America

I woke up last night with words running through my head, as they are wont to do. Sentences and sentiments that rose unbidden in my brain and demanded to be let out. I was thinking, as so many of us are these days, about the chaos in the United States, and, as I lay there in the dark, I wondered why I, as a Canadian, care so much about what happens to my neighbour to the south. 

I thought about all the incredible American cities I have visited. Walking the Freedom Trail in Boston and hanging out with the Movies About Girls crew before we podcast-faded. Eating deep dish pizza and listening to the blues in Chicago. The incomparably cool vibe of New York City at night. The glitz of Las Vegas and the grandeur of the canyon in Arizona. Rock and roll road trips to stand in front of bands in Detroit. Red wine and hummingbirds in Napa and Sonoma, the glorious towering redwoods, the hills and rolling fog of San Francisco. 

I thought about all the amazing American artists whose work I have seen in galleries in the U.S. and around the world. Andy Warhol's celebrities and Jackson Pollock's splatter-drips and Georgia O'Keefe's skulls and flower labia. I have found joy in the whimsical sculptures of Jeff Koons and the comic book paintings of Roy Lichtenstein. I have gazed into Mark Rothko's colour abyss and marvelled at the intricacy and delicacy of Alexander Calder's mobiles. 

Thanks to Americans, we have electric light, photographs, record players, computers, and flight.  

Thanks to Americans, we have the blues and punk and motown and pop and rap and motherfucking rock 'n' roll, can I get a hallelujah, brothers and sisters! Johnny Thunders and Johnny Cash, the Ramones and the Stooges, Debbie Harry and Richard Hell, Bo Diddley and Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and Dolly Parton and Tom Petty, Tina Turner and Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke and Snoop Dogg, N.W.A. and Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the Beastie Boys, The Velvet Underground, Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. 

American authors and film makers and television show creators too numerous to mention have helped shape my world. Who would I be without Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Mulder and Scully? Without James Cameron's gutbusting alien or Tobe Hooper's chainsaw-wielding maniac or Steven Spielberg's translucent extra-terrestrial? Without the darkness of Stephen King or the bad taste of John Waters? The stories and philosophies of Steinbeck or Hemingway or Faulkner or Cormac McCarthy? The wisdom of Ray Bradbury, Judy Blume, or Beverly Cleary? 

I love you, America, for all the ways you have contributed to the person I am today. 

You have many, many faults. You are not often humble, and you frequently get involved in wars that are none of your business, to the detriment of everyone involved. I do not understand your fondness for automatic or even semi-automatic weapons, but I am frequently amused by your insistence on the right to bare [sic] arms. You still haven't really dealt with the impact of slavery. You are often under-educated and ill-informed about the world around you, and I will never comprehend your resistance to universal health care.

Over the last four years, I have watched your elected leader, a conman and a liar, encourage these faults. I have watched him strut and preen, incite violence and hatred and fear. I have watched him embolden people to embrace all the parts of humanity that we, as a global community, should be striving to eradicate. (I am not so naive to believe that this will ever truly be possible, but I am optimistic that we can move forward and maybe not be quite as shitty to each other.)  

I want better for you, America. I don't want you to be great. You don't need to be the best. I just so want you to be good.      

On Beauty

A 25-year-old who as a child rescued insects from the pool and asked for donations to the Humane Society instead of gifts for her 10th birthday is insecure about her yoga-toned body. This beautiful young woman, who gives the sweetest, most sincere handmade Christmas cards, is already considering a facelift. She is open-minded and progressive, goes topless at nude beaches with her friends but critiques the men there as having "micro-penises" and appears not to recognize the hypocrisy.  

A talented 30-something artist battling a physically and emotionally debilitating disease wears pants in 30 degree weather because she "doesn't like her legs." She has received considerable unwanted attention from men throughout her life, both strangers and not, as a result of her appearance (dark lipstick, pale skin, black hair, a modern-day Snow White). When she rebuffs their advances, they resort to petty commentary on the shape of her body, and she has internalized their criticisms so that now she is more comfortable hiding it than exposing it.  

An 80-year-old woman wears turtlenecks and long sleeves, pants and socks, to a pool party to avoid getting sun spots that no one will ever see. She teaches piano and plays Scrabble and watches CNN and looks things up on the internet and refuses to be one of those old ladies one sees hobbling around with walkers or canes, speaking only of their grandchildren. She got divorced as a young mother of two small children to get out of an abusive relationship and became the outcast of her strict Mennonite family. She used her good looks and charm and talent and made a life for herself. She has had a nose job, face lifts, botox injections. She counts out 7 almonds and weighs herself daily. 

It makes me sad when women who are otherwise strong, creative, resilient, generous, and kind are not comfortable in their bodies. It makes me sad, but I understand firsthand the way society, in the form of individuals and the media, informs our sense of worth as women, women who must be beautiful, a beauty that is defined by someone else. 

As a teenager, a boy I liked once called me "linebacker thighs" as we walked to the bus stop. Today I recognize that the size and shape of my thighs were none of his business (and later behaviour revealed him to be rather an asshole), but his comment wormed its insidious way into my psyche and lodged there for many years. Like the 30-something above, I avoided shorts, until one day I didn't. 

I bought a pair of black knee-length shorts and wore them out of the house. I bought denim cut-offs, which got shorter over the years. I looked at myself naked in the mirror, at the linebacker thighs that were in reality just thighs, not as long and slender and smooth as the thighs of models, certainly, but just thighs, curved, gently dimpled in places. The more often I looked at them, the more I liked them. The more often I looked at them and liked them, the less important they seemed. 

It is so hard to accept our bodies when so many sources bombard us with images of what beauty is and how it looks. (Sadly, this observation is nothing new.) But it excites me that the beauty industry (and it is crucial that we remember that it is an industry) is changing. Every ad campaign and runway show that includes women of different ethnicities and body shapes is a step forward. Every celebrity instagram feed showing a "before" and the extent of the image manipulation to get to the "after" is a step forward. (I worry that photo filters on cell phones are a step backward.) 

So I urge you to look at yourself in the mirror, naked. Look often. Look until the curves and folds and dimples (or whatever parts you are self-conscious about) look normal. Look longer at your own body than you look at the bodies of other people. Look until your physical form is no longer a stranger. Look until what you look like is not as important as what you have accomplished or overcome or are currently dealing with. Look to make sure you don't have mascara smudged under your eye or a booger hanging out of your nose, and then stop looking and start living and try to forget or ignore what other people say or think. (I know this is hard.) Because the people who make you feel less than beautiful, who judge you and criticize you for the way you look, always have ulterior motives, be they personal or commercial, subconscious or not.      

Unless we die young, we will grow old. Our bodies will revolt and begin the inescapable decay that is the precursor to death. We will get wrinkles and jowls, we will lose hair in some places and grow more of it in others, we will gain weight or lose it, succumb to cancer and heart disease and dementia, our bones will become brittle, our skin will sag. When you really think about it, bodies are a goddamn drag. 

Your beauty, your real beauty, is in your kindness, your generosity to others, your campaign to raise awareness for a cause, your confidence, your struggle, the art you create, the goals you meet, the relationships you build, your willingness to learn and grow and riot on. xo

 

   

We can never really know.

I lie in the shade beneath the umbrella on the patio sofa, hungover and slightly diarrhetic as a result of last night's overindulgence, feel the pull in my stomach muscles and calves as I stretch my arms above my head and flex my toes. I close my eyes, the summer breeze cool on my skin, and listen to the constant white noise hum of the air conditioner unit, the electric buzz of cicadas in the trees, the persistent piercing whistle of a mating call, the scifi movie sound effect of birdsong. 

Does everyone think in alliterative phrases? I suspect not, for not everyone is a writer. And if they don't, how exactly do they think? 

(The first time I became aware of this mind habit of mine, I was walking to school in Grade 4 or 5. She walked to school, taking her usual route... I was Lucy stepping through the wardrobe, Mary pulling weeds in an abandoned garden, Pippi lifting horses and finding treasure and outsmarting adults, I was myself walking to school.) 

I let a deerfly land on my finger and crush him, life snuffed out in an instant. I feel no remorse: deerflies have no redeeming qualities; they are the vampiric Republicans of the insect world, worse than mosquitoes. Deerflies use two pairs of mouthpart "blades" to get at your blood.  

Are the two tiny white butterflies flitting by playfully chasing each other, as I presume, or is this a silent struggle for garden territory, an epic battle gone un-understood by human observation?

A pair of dragonflies (they are always named Evinrude) hover above the pool, bright green and metallic blue, oblivious to the invisible threats of racism, sexual abuse, the novel coronavirus.

I think of a favourite Steinbeck quote: “No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”

This is the crux of my frustration. Things that seem so obvious to me, so rational and true, are not obvious to others. The internet is full of people screaming, "You need to think like me! Why don't you think like me, act like me, believe what I believe?". I am guilty of this myself. I erroneously suppose that you are like me, forget that I can never really know you.

We can rant and swear and meme in an attempt to force conformity, and maybe this works to change some people's attitudes and behaviours, but I suspect (and I believe that my suspicion is true because it is mine) that ranting and swearing and meming only force people farther away from each other.

So how do we know about other human beings? I am a writer and a reader, so my obvious answer to this question is through our stories. Tell me what happened to you to make you who you are. Do not assume I know. All I can know about you is what you tell me. 

(A single strand of spider web shimmers in the sun. She shifts her position on the sofa to stay in the shade.)

When we share our stories, we will inevitably discover moments of identification and solidarity in our individual moments of tragedy and triumph. Such is the human experience. We can never really know about other human beings, but we can, and should, try. 

  

 

 

 

Elements

I take the delicate stem of a clover leaf between thumb and forefinger, follow it down to the tangle of roots hidden just below the surface, and rip gently but firmly upwards, following the root like a woman following the rope in the dark that will lead her home, tearing stem and root and flower from earth. Ant bites on my ankles and dirt beneath my fingernails. 

In the distance, the unmistakable crack of a slice or a hook. Children search through the tall grass along the fenceline for a lost golf ball, a great treasure. Two young helmeted boys hover futuristically on segways down the path, making me irrationally angry and sad. Just use your fucking legs, I think. Two more helmeted boys ride by on bicycles, thigh and calf muscles expanding and contracting to get their bodies and their bicycles up the gently-sloping incline, and balance is restored.   

Last night I dreamt that I was popping blackheads on my nose but what emerged was not pus but the black antenna of a gypsy moth caterpillar. Wildfires and the coronavirus and police brutality and racism and ignorance and lies and manipulation and propaganda and judgment and fear and a gypsy moth infestation. Destruction and death. And death, and death.  

I think of the coals of last night's fire glowing red in the dark, hint of hell. I woke up this morning with the smell of smoke in my hair.    

The summer breeze in the towering twin trees in the park, glinting sun and whispering wind and quivering silver (quilvering?) leaves. The military drone of an airplane in the distance, the chirping and cheeping and twittering of birds. Cottony cumulus clouds break up the blue, hawks drift lazily overhead. I wave my arms at them: I'm still alive. 

My body is weightless, suspended. I push myself, muscles expanding and contracting, through hydrogen and oxygen, which simultaneously resist and submit to my efforts. My thoughts drift like the hawks overhead.  

The Protest Rally

There is something very powerful about being in the same space as thousands of other people who believe in something as strongly as you do. There is a sense of camaraderie and connectedness that is impossible to replicate in any other forum. It's why the encores at stadium rock shows are such a rush, and why public protest rallies exist. Being part of a crowd reinforces your humanity, your awareness of being part of a society rather than just an individual.

Close to 10 000 people attended the Black Lives Matter rally in my sleepy Canadian city this afternoon. It was the perfect day for a protest, warm but not sweltering, with a pleasant early summer breeze. The crowd was diverse: racially, from the darkest black to the palest white, and generationally, from the small children being pulled in wagons to the seasoned protesters like my 68-year-old mother, who could not take a knee because of her arthritis (she did try). 

Together, we raised our fists in silent solidarity, raised our signs (scribbled on cardboard or stenciled on bristol board, mis-spelled or grammatically correct, quotes and slogans and lists of the dead) and our voices (albeit muffled because of our masks). We stopped traffic as we walked down the middle of the downtown streets. (It is always a thrill to be out in such pedestrian numbers that motor vehicles are forced to yield.) Some motorists rolled their windows down and honked along to "2-4-6-8! Stop the violence, stop the hate!", while some were obviously caught unaware. We rewarded the horn honkers with cheers and ignored the others. 

I felt it was important for me to add my white, female, middle-class body to the event to prove that injustice matters, not just to the five young black women who organized the event, not just to George Floyd and the other murdered black men in America who have inspired this most recent movement, but to every human being on the planet, and I am glad I went.        

But I am uncomfortable at protest rallies, and I think I have figured out why. The very nature of a public protest means the message can get convoluted. Everyone has their own agenda and motivation. Plus, when it comes to human rights, there is no single cause. People were protesting against discrimination, police violence, racial profiling, and a certain demagogic world leader. They were suggesting defunding the police and dismantling the prison system, stressing the importance of education and justice system reform and indigenous rights. One man had a sign demonizing the prime minister (he also carried a Canadian flag and had the mouth and nose portions of his mask cut out).  

After much deliberation, I had made two signs, one stating, "COLOUR IS NOT A CRIME," and one advocating "UNITY JUSTICE EQUALITY." Despite the Black Lives Matter purpose, it was important to me to protest racial discrimination in general, as I work with mostly Asian youth and one of my closest friends is Iranian. I also didn't want to promote the ACAB argument, because I cannot morally make such absolute statements, but I do want to see violent police officers punished.  Was I perverting the intent of the protest? 

For some reason, it makes me uncomfortable to repeat someone else's words, even if those words are important and true. And I instinctively resist doing what everyone else is doing; I am not, by nature, a follower of trends or a joiner of clubs. So it was hard for me to raise my fist, hard to chant along, although I sometimes did. It was easy for me to raise my sign, because those were my chosen words. 

But maybe that's the point of doing what everyone else is doing, or at least of doing what people who are not you are doing, especially at a protest rally: to force you into a different way of speaking and acting, to force you to lose your individuality, with all its unique experiences and inherent prejudices, and recognize your role as a part of society, a critical part with the responsibility to change those parts of society that subjugate others, whomever those others may be.

Don't be afraid of being uncomfortable. And please don't stop learning and listening and helping make the world better for us all. Thanks for reading. And, as always, riot on.       

May 2020

Shells of police vehicles, burned and blackened. Killer KKKops in graffiti on a brick wall. Fuck Trump scrawled in spray paint across another.

A bunch of men rock a white van, which stubbornly refuses to topple, a metaphor for the establishment. They give up and smash its windows instead, with baseball bats and tire irons and crowbars.

Broken glass glitters on asphalt. Spent canisters of tear gas and plastic water bottles litter the streets, projectiles that reinforce the inequality at the heart of this conflict.

A uniform and a civilian grapple on the ground. Before his fellow officers can arrive to assist, the crowd attacks the pair, succeeds in rescuing the man from the law. I cheer. Fucker, I say out loud, through tears. 

What do you think, I wonder, standing there silently in your riot gear, as civilians shout their anger and frustration into your face, phones at the ready to capture violence. (The cell phone camera, the most powerful weapon we have.)

Do you hate them? Do you see the enemy? Or do you understand the pain and grief? Do you see human beings who have no other recourse when everything is against them and they are murdered, over and over again, because you are afraid of dark pigment and poverty? Because you abuse your power, over and over again, and get off with a pension and a slap on the wrist while black men already in handcuffs die in the streets of a baton blow, a gun shot, a taser shock, a choke hold, a knee on the neck?

Stand there and take it. It is the very least you can do. I don't hate you, I don't believe all cops are bastards, but all of you need to suffer. You protect your own before you protect the innocent, and for that, even the noblest among you is culpable.

I don't revel in violence, but I, too, want to see it all burn. Burn the police stations, burn the courthouses, burn the White House to the goddamn ground. Fuck the police, fuck the unfair laws that keep people imprisoned, literally and figuratively, fuck the rich white men in power whose only motivators are fear and greed. Make them listen.

And when our immediate violence and anger have been spent (as they must, since violence and anger are not our natural emotional state), don't let it burn down into hopelessness. Make them listen in a different way, with an X on a ballot, your name on a petition, your voice at a rally, your kindness and compassion in the face of oppression and fear. And riot on.     

Self-Isolation Day 45

Today is Day 45 of my self-isolation.

The world has not yet exploded into green, and the upcoming weekend is supposed to drop below zero again, but the latent beauty of spring buds is visible on the ends of the dull brown branches. Every year I have that moment of almost giddy happiness when I realize that everything is suddenly in bloom. The sight of magnolias, flushed and feminine, never fails to bring tears to my eyes. The glory of southern Ontario in spring can't come soon enough.

My sleep schedule is erratic. I go to bed anywhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Some days I'll sleep until noon, some days I'm up early enough to watch the light creep into the sky. (I am not a morning person, but I do enjoy the peacefulness of dawn.) Almost everyone I know is suffering from insomnia in varying degrees, so at least I'm not alone. The last time I took a sleeping pill I peed the bed, so I've been avoiding that thus far. Sometimes I'll pop a melatonin tablet under my tongue and hope for the best.

I've learned over the past few weeks that nobody can sing happy birthday on a zoom call with any degree of proficiency. Everyone is always self-consciously looking at their own face instead of focusing on the song, so it sounds like a 45 played at 33. I suppose it's good to be able to see how others see you in case you aren't wearing pants or there is something inappropriate in the background (a sinkful of dishes or a stack of porn or a pile of dirty laundry), but if this feature could be removed, video conversations would be much more natural, as we can't see our own faces in real life interactions for good reason. We're all such narcissists.

On Sunday I went for a drive alone down county highways, the Sonny Vincent tribute record blasting on the stereo, the window rolled down, the sun and the wind warm on my bare skin. I sunburned my left arm, but it was worth it to forget confinement for a couple of hours. Just a girl and a car and the open road. Fucking freedom, man. 

It's easy to forget that the world's gone mad when you're reading or fucking or picking weeds in the backyard or driving alone down an almost empty highway on a warm spring day, but the bliss of forgetfulness is ephemeral and, as soon as you turn on the TV or the computer, reality suckerpunches you in the face in the form of a restaurant delivery commercial. 

I no longer compulsively watch the news. Headlines are enough. I don't want to watch any more feel-good stories about how people are coping. I don't want to watch any more balcony singers or read any more historical comparisons. I don't want to watch musicians performing live from their living rooms. I don't want to hear "PPE" or "flatten the curve" or "frontline workers" or "contact tracing" or "we're all in the same boat" or "stay safe," even though I frequently use that last one myself in written correspondence. I don't want to be reminded of the stages of grief and assured that I am fine at whatever stage I am in. I just want someone to tell me when it's over.

My dad sent me a photograph of himself in sunglasses and mask on a moped on a street in Thailand, giving a thumbs-up. I had no idea sobs were lurking so close to the surface of my otherwise rock-solid facade of cool until they burst unceremoniously forth when I opened that particular email.

The beauty of spring, a good night's sleep, birthday celebrations instead of death notices, a Sunday drive, a photograph of one's estranged father: there is reason to hope. Riot on. xo