transitions

Life, much like writing, is simply a series of transitions. We move from situation to situation in the ever-changing narrative that is our life. In writing, the transitions are tailored to the narrative and make sense, unfortunately, life does not follow these rules and sometimes our literal transitions can be abrupt, confusing, and messy. 

If my life followed the rules of a good story, and if all the transitions in it had made narrative sense, I would be in a much different place than I am today. Hell, if life made sense, I would have never been born in the first place. It makes no narrative sense that my parents met, yet they did.

I was born in the port city of Nanaimo, birthplace of the Nanaimo Bar, on a cold winter’s morn. I happened to be an emergency caesarian, and was immediately placed in a little glass box so that I could live. Not the most auspicious start to one’s life.

My best friend was the girl next door. If this were Hollywood, we’d be married. Instead, we live 2000 km apart and rarely speak. Dad was a social worker who worked with street kids and gang members. When I was seven we moved to Saskatchewan so he could be a mechanic and fix tractors.

Ever since that day I have wanted to go back home.

Home lays with the heart, and my heart lays with the ocean and the mountains.

My friends don’t understand; they’ve never lived anywhere else but the desolate prairies. They’ve never left their homes and their hearts behind.

In the prairies, I found god.

In the prairies, I lost faith.

Having finally thought found myself, I found myself lost. Amidst these strangers and strange things, I found religion to find stability.

With this religious stability, I found and weathered (whether or not I wanted to) many things: love, loss, despair, depression, suicide, self-loathing, self-hate, lies, and much more. With religion I learned to hate myself for who I was!

Who was I?

Bullying was not an aspect of my life until coming to the prairies. Hate was not an aspect of my life before coming to the prairies. I had no notion of what those really were, but I would soon learn. In the small town where I went to school, I was hated because I was from somewhere else. I wasn’t from another country. I wasn’t from a different race. I was simply not born in Saskatchewan, and so I was ostracized.

I love camping. It lets me be alone, and it lets me pretend that I am at home. With the woods blocking out the rest of the world, I can pretend that I am somewhere else.

When I was four, I broke my arm on a rock protruding from the ground. I was racing a friend back to our new house on Gabriola Island, and I lost my footing. The ferry to Nanaimo had already left, so it had to turn around so a four year old could be taken to the hospital. I honestly don’t remember the pain. I remember the wait of nearly nine hours before a doctor saw me, but the memory is like gossamer. How many lives did I interrupt in that moment? How many meetings were delayed, how many dates were cancelled? All because a four year old on a small island broke his arm?

When I was in my early twenties, I had my faith shaken. A few years later and it was shattered. This focal point of my existence was gone. All my decisions prior to this time were based off my faith, and now it was gone. My education (to become a youth pastor) was now useless, and all of those years felt like a massive waste.

 Growing up, the church taught me that there were only two genders and that being straight was proper, and anything else was a one-way ticket to hell. I believed them. Why wouldn’t I? These guys talked to God, they had to know what they were talking about.

Nudity was a large part of my bible college experience. I lived in an all-male dorm, and everyone was constantly half-to-completely nude. We would bond together on a couch while only wearing boxers, and often there would be cuddling involved. I enjoyed it. The physical contact felt good, and the openness that came with the nudity was refreshing. It was also intensely homoerotic, a claim which would be vehemently denied by my dorm mates.

When I discovered my own gender and sexuality, a year after I left the church, I was scared because I knew that I would go to hell. Even though I had no faith anymore, I was still scared that I would go to hell for this. Part of me still believed the hate that I had been taught as a child.

I wore bright leggings and bright pink lip-gloss to the first pride that I attended. My sister came with me, dressed even more flamboyantly; I’m pretty sure she even had glitter on her chest and neck.

I worked in a school.

I interned at one of the longest running film festivals in the world.

I work in an office.

Instead of moving closer to my goal, I have moved farther away from it.

With each transition, the narrative of my life grows more confusing. The plot, incoherent. The characters, despicable.

What happens next matters only as much as what has happened before. 

lingering thoughts

                As my thoughts linger, causing cancerous lesions in my mind, my fingers hover uselessly, unsure of what to type. Unsure of how to save my life. The longer I pause, the more time the lesions have to grow and spread until they consume my entire psyche. Until they become me. Thoughts corrupting thoughts corrupting thoughts until all that remains is simply corruption. Yet still I cannot type. Still I cannot expunge and heal. The corruption lingers.

                Once, in a fit of normalcy, I scraped clean an old rusted blade. It had been hanging, worthlessly, on a wall in the old garage for years. Alone and forgotten; neglected until it became corrupted. I felt pity for it. Why, I do not know… perhaps I felt a kinship towards it; after all, I too was neglected and corrupted. Therefore, I took it off the wall, sat down, and I began to clean it. As I worked away years of rust, my mind emptied. I lost myself in the work, and I became the work. At the end, I had a blade as clean as the day it was bought, but my mind was no more clean than it had been hours ago.

                The idle work of my hands allowed me to be distracted from my thoughts. It allowed me to pretend that I was not sick.

                It was a lie, but, to borrow a phrase, it was a pretty lie.

                Of course, as soon I was done the thoughts came crashing back with almost enough force to stagger me. Unfortunately, I was prepared for that. And it is unfortunate that anyone should be prepared for the sudden crushing weight of their own thoughts. One’s own thoughts should be uplifting and weightless, not a burden to bear.

                That is how I move through life: always looking for the next activity that can lift away my burdens for a short while. In those brief periods, I can pretend to be blissfully healthy and whole.

                I wish I knew of a way that I could just sit down and scrub away the corruption in my mind. Spend an afternoon mindlessly cleaning, at the end of which I would come away clean and whole. Alas, that remains merely a fantasy. A true cleaning of the corruption would take a lifetime of effort and will, and somedays I feel as though I lack all three.

                Through my writing, I heal, and yet most days I cannot bring myself to write even a sentence! I merely stare at an empty page until my self-loathing consumes me and I am left bitter and empty.

                So few hours in a life with so many things to accomplish, yet we waste these hours on what? Work so that we can pay the bills that allow us to continue to work? I cannot remember the last time I felt truly alive—it was summer, and the sky was clear. The lake which I stood waist deep in was a mirror and I was surrounded by the heavens. Everywhere I looked, I could see the stars. I could reach out and touch them. For scant moments, I was alive. Beautifully and truly alive. Instead I just feel empty. I would not say I feel nothing, for I do feel a deep and unending regret coupled with a yearning for something more.

                Amidst the regret lays a burning desire for something better. To find someplace where I truly belong. 

Standing Guard

I am saddened by the Canada I see before me. I see a plethora of jingoistic thought, and a disregard for core Canadian virtues. Scrolling through both social media and more traditional media exposes one to a growing “Canada First” perspective, and it breaks my heart. Canada has never been about putting Canada first; it has always been about putting people first. More specifically, it has always been about putting all peoples first. We, much like our southern neighbour, are a nation that was built by immigrants and refugees, and this jingoistic talk dishonours all Canadians who came before us.
Canada, first and foremost, stands for helping others. By picking up those who are knocked down, we pick ourselves up. Canadians have always stood for helping others. If something bad happens in a community, that whole community rises up—hell, the whole country rises up. Right now, the world is at a crossroads. Entire countries are in flames, with many more close to ignition. We are on the brink, and as a country we have two choices: continue to be the country the rest of the world knows us to be, or close ourselves off and lose what it means to be Canadian.
Those choices have ramifications for the entire world. If we stay open and accepting, we save the lives of thousands and maybe millions. We close ourselves off and we condemn millions to death. That’s what the choice boils down to: are we saviours or are we killers? To the Canadians who are clamouring to not let refugees in, are you so willing to become complacent in their deaths? Because I couldn’t sleep with that much blood my hands. To the Canadians who think we should be more like the States, have you even read the news lately? Have you looked at what they are becoming? We, as a country, are taking in people from the United States right now who are seeking asylum. And you want to become more like that country? Shame on you.
“What if we let them in and they’re terrorists?” Well, history says that’s not likely. And the last terror attack on Canadian soil was committed by a Canadian. A white Canadian. Not that I should have to make that distinction, but in today’s world apparently I do. The refugees we’ve welcomed into Canada have been nothing but thankful. And most of Canada has welcomed them with open arms. I believe that most of Canada still upholds Canadian values, and that it is just a vocal minority that is expressing these anti-Canadian sentiments.
Canada is, and always has been, a country that welcomes all with open arms. That is the Canada I stand on guard for. The True North, strong and free.