mother. I think I will share it to show that there are many unique and many similar behaving mothers out there in this world. The mother in this poem was the Mother of one of my Ex’s. #### Visits to Your Mother The first afternoon we went to visit your Mother She seemed like such ‘a proper lady’ Perfectly coiffed And fashionably dressed Her house was immaculate Decorated with antique lamps and furnishings And fine English China She was so gentile And delicately perfect and precise in her movements Her British accent was very pronounced And upper-gentry sounding Like Queen Elizabeth herself. She looked at me As if I were positioned two inches below her eyes Although I was four inches taller for sure Despite her Oscar worthy acting And her invite for us to sit and join her for tea, She did not keep her distaste for me hidden I, in turn, tried to keep my feelings, (in reaction to her behavior) inside Tried not to breathe my distain for her in the air. I pursed my lips then pulled them back tight into a smile Remembering my mother’s favorite phrase, _kill them with kindness_ When we went to ‘check in on’ your Mother a few evenings later She and her friend, Jack Daniels, had already gotten well acquainted The ‘lady’ had vanished Along with her perfect diction Tonight she cursed like Lisa Doolittle You’d swear she was Cockney from Cheapside or near She stumbled and charged about Hair disheveled Clothes askew Flailing her arms and cursing Uttering her dismay at your dating: “A Black Picaninny”. Suddenly you lunged at her Matching her in fury and obscenities. You flung her fancy antique china lamp at her It smashed into her elbow And shatters hit the floor. The next time we visited your mother She had a cast on her left arm She was perfectly coiffed And fashionably dressed She acted so gentile delicately perfect and precise in her movements Her British accent was very pronounced And upper-gentry sounding Like Queen Elizabeth herself. © Addena Sumter-Freitag Okay, Last Mother memory. This one is about my Mother again. I just found it yesterday in my poetry group’s notebook. I didn’t even remember writing this memory down but I did. I haven’t edited it yet. I’m just including it the way it is. I didn’t write a title, I think I’ll probably call it: A Visit from my Mother #### A visit from my Mother One day at my house on Assiniboine Crescent (where I lived with Jimmy Kale) I invited my mother over to our house for supper. I don’t know why she agreed to come, because she disliked Jim even more than he disliked her, but she came! I planned and cooked a great dinner with all the fixings. It was delish! After supper, I was cleaning up in the kitchen, and my mom remained sitting in the dining room relaxing with some tea. When I finished cleaning up I went into the Dining Room and looked at her drinking her tea (made in a heated teapot, milk poured in first into a warmed China cup before the tea got poured in) I smiled. .. Then I panicked! That morning I had Baked a batch of Marijuana cookies and forgot to put them away. They were sitting there on the dining room table in front of my Mom. I looked at the plate and frantically counted them. She had eaten two. Now I really friggin panicked! I began breathing fast, hoping I didn’t get an Asthma attack. I tried to slow my breathing and kept waiting for something horrible to happen to her, … but instead, she was acting so freaking nice. She was smiling and talking and acting like she was genuinely happy. She even asked for a glass of Vodka! Holy! (I thought) This is the nicest she’s ever been to me in my whole fuckin life! © Addena Sumter-Freitag Damn! All these mother stories and poems I should’ve saved for next month. I think in May it’s Mother’s Day. 😊 I’m gonna close and leave you with one last memory… if you’re old enough and remember when it was Winter, (if you didn’t have a dryer), you had to hang your clothes outside on the clothes line or clothes rack. The clothes would get stiff and freeze and to get them back inside you’d have to literally pry them off the line or rack and they’d be all-stiff as-a-board, and freezing cold in your arms as you brought them inside. If you had a clothesline and had hung them up with clothes pins, the pins would break as you tried to pry them off the clothes hanging on the line, and if they were on a rack, you’d have to pull them out so they would stand out away from the rack, and then you would wiggle and jiggle them around so you could lift them up and pull them away and off the rack. When you took them in the house, you’d have to find places to hang them up all around so they would dry and they would dry and still be stiff, and you’d have to iron them. They smelled wonderful though. You can’t beat the fresh smell of clothes hung in the breeze! ### Clothes Flippin’ in the Breeze Clothes flippin’ in the breeze Sweet Juicy Memories Of when the air Was pure And matched our intentions And The smiles we shared Lacked wryness Lacked any shade of Jade And left us wanting Nothing. © Addena Sumter-Freitag See you all in May I hope. We are travelling to Vancouver to meet some friends from Limmerick, Ireland and all going on a 5 hour whale watching tour together. I’m really excited. I haven’t been on one yet (if you can believe that). I will let you know all about it and any other adventures I get up to, and any other groovy people I meet. Take care of yourselves. Try not to consume too much TV news. I hope you appreciate that I didn’t put anything about the latest headlines in this issue. I just wanted it to be fun. Take care. One love ♥️ ♥️ Thanks for reading This Little Light of Mine: Addena’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.