Introduction: Part Two • by Roxanna Bennett 2

Imaginary Safe House • Introduction Part II by Roxanna Bennett, Guest Editor While it has done wonders for my psychological well-being (highly recommend!) and has freed up massive amounts of time to work on my own poetic practice, it has meant that I am not very aware of ongoing discussions regarding disability activism. When such matters have been brought to my attention, I’m usually saddened and shocked by the degree to which we, and by we I mean the species, hurt each other. Like many disabled people, I have a background rooted in trauma, compounded by social shaming and othering, and navigating the labyrinthine pharmaceutical/medical/industrial complex for forty plus years has left this neurodivergent old lady…weird, to say the least.             I struggle with shame, anxiety, fear of confrontation, just as most of you reading this do. I struggle with feelings of inadequacy, like I’ve either just made a mistake or am about to, I continually feel as though I have said or done the wrong thing and am creating problems for everyone around me. I am sure many of you reading experience this as well. Our commonalities are larger than we believe. Our very human wish to be understood, validated, listened to, and free of pain, is something we all have in common.             In reading the contributions to this issue, I have been reminded, again and again, of how far a little human decency and kindness can go in this world, how much pain and suffering we all share and how very real our desire is for connection. It has been my honour to find commonalities of experience in the essays I solicited. From Leanne Toshiko Simpson’s beautifully rendered account of the complexity of navigating an overseas writing retreat while mentally ill, Anita Dolman’s aching memoir of growing up queer and anxious in small-town Ontario, Dominik Parisien’s illuminatingly lucid essay exploring language and the body, San Alland’s blisteringly brilliant crip history, I have felt myself in all of their stories. It is my sincere wish that you find something of yourself in this issue as I have found parts of my own experience echoed like a refrain within these pages. –•–  [  >>>>>   BIOS   I  READ: INTRODUCTION PART III  I  COVER ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Roxanna Bennett {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]