I remember sitting in the old shed that my Mishoom (Grandfather) built at my Dad's place. I sat there sniffing gas out of the spout of a tin gas can. I remember looking at the nozzle. It had those lines for screwing the cap. In my sniffed up head I saw myself falling down the nozzle into the tank.
The gas sniffing experience is weird. It straight kills brain cells and you see things not there. You also stink. It didn't become a habit the sniffing but I did it enough to remember some of the crazy experiences. There was a song that went along with the sniffing which we talked about. Sometimes we would go sit in the culvert that ran underneath the highway close to our house. The creek used to run through the culvert but the creek has long since dried up. The sounds of the cars passing over of us was a weird sound.
Not sure why I am sharing about these experiences. The notion of sniffing is not pleasant. It is still evident on the streets in Winnipeg. You see people of different ages holding rags to their mouth. The rags are dipped in different solvents. The people walking around in a stupor.
It is funny how your brain works. When we were young in the Reserve we thought the city was where the wild Indians and people were. They would sniff stuff like nail polish remover and we thought that was hard core and you would lose brain cells over that.
Just wanted to share some of the things done when we were kids. We didn't have dope. We had gasoline. We would put it in little cans and sniff it. Sometimes when high we would tip to our faces like we were drinking and the next thing we were wet from gasoline. Dangerous. One of the things I noticed as a result of the sniffing was the spitting. We tended to spit a lot. We didn't sniff it through our nose but rather breathed in the fumes through our mouth.
I saw many different things while all sniffed up. I saw a cartoon mouse dancing away on this big gasoline drum; I saw a big green mosquito on my back about the size of a crow; a battle between clouds in the sky. The headaches that followed were wicked. Not sure why we did what we did.
I remember the last incident I had sniffing. I was with my friend and we were sitting in the bush huffing gasoline. Next thing I know I am in the air looking down at me and my friend. Not sure how long it lasted. I went back into my body and started telling my friend what happened and he said I know I saw you.
It is one of the many regrets I have in my life; along with many mistakes, sniffing is one of them. I didn't do it for very long or that many times. I have and will continue to make mistakes until I die, its what we do. It was long time ago but I still feel bad over it.
We like to revisit our own histories and try and revise them but we can't. We can only affect what we do today and hope to do good tomorrow.
Always carry hope
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