By the time I recorded her the second time, her life dramatically changed. Marriage ended, one daughter died in a car accident and life was on the street. Now in her 60s and one could make an argument questioning her mental health. She started confiding to people she was the messiah, sort of nonchalantly, just so you knew you need not worry about anything because you’re talking with the big cheese. I thought we could try obtaining a grant to cover the costs of recording, so we applied to the Ontario Arts Council. I could answer the technical questions about manufacturing, recording or organizing musicians but for the personal identity questions she dictated her answers to me. .One question said: Using your own definitions of your art form, your community, your artistic career, how will this project impact each? “My musical expression draws from a deep and ancient source, that I’ve discovered is a deep and urgent response to the environment. The primal soulful cries in the voice is a surging of life force wherein is found voices of sea mammals and ancient primordial life, as is permeated in the DNA and in a timely emerging coming through to awaken mankind to help keep our home clean and safe for all.” I wrote it down but having sat on other music juries, I felt pretty sure we didn’t stand a hope in hell.

The application asked about background, are you a person of colour, are you Francophone, are you Indigenous. She said yes to Indigenous. I wasn’t sure what to do because my sense of her was that she was not Indigenous, at least in the twenty years I had known her I never heard her say that before. One time she also told me she had Jewish roots but when I questioned her about it her answers were vague. At another time she was trying to learn beginner Hebrew and it was apparent she didn’t know any of the melodies or how to correctly pronounce Jewish prayers. Of course it’s possible she was a Jew learning these things for the first time and it was possible she was Indigenous, she might be the fucking messiah too. I told her the money set aside for Indigenous people is there specifically for Indigenous people. Is that really truly your background? Yes Bob, she said, it goes back.

One time at the Summerworks festival, I was chatting with a woman who was a theatre maker I didn’t know previously, she looked white like me and when she asked me about what I thought of the festival I told her I was impressed with how many different kinds of stories were being told by people not like her and me. She said what do you mean? I said not by people who are white like you and me. She told me she was Indigenous and took offence at my remark. It was an interesting moment because being from Winnipeg and having gone to high school with Indigenous friends, I never knew anyone who identified as Indigenous who looked as white as me. I realize now there are lots of people who do but I had not up until that moment. So when Anhai told me yes Bob it goes back. I already felt dumb about the time I offended the theatre maker, it was only two years earlier. We proceeded then with the application and a few months later she got the whole ten grand, I couldn’t believe it, nobody gets the whole enchilada. She later lost it all, but that’s a whole other nightmare.