sad things

I am reeling from watching G20 news unfurl over twitter on the weekend and listening to friends' stories, during and after. I stayed home, did nothing but click refresh on my various feeds and watch videos and read testimonials and look at photos and feel the frightened band around my chest get tighter and tighter.

There are a million things I'd like to link to here, but really, just google G20 and you'll see. Or start on Mae's blog. I've been in awe of her ability to communicate through this while I have sat dumbstruck and horrified in front of the glowing screen.

Over 900 arrests. Hundreds more forcibly silenced. Thousands more scared into silence and absence by the threat of police violence.

All to capture, ostensibly, fewer than 200 people. Ostensibly. Ostensibly.

It is shameful.

A lot of terrible things have been said about the cops. I don't disagree, but I can't stop thinking about them as people. What do they say to their partners? Their children and neighbours? Their own consciences? I've read testimonials where individual cops acted with contrition; though those reports are few and far between.

I have been thinking a lot about The Stanford Prison Experiment. About how if you dress people up like faceless robotic borg and give them the permission to be violent, then that is often how they'll act.

I have been thinking about how the state - on all levels, municipal to federal - put those individual cops in a position where human nature basically dictated that many of them would act the way that many of them did: with inhumanity.

I have been thinking about how terrifying that is for all of us and then where do you start. Because that's not just fuck the police; that's fuck everything.

++

Rallies in solidarity with those who were arrested are being held across the country.

Maybe I'll see you in Montreal.

This year has been quite something. The big things that have happened have either been supremely excellent or heart-rendingly hard.

Hard or excellent, take your pick, it was a mostly unbloggable year Chez Butch.

Since not long after I started it, this blog became one of my main places for working internal shit out. We've all got that shit, I figure; most of it's not all that different from person to person. Maybe the details, but often not the reasons or root. And most of us feel terribly alone while we're trying to work it out. I wanted to feel less alone myself, and hoped that it would maybe make other people feel the same.

Which works fine if the emotional stuff you're working out are the increasingly weak aftershocks of things one or two decades old.

Peeling back the layers to get at the raw stuff means sharing the details. Without the context, it's just senseless wailing.

If the stuff you're dealing with is unfolding in real time, around you now, it isn't ghosts conjured by your messed up chemistry. It involves the details - and, more importantly, the feelings - of the lives of people you love. Who would, perhaps, choose not to share their lives with the internet.

And so, the hard stuff has been absolutely unbloggable.

It's all to do with family. I started 2009 with a lot of certainty as to what my life was going to look like in the near and distant future. That has shifted significantly and I have no real idea what my life will look like in 12 months, 5 years, a decade.

None of us do, not really, but I always liked to pretend. I clung to the visions I conjured up. I'm not sure that doing so was particularly good for me. This year I have been learning how to open up to what happens a bit better. That hasn't happened without a lot of crying.

The excellent stuff was both very much and only slightly more bloggable.

Chronologically last, I wrote a novel this year, which you've already heard more than enough about. It was a door slamming shut on one phase of my writing life. The next door is open, and I'm taking a breather before stepping through to take a look around at what's in the next room. It's exhilarating and a little terrifying.

Chronologically first, I fell in love. It crept up kind of slowly, which is an emotional first for me. I've tended to not so much fall in love with people as throw myself out of a plane at super high altitude without checking my parachute. I moved in with my band boy ex after we'd been dating for 6 months. Eric and I had our first four dates in four days.

The unspoken plan with D., at least back in May, was that we'd have a fun summer together, full of kisses and larfs, and then he'd head back to London and we would drift quietly and amicably back to being acquaintances. Except he didn't and we most definitely didn't. He stayed and I though that was excellent.

Normally I'd have been blogging it the whole way along, as I have with the other people I've dated in the past 4 or 5 years. This time, I wanted the space to feel all my feelings, to not pin them down or push them along the most narratable path. Those feelings continue to grow and I continue to want to give them free rein.

2010 might also be nigh unbloggable. It's hard to say. The stuff that started this year will still be playing out through the next.

We'll see how much I want to write about it.

By the time Mike finished his pre-class spiel, almost everyone in the room had sniffled or wiped away a tear or blinked their eyes at the ceiling. He talked about how Santosha Centretown started, how he'd started in yoga, what practising has done for him, how wonderful the current space was. The peacefulness particularly of the room we were in. How nice it was. How sad it was the space was closing.*

My very first class at Santosha was with Mike on November 27, 2007. I'd been doing yoga for about a year and a half (starting at Rama Lotus with the awesome Jamine), but Ashtanga was a new kind of yoga for me, which was the main reason for switching. I also wanted to do lunchtime classes in the hopes that they'd be smaller and that the before and after would be less stressful than it had been at Rama Lotus.

The first few ashtanga classes kicked my ass. But I loved them and knew I was hooked in pretty short order. I bought a cheapie unlimited pass and started going pretty regularly.

Three weeks after my first class, Eric dumped me.

I wasn't sure I was going to survive how much that break up hurt. It wasn't a wail of "I'll never be happy again!" It was wondering whether that much pain might physically stop my heart.

How did I survive? By going slightly off the rails and doing yoga 5 or 6 times a week most weeks.

At Santosha. In the small room full of light and green plants and kindness.

Where either people did not notice, or were kind enough to pretend not to notice, that I was crying through many of my postures, that I sometimes left class for several minutes, coming back from the bathroom with bloodshot eyes.

Dayby day, month by month, I got better. Physically, yes, more able to follow my breath, more of my hand on the floor each time I bent over. But mostly in my head and my heart. I breathed and I healed with the unknowing support of the teachers and the students. And the space. That room itself came to be a place where I could pay attention and soothe what needed soothing. To learn when to push myself and when to be kind.

I went often enough for enough months that people started to talk to me. Joke me up a little. I stopped taking my membership card because all the teachers and staff came to know me by name and would have me down before I could hand it over. I got to know people's names. Everyone seemed really nice.

There's more lead up than this, more politics, but I don't know them and I don't want to. All I know is that a few weeks ago, Elena mentioned that the studio would be moving, they had a new place on Elgin. And then two weeks ago, the notice went up. Closed August 1st. Reopening sometime in the fall.

It's like someone cut my mooring rope. I know it's just a place and that there are lots of nice places. And that there are lots of nice people. And that wherever I end up, I'll probably see lots of them again. And that whatever happens, it will be what it will be, and that will be okay.

After class today, I sat on the toilet, put my face in my hands and silently sobbed again. For the last time. And that made me cry harder.

I am one of those vascular white people who cannot hide their feelings. When I get angry, the blood blossoms in jagged petals over my chest and neck. When I cry even a little, the tears scrawl themselves in hot rough patches over my face. My nose swells and turns bright red. The rims of my eyes turn puffy pink.

When I came out of the bathroom, lots of people patted my arm and told me it was okay. I hung around a bit more, not wanting to leave, for it to be really over. E. said she'd see me at the store. Scott said that we'd all pop up in each other's lives again. Adele gave me a hug and said that now she'd have to have another party.

I know this community is contingent, that we will move into and out of each other's lives. Aside from yoga, I actually can't tell you how much we have in common, because I don't know: it's almost all we talk about. But they have helped me shape who I am becoming. Have helped me start healing old wounds just by breathing beside me. Have told me that I actually can do what I think I cannot.

Too, I know that a room is, in the end, just 6 flat surfaces and air. But oh. Losing a place you feel safe and a group of people who support you, it is a hard thing.

Is worth mourning.

*Moving apparently, and re-opening, though we don't know to where or when.

Peaceful & Pro-Choice Vigil for Dr. George Tiller

8:00pm
Tuesday, June 2nd
Human Rights Monument (Elgin & Lisgar)

On Sunday May 31st at around 10:00am Dr. George Tiller was murdered. He was shot to death in the vestibule of the church he belonged to in Wichita, Kansas.

Dr. Tiller was an abortion provider. He was one of the only doctors providing late-term abortions, and since 1973 he provided these services to women despite many threats against his life.

His murder was an act of violence that not only takes his life, hurting his family and loved ones, but one that threatens the entire pro-choice community and beyond.

This vigil will be a chance to gather to honour Dr. Tiller. Many of us are deeply shaken by what happened, and this event will allow us be together in solidarity, showing support for his family, his staff, for the women and families he has served, and for the abortion community.

Please join us in a peaceful gathering.
Bring candles, flowers, whatever you like.

This is an accessible event for people of all faiths and genders, open to
anyone that would like to join us in solidarity.

Today is a better day than yesterday.

Some background: this has been a fuck of a winter. Not the shitshow fuck of a grand emotional disaster winter that last winter was, but enough of a fuck that I have at times thought -maybe I could have a season, one season, unmarred by some kind of loss.

A more grinding -what now- kind of fuck.

Here is the winter's dreary catalogue: the definitive end of an ill-defined thing with the Born Ruffian; [redacted]; filed under expected but still sad: the date for Jennifer's move; a trip to California lovely enough to highlight the sheer impossibility of continuing what CT and I had started; weeks of achy pulling apart; [redacted].

I am so tired of losing things, of stretching through transitions by convincing myself that what is on the other side will be as good as what was there just one minute ago. Better even, maybe. So tired. Sick of. Ignoring how sad.

All this was okay, mostly. I'd been a little leaky here or there about various things, suddenly hoarse-voiced in the middle of a story now and again. Okay though.

Then CT sent an email. It was a long one, a few screens. It was his usual: thoughtful, analytical, warm, unsparingly truthful, full of strength and vulnerability.

That is what I gave up.

I lost it, the Okay.

Took a while to find it again, and there was a lot of noseblowing and hiccoughing as I was searching.

But find it I did, eventually. Things picked up after that, got better even.

At 10 pm, Jennifer and I met up at the pub, where Steve and Cowboy H. overlapped the end of their pints with the start of ours. Then J. and I moved off down the road to see Winter Gloves and we danced danced danced to the synth and the handclaps; I closed my eyes and remembered why it is I see live shows, each chord or kick drum beat a gorgeous electric force from head to feet, immersed.

Moving out of the crowd at the end of their set, we ran into D.Jack and Handsome Jim and Jennifer handed me over, cutting out after 30 seconds of Thunderheist, which I knew she wouldn't like. TH was a disappointment, all of the beats with none of the volume, it floated over me and I couldn't dive in. I'd wanted to so much, been dancing around my living room for a couple of days pretending to be buried in the dark club full of noise, swinging my hips and shaking my hands at the ghosts.

I danced anyway, because why not. It was fun to get sweaty at the back of the crowd. Trade snarky jokes over the not-loud-enough music. To get tipsy and have another beer, fuckit anyway.

Today I'm still feeling a little washed out from finally having felt the sad I'd been cutting off at the knees. Probably that extra beer too, who's kidding who here. A little sleepy from not getting to bed till 2.30 in the am.

It's an okay kind of washed out, now, laid back. Making plans, cleaning up. Appreciating the sun and the subterranean green tone to the air; the riffley grey wind of an early spring afternoon, its smell sticking to you long after you've come inside.

It's been one of those weeks you know, like it seems everyone is having, where I'm pulled in all different directions. M-C says it's the mercury retrograde.

It costs about $800 to fly to Havana.

I know that.

Now.

Stay home, for once, in your life, Butcher, (it feels), just dig in and bear through, the winter, the wonder.

Find a fake girlfriend, (swoon).

Settle in with needles and wool. Starting on wrong side.

Knit.

Shovel hard.

Purl.

Bide your time.

Knit.

Exercise over much.

Yarn over.

Bake bread.

Knit. Knit. Turn to right side.

Amy and I had the best drives we've ever had in the winter. Four and a half hours, each way. A few flakes on the way there, some rain yesterday. No ice, no driving snow, no crawling along the seven. Pretty much clear sailing.

Even my hips, which don't so much like sitting in one spot for extended periods of time, and by extended, I generally mean a half hour, aren't hurting so much. I can barely touch my toes any more, mind you, and certainly not without groaning, but a week back at yoga and some extra-curricular piriformis stretching will right that soon enough.

Today has been my first full day back. It's been an uncomfortable one. I'm feeling strangely ill-at-ease and at loose ends. Dissatisfied with my life: with what I've done, with what I'm doing, with my style, my wardrobe, my body, my lack of discipline, of focus, my inability to, well, to do or not do whatever's annoying me about myself at that moment. Most of it, of course, is being channelled into some pretty severe body hatred.

What I need is my normal diet back, a diet that does not consist mainly of turkey and fruit. What I need is some exercise. Since Christmas day, most of my time has been spent sitting - in cars, in living rooms, in church basements, in front of movies or the computer. I've barely been outside, even today.

I think we can safely say that such behaviour is bad for me. I'll go out on a limb and say that it's bad for People. Very bad for people to spend all their time sitting indoors and eating copious amounts of frozen lasagne.

Sorry. Boxing Day flashback.

It's the time of year that can break you. Over the fall, I got into a pretty good swing, getting outside, moving, doing. But now it's so dark and I'm fucking tired. I don't want to walk to the yoga studio. I don't want to go for a run. I don't want to snowshoe. I don't want to walk to Centretown for groceries. Fuck, I barely want to walk to the back house to watch TV.

All I want to do is eat muffins and go to bed.

I know, though, that giving in to that desire is categorically a Bad Idea. It will make me sad. It will make me start hating, myself most of all. That way madness lies.

So as much as I do not want to, as much as I want to make some hot chocolate, sit on the couch, stare out the window, and think about all the things I hate about myself, I will not. I will make myself to go to yoga, tonight and tomorrow. I will walk the 20 minutes there and back. I am going to stretch and get sweaty. I am going to breathe.

Wednesday, I am going to make myself (and Shelley! Yay!) sign up for pilates classes, because I am hating my lack of core strength, of all places, I would really like, and need, some strength at my core, and there is something I can do about that lack. I could do it on my own, but I am not, and I will not. So I will pay somebody else to make me do something about it.

Also, I am going to stop thinking of how desperately sad for humanity frozen lasagne makes me.

On the way home from my monthly chocha waxing, I saw a lot of crazy pedestrian activity.

Usually I'm one of those pedestrians. I get antsy, start walking before it quite turns green. I jaywalk a fair amount, especially when I'm going to get coffee at the bakery directly across the street from my work.

At 3 pm today, a 60-year old pedestrian was killed.

My co-workers and I didn't know that at first, just saw the fire trucks and cop cars. Went to the front window, overlooking Bank, saw the ambulance, the paramedic closing the back door firmly, staring at the ground and walking slowly around to the driver's seat.

The people downstairs told us that someone had been run over - not just hit.

The truck he was found under was still on the street, looking completely unharmed. It was directly between the front door of my office and the front door of the bakery.

This comes a month after a 16-year old girl was hit at the corner of Bronson and Primrose, sent to hospital in serious but stable condition. I walked by that one a few minutes after it happened, the girl a lump under a cop's foil sheet, the paramedics just showing up.

The driver looked stricken. As she should have.

All this to say that when I got to the corner of Somerset and Bronson tonight, I thought it might be better to wait an extra three minutes in the cold than to catch the light. And it took every ounce of my willpower not to pluck at the sleeve of the man beside me, who, 2 minutes and 50 seconds later, started walking into the intersection when the light was still yellow.

This is not to say I blame pedestrians. I am a pedestrian far more often than I am a driver. I see drivers running yellows, hell, reds, on a regular basis, and you all need to slow the fuck down and wait your turn too.

My day was a big slice of crap slathered with creamy crap icing. It was all different kinds of crap coming from every which a way.

This is the kind of day, where if I'd had it in October, I wouldn't have written about it at all.

I just would have gone to bed hoping that upon waking, the slice of crap, if it hadn't magically turned into beams of radiant joy, would be at least a little thinner.

I'm at Bridgehead right now, working. At least theoretically.

Occasionally practically too.

What I want to do, though, is to turn up Wolf Parade really loud, push my laptop back, put my head on the table, and cry.

It's a certain mood this one, a walled in place, where the only thing my body wants to do is fall forward, half bent, half bowed; all collapsed.

Been a while since I've walked these grounds, laid my hands on such sad inventions.

Here's hoping it's a short trip: then back across the border, a new world.

Just a minute away.