In gaps between teeth
Ashley Li, 2T6 Fitz
Artist's Statement: As a daughter of immigrants, there is a lot that is unspoken in our household. The intergenerational gap between my parents and I is one separated not only by age, but also by culture, identity, and a sense of belonging. As children, we often see our parents as only that—our parents. The person who made us breakfast every morning as children, and the person whose dinner-table politics frustrate us as adults. We view them in the context of our lives and our worldview. But who was ‘dad’ before he was ‘dad’? And what was gained and lost in that process?
I have never seen my father cry. He’s done it before. Behind hospital doors and in the men’s washrooms at funerals, his spine had curled concave until there was nothing left of him to shield a family with. But never in front of me. Why is it painful to imagine that our fathers were something before they were our fathers? If I ask, he may tell me that he comes from a country where the river is so clear you can drink from it. Where you never wake up before the sun does. A place where no one is sick yet, and farm boys like him still dream of the world every night. If I ask, my mother may still remember what it’s like to kiss a boy who held a song in the gaps between his teeth. To fall in love with the way his red-tipped ears always betrayed him when they spoke. May tell me that once, my father biked forty-five minutes just to hand her a rose in a plastic bag and then bolt. She kept the rose in a book, never telling him that it had wilted on the way there. I never ask. Come home, he says. I wonder if it’s too late. If I have lost my mother tongue in too many foreign men’s mouths. He never thinks it a waste to pray for me to gods I don’t believe in. Never blames me for being worlds apart, with my entitlement and rapid-fire English. When I’m asked where I am from, I do not stutter like he does. My father cannot go home. Home is a place between time, perpetually half-memory. It is two ghost ships sailing antiparallel, suspended between age and country. Home exists before the funeral, after the birth. It is laughing with all your teeth because there is no one to miss. What I mean to say is my father cannot go home, so he becomes home. How do we forgive ourselves for what our existence has stolen? I do not call. I came home too late. My father is asleep in the armchair, upright, his phone is still playing old Mandarin songs. I forget why I left in the first place.
Justin - 2T6 Fashion Series
Justin - MAM
What inspired this outfit?
I tried to go for a smart-casual outfit with the overcoat and the hoodie. Winter’s also approaching so I wanted to wear the Sambas a few more times be- fore the snow hits.
How would you describe your personal style?
I would say that I like a mix of streetwear, comfort, and sometimes preppy. I usually find one article of clothing that I really like and end up building an outfit around that piece (not the greatest for my bank account though).
Current favourite piece in your closet?
My favourite piece in my closet right now is my Doc Martens. They took a while to break in, but now they’re super comfortable, stable, and honestly go with most fits, which I appreciate.
Favourite place to shop or favourite designers?
If it’s online, I would have to say SSENSE, but in person, I think COS or Uniqlo (sale season especially).
Bella - 2T6 Fashion Series
Bella - WB
What inspired this outfit?
I really love these baggy carpenter pants I got from Urban Outfitters! So I tried to style the rest of the outfit around that.
How would you describe your personal style?
My personal style is usually very comfortable clothes that I feel like I can move around in.
Current favourite piece in your closet?
Right now my favourite piece is a grey leather bomber from Zara! I also really like my Doc Martens because they go well with so many outfits.
Favourite place to shop or favourite designers?
I love Mejuri for simple gold jewelry to dress up my outfits, and Aritzia for basics.
Melanie - 2T6 Fashion Series
Melanie - MAM
What inspired this outfit?
I love wearing skirts and dresses, but since it’s getting colder, I’ve been pairing them with boots and jacket blazers.
How would you describe your personal style?
I would describe my personal style as a mix between preppy and classic. It’s usually blending professionalism with modern style.
Current favourite piece in your closet?
My favourite piece right now are the carrot pants from Aritzia! It’s really easy to style them up for a more business-type look, but also dress them down for something more casual.
Favourite place to shop or favourite designers?
I love Artizia for classics, and Zara for more fun tops and dresses.
Rachel - 2T6 Street-Style Fashion Series
Rachel - Fitz
What inspired this outfit?
My go-to procrastinating activity is looking at “what people are wearing in New York” blogs; I took inspiration from outfits I had seen on them.
How would you describe your personal style?
Combinations of fun thrifted pieces and basics. And I’m a big fan of the little top and big pants trend!
Current favourite piece in your closet?
A pair of suit pants I found in my Mom’s closet from the 90s. I love how easy it is to dress them up or down for different occasions.
Favourite place to shop or favourite designers?
One of the best parts of living in Toronto is how many thrift and vintage options there are! I am a big fan of thrift stores like Shopcoat on Dundas West.
That’s Where She Was
Daisy Ren, 2T5 WB
In the middle of a green, grassy field
Where you have farmland for acres
That’s where she was
One of these fields from the movies
Where the characters prance in slow motion
That’s where she was
Silently looking up at the clouds
At the sky so blue she felt like her eyes were deceiving her
With a breeze so light you would miss it if you weren’t paying attention
In the background, she could hear the birds singing their morning songs
while not a single trace of human civilization showed for miles
And she sat there thinking
Of all the beautiful things in her life
Of all the beautiful people in her life
Of all the beautiful things happening in her life
And she couldn’t believe that she had ever been sad
That she had ever been empty
She felt so lucky for the friends who laugh with her until sunrise
For the family who sits with her, so she never has to sit alone
For the colleagues who inspire her to be better
Because on that September day, she had finally collected all her pieces again
For the first time in forever
There she was
The Black Rose
MV Istasy, 2T6 Fitz
Artist's Statement: "From physically moving from one location to another.| From mentally learning about one subject to another."
The light in your eyes stirs my soul
Languishing in Lethe, fallen from
The precipice of ephemeral love.
Broken, the darkness sees me whole:
Crying, distanced from tears; and
In the pallid profounds I etiolate.
But a white rose blossoms
Next to me, enlivened by your
Subsisting gaze:
Gaze so upon me
Persistently.
I, the black rose, blanched.
Draw me nearer, until slivers of soul
Unite, and tears abjure
My cheeks -
True, Thanatos ran
With stifling fetters
Which then have been outrun;
But we have climbed the velds
And are found wanting
By some aether or distant star.
Let us stop and stay, then,
Gazing at that white rose.
I have seen Sisyphe - and I am afraid.
Memories
Nishwara Tarannum, 2T5 WB
Every day, he would be greeted with a new set of questions that rolled off her lips like a poem, and with a heavy heart, he would turn away. A part of him wanted to spare her the pain. Yet the thought of her visage being illuminated by darkness and suffering was too much of a burden to bear. “Her obliviousness will be the death of her,” he had said one evening, chuckling to himself. How carelessly he had uttered those words.
It simply wasn’t up to him to answer her questions. Her world needed to reflect reality. All he could do was hold the mirror. And so, they lived their paradoxical lives, comforted only by slumber.
But even then, she found a way inside, warping into his dreams and reminding him of the moments they had shared.
They had settled into a bucolic area, where the flowers grew wild, and life seemed serene. She was hesitant to step into the sea of unfamiliarity, but soon tailored life to help her heal her wounds and begin anew. She was a woman who treasured every fabric of existence, every remnant of the past. So, she would keep with her little reminders of the life she had lived. Her favourite was a pair of sandals that she considered an heirloom with intricate floral patterns woven into the edges, dusted with gold glitter. It was passed down from her ancestors, and she had not let it out of her sight ever since.
“I like to think each generation walked around different corners of the earth in these shoes, touching human lives in the process,” she explained, back when he wasn’t the one living for the both of them.
Now they were just two souls just passing through, who simply existed together. Around her, he’d learnt to craft a new persona, one he would don on like a mask. But at its core it was a facade. A mere illusion of who he was.
Sometimes, he caught himself taking in the entirety of who she was. The way her luscious hair cascaded down her back and gleamed like gold when the sun hit at the right angle. The way her hips swayed as if she was eternally bound to dance, exuberating grace. The way her fingertips traced the strings of her viola to produce mellifluous melodies.
One night, as he was headed to the porch, he saw her under the luminous sky, looking at the stars whose light was nothing in comparison to her and trying to make sense of the world. The temperature had just dipped below zero, the coolness prickling his skin. The leaves rustled, the wind howling across the night, as they both stood in silence.
“Do you know why we call them memories?” she asked, stopping him dead in his tracks. He was always surprised at her sudden comments. He tread carefully around her so as not to break her frail state.
“Why?” he asked sheepishly.
“Because they serve the human race with a series of nostalgic moments that for a brief second envelop us,” she answered.
After that encounter, the questions simply stopped. He saw less of her every day, her image slowly turning into a distant memory. Her footsteps became less rhythmic and more urgent, as she walked around the house in her treasured sandals. The scent of incense lingered at the tip of his tongue, as she came and went, so distinct that he would crinkle his nose when he became too aware of it.
He grew so accustomed to her presence, so comfortable with her movements around the house that he truly never prepared himself for the worst.
It was a moment that he knew was long overdue, a moment he had come to terms with. He had never anticipated a farewell, a closure of some sort that would signify the end. As the rules of nature state, the kind of alchemy that presents itself as the giver and taker of things, he had to lose her.
Again.
His mind drifted to that night, where their lives collapsed, and she took her final breath. He had spent years finding a way to cope with the grief, as it consumed him from the inside. But it never did.
Loss can redefine an individual. To summarize her in a few poignant words would be to belittle who she was.
He would rather tell her the alternative answer to her question.
They are called memories, for they capture the essence of the past and form the foundation for the present.
She had attained the peace and liberty that only she could have provided for herself. She finally stepped out from oblivion.
She finally became a memory.
Interview with: Dr. Milena Forte
Learn more about Dr. Forte & her debut anthology: Full Circle, A Collection of Family Medicine Birth Stories
Interview by: Megan Park
Dr. Milena Forte is a staff physician at the Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team where she has practiced Family Medicine including full-scope maternity care for over 20 years. Dr. Forte has authored several articles, two book chapters and is the creator and lead editor of the recently published anthology entitled: Full Circle, A Collection of Family Medicine Birth Stories.
Q: Could you please share with the readers a little bit about yourself and who you are?
I am a first generation Canadian, born to Italian immigrants with a very strong sense of my Italian heritage (I am not sure if some of my passion for the arts comes from that). I have been a family doctor in Toronto for over 20 years at Mount Sinai, practicing full- scope family medicine, including maternity care. I have patients from newborn to geriatric patients, and I have always been passionate about women’s health in both my clinical practice and academic work. I’m happily married with two teens and two chickens!
Q: What was your inspiration to first mix maternity care into your family medicine practice?
From a young age, I knew I wanted to do something in the realm of women’s health. I was interested in women’s studies and thinking about empowerment from that perspective. I was also interested in pregnancy and birth. Despite having a full- scope practice, my passion has always been centered around women’s health, partly from my own experiences and partly from my undergraduate studies, where I studied sociology along with health sciences. Also, given the disproportionate representation of women in our healthcare system, naturally, any family practice has a lot of women’s health embedded in it. Pregnancy care in particular captivates me because of the medical, hands- on, relational, sociological, and psychological dimensions of it.
Q: How did you discover your interest and passion for writing and storytelling?
I have always loved various forms of art and communication, including visual arts, photography, and music. For writing, I engaged in fiction, short stories, and poetry before medical training. Through medical training, I was honing other skills so this was on the backburner. My professional writing has primarily centred around patient charting, scientific journals, and commentaries. However, my interest in narrative and storytelling led me to create this anthology, bridging my medical and personal experiences. They say write what you know, so this is something I have experienced both as a physician and a mom, over the past two decades.
Q: When did you begin publishing narratives and stories?
I wrote a short story about the first birth I participated in after giving birth myself—that was published back in 2008. Then I published a story, preceding Full Circle by a couple of years. The narrative, titled Dawn and Dusk, recounts a 24-hour day when I happened to deliver two patients—one at dawn and one at dusk—with quite different circumstances surrounding their births. It really struck me and I felt the need to write about it. I encouraged a student of mine to write about one of these stories from a different perspective—and that account appears in the book.
Q: How did the idea for “Full Circle” come about?
The inspiration for the book was to have a place where we could tell patient stories, but also to highlight the role of family doctors in these stories. Many people do not know that family doctors deliver babies, and we do it in a unique way because we are already embedded in the patients’ stories, from cradle to grave. The stories in the book came together very organically, painting a picture of not only the different aspects of birth, but also illustrating how family doctors are interwoven in patient stories and the impact that patients have on us.
Q: How did you gather family doctors from across Canada to share their stories with maternity care and birth?
Through a grant by the College of Family Physicians, we were able advertise it through their platforms and social media to all family doctors in Canada, coast-to-coast. We asked for stories, poems, photographs, but we received mostly poems and stories. We wanted to create the themes of the book based on the submissions, and we were really grateful that the stories naturally aligned to the chapter themes, showcasing different aspects of care.
Q: Why did you find it important that it was the family doctor sharing these stories?
The inspiration was multi-layered. Unless you live in a community where it is the norm that your family physician provides a lot of the low-risk obstetrical care, people are often surprised that in most places, babies are also delivered by family doctors. We aimed this toward a non-medical audience, so we wanted to share relatable stories showing that family doctors are involved in birth. We wanted to share the core values of what it means to be in family medicine, and a big part of that is continuity of care. There are stories of doctors that have delivered a baby, cared for that patient into adulthood, and are now delivering that “baby’s” baby. The opportunity for that to happen is really unique to family medicine; we wanted to give a voice to that.
Q: What do you hope that readers take away while reading these stories?
I hope readers can relate to the stories, find surprising elements, and gain an appreciation for the diversity of birth experiences. It was so fun for me to hear from a non-Canadian reader, who said it was really cool to see how birth is perceived in different cultures. I think we take it for granted the diverse communities that we live in; for instance, there are stories in the book about Jewish, Southeast Asian, and Indigenous communities. Additionally, I really hope it gives readers an appreciation of how much family doctors are invested in patient’s personal stories, and the impact that they have on us.
Q: Do you have a favourite story from the collection?
While I love all the stories, two favourites are Sitting in the Light by Kristina Powles and In Stillness, Thanks by Sarah Gower. Sitting in the Light provides the less-glamorous, graphic, and intimate descriptions of post- birth moments.
For the second piece, In Stillness, Thanks, I think I cried the first, second, and third time reading it, because it was such a poignant account of processing loss. These two are my favourites, but each story resonates with a unique aspect of care that I can personally relate to.
Q: Any plans for future publications?
I am always writing something these days, but for this book, my co-editor Nisha Arora and I are discussing a second edition of Full Circle to include more voices and diverse stories. I am also excited about a project led by Katie Lee, exploring narratives around first births from both the perspective of parents and medical students, and how this can be a transformative experience.
Q: To end off the interview, how does your creative passion help you become a better physician?
Ultimately, for me, what is at the core of medicine is relationships. The arts are also very much about relationships and how you communicate certain values; I do not see art and medicine as so separate! Everyone has stories within them, and interviewing and building relationships with patients is a form of art in itself.
Clinic
M.A., 2T5 PB
A flurry of steps
Rushing down halls
‘Who’s here? What’s next?’
They gesture and call
From room to room
One case to the next
This patient needs meds
And this patient needs rest
Lists upon lists
Rows of seats never empty
The clock moves fast
But for patients it’s lengthy
Come the end of day
When all is done
The doctor leans back
‘Oh gosh! Where’s the sun?’
The days can drone on
Work can seem futile
Take some time to think
Feel instead of toil
What’s routine to us
To patients is daunting
But know you make a difference
In the efforts you’re making
Be proud of yourself
Honour the lives at your provision
Be kind and be brave
Find peace in your profession
The One Sentence Summary
Leighton Schreyer, 2T6 Fitz
I failed the first Case Report I had to write in medical school—although, I guess I didn’t fail per se (it’s pretty hard to actually fail something); rather, my report was deemed inadequate, which, according to the rubric, meant that there was either information missing (highly unlikely, given that my report was 6 pages long and took me 2 hours to write despite my tutor saying it shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes), or that information had been described inappropriately, which was more likely the case because, although it wasn’t explicitly stated (most things aren’t these days), the feedback I received was to try to make the summary more brief, and, while I thought I’d been relatively succinct in my half-page summary of patient KB who came to the ER the previous week complaining of SOB and was diagnosed with PE following CT, then coded despite being started on UFH, at which point they were sent to the ICU where an IVC filter was later placed, and although I had only alluded to some of the social factors at play—that they had fractured their foot, for example, while they were on vacation in the Philippines a few weeks before, which meant that they hadn’t been able to go to Zumba class or frequent the Farmer’s Market the way they normally did on Friday mornings to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and fine cut meats (which also meant they’d been eating more processed foods lately that were high in sugar and salt and saturated fat); or that they had talked about being lonely, which I knew posed health risks as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day—I still accepted the criticism and, when it came time to write the second Case Report, this time about patient CU, I limited my summary to a third of the page, which I thought was pretty brief but, again, my summary was deemed inadequate: challenge yourself, for the next case report, to make the summary just 2-3 sentences, the comments read this time, which made me think of Chuck, my Grade 12 English teacher, who passionately recited Shakespearean soliloquies each class and somehow found a way to make grammar lessons fun, encouraging us to apply our learning of punctuation—of em dashes and en dashes and commas and colons and parentheses and periods— by starting a class competition around who could write the longest, grammatically correct sentence (brownie points and bragging rights for the win), so when my tutor challenged me to write a summary in just 2-3 sentences (a suggestion that was surely meant to shorten my summary), I scoffed, defiant, and accepted the challenge, submitting my third Case Report with just a one sentence summary.
Life is a Koan
Kaesavan Selvakumaran, PGY1 FM Resident, formerly 2T3 MAM
Artist's Statement: Kaesavan has been practicing Zen for over four years. He doesn’t know why he does it but keeps returning to the practice again and again. Society says that if you “work hard” and “put in the hours,” you will achieve what you hope to achieve. That, however, doesn’t seem to apply to Zen. Many go on for years or even decades without any progress. For others, they experience an almost instantaneous moment of enlightenment. This is one of many reasons why Zen brings fascination to the writer.
I tried entering the Zendo
With various motives
First, for solace
If not, for profit
Yet, tension to achieve
And failure to not
Kept me running
For 30 minutes.
Techniques and tips
“shoulds” and “shouldn’ts”
Are keys
that open no doors.
Expectation otherwise
Is Groundhog day
So where to go?
How to be?
Zen is a game of clarity.
But I’m too prideful to see.
From Olive Trees (a modified excerpt)
எங்கள் சமூகம், 2T4 Fitz
We buy that olive oil
to cook, to eat, to live,
for taste, for joy, for life.
While the olive trees,
in relation with a people
and a people in relation with the olive trees,
are under _word has been censored_.
This is a people’s history.
Stories of children, families, communities,
Of relationality,
Of songs,
Of recipes,
Embedded in the plant beings
Of those lands,
And of those waters.
And there, they will always be.
-In memory of Bilal Saleh. He was harvesting olives.