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. 

Ankle deep, did it flow

                Once there was fought a vicious war. On one side were a peaceful people just going about their lives, on the other were a brutal and savage people who oft-times warred amongst themselves. The religious leader of these brutes saw this, and decided to unite all his followers to a common cause: wiping out those terrible peaceful people who followed a different path than themselves.

                The armies of the savage folk gathered, now at peace with each other under the promise of untold violence and riches. Together they marched, together they sailed, all the while getting closer to the peaceful people.

                They sued for peace, those peaceful people, and the savage people threw it in their faces and slaughtered those sent.

                The savage people, once at the peaceful people’s city, lay brutal siege against it. Hurling corpses and rocks over and into the walls. All day and all night did the catapults fling while the savage people built more and more weapons of hate to take the city.

                And then the siege was over. The savage people moved their towers to the walls and their rams to the gates, and over and through they went. Their swords cut down the enemy soldiers, but not there did they stop. Their swords cut down all the women, all the children, all the old, all the sick, all who still drew breath within the city.

                It is oft-mentioned in melodrama that streets can run red rivers with blood, and on this day that statement rang true. Ankle deep did the blood flow on those lower streets as the savage people worked their deadly way through.

                They knocked down the peaceful people’s icons, and threw their own, now blood drenched, up. And once done their bloody work, once killed all who once called that city home, the savage people offered up prayers of joy and thanksgiving to their blood-soaked god, then they reveled and drank and fucked.

                I left the specific religions out of this. This is a true story from history, and now that I’ve said this many of you will be thinking that Islam was the religion of the savage people and that Christianity was that of the peaceful people. That’s not the case. This is the story of the First Crusade, when the Christian armies, under the direction of the Pope, went and took Jerusalem from the Muslim people. When the Christians took the city, they slaughtered every living person in it: Jew, Muslim, Christian, man, woman, child. Historians there that day spoke of streets running ankle deep in blood. During the Second Crusade, the Islamic armies retook Jerusalem. The Muslims let everyone live. They let those who wanted to stay in the city stay, and they let those who wanted to leave, leave. Too often we in the western world forget the atrocities the Christians have committed over time, the sheer of amount of lives that Christianity has taken, and we blame everything on Islam. Both religions have blood in their past and present. Both religions have their flaws. But if any one religion is to be blamed for the bad blood between the two, it should be Christianity. Christianity has strayed so far from the teachings of Christ over its two thousand year history, that we often forget the core tenant of the religion: Love God, and love your neighbours. Christians aren’t very good at love any more, and maybe they never have been.

                The next time you wish to get mad at the Muslim people, remember who struck first. Remember who continues to spread hate, and remember that the only way to end wars is to quit fighting. All of you who spread hate are just as guilty as those who resort to violence. 

Memories of a childhood

***A quick, no spoilers thought on Game of Thrones before the blog***  

     Game of Thrones came back with a vengeance last night. They didn't really answer any of my burning questions, but I'm thinking they'll be touched on in episode 2. That said, there were some big things that happened, and that absolutely stunning reveal at the end of the episode. I'm not going to get into that today though. I know some people didn't watch last night, and I'm not going to spoil anything for them.
       This Monday's post is going to be a bit of a cop-out. I'm going to share a short autobiographical piece with you.

I always get the strangest urge to write the story of my life. I have no idea why, who would want to read about my life? It’s nothing incredible or even out of the ordinary. And yet the urges persist in tormenting me when I could be doing something else. So it goes, I guess, the story of me.

I don’t remember terribly much about my birth I am ashamed to say, but I suppose no one really does. It was in February, it was snowing, the dangerous and wet kind that the people living by oceans know and love, and it was in the morning. All this I know from people telling me. I should never have been born, and that sounds really depressing, but medically speaking I should not be here. Doctors told my mother she was incapable of having children, and nine months later I was an emergency caesarean. I started my life by almost dying. I wasn’t as well versed in etiquette as I am now and had no clue that dying at one’s own birth was frowned upon. As I said I don’t recall much from those early years. Snippets of a half-forgotten memory, a snapshot of a snapshot. I remember the wooden floors of our house in Nanaimo, the Disney wallpaper in my room, spinning around in circles until I would almost collapse. The sun. The grass. Oddly enough I don’t remember the rain. You would think that would figure prominently in the memories of one from the Island, but not until I was older. I remember my mother, and the neighbour girl.

Ahh the neighbour girl. My first love, my first kiss. All at the tender age of three or four. We spent almost every day together in the eternal sunshine of childhood. Eternity lasted until I was four and we moved away from her. I did not see her again for fourteen years.  The memories I had of her stayed in the back of my mind, forgotten, all those years only to spring forward when we got back in touch. The mind remembers more than we know. We may remember the sting of a thorn, but the mind always remembers the smell of the rose. 

I had a friend who burnt his feet on a pile of coals that someone had carelessly left on the beach. I can barely remember his face, I can’t remember the sound of his voice, but I can remember his poor feet. He had to wear moccasins for the longest time afterwards. He was my best friend back then, and I can’t even remember his voice or what we would play. I remember his feet. The mind is cruel. It torments us with half memories and half people. And burnt feet.

I had another friend, a girl with long, wavy brown hair, whose mom used to bake me cookies. She used to write me love letters. I have this vague memory of her face and this profound feeling of beauty. All I can actually remember is her hair. And, strangely, her kitchen. I spent time there, not a lot, but it stuck with me. All of a sudden I miss her. There is a strong ache in my heart where she used to be. In this time of upheaval and responsibility, I just want something simple. Something like a forgotten girl with beautiful hair on an island in the ocean.

Out of all of my experiences in British Columbia, a discussion about roads is the thing that stand out the most and has the greatest effect on my life. I was at the local Kid’s Club, mainly because one of my friends got an amazing stuffed bear from it, where I heard a talk about roads. The pastor stood up in front of us and began to tell us about the two different roads that were open to us. He said there was our way, which led to hell and damnation, and God’s way, which lead to the opposite. This simple statement has stayed with me stronger than anything else. Those words have shaped my entire existence. Everything I have done and am, hinged on this statement. Why? Why did a simple statement have such a deep meaning for me? “There are two roads you can take in life: your way, or God’s way!” For my entire life I have dealt in absolutes. Right and wrong. No grey areas, no middle ground. You’re in the right or you’re wrong. You can’t grow up believing that. It seriously messes you up inside. I’m still messed up from it. I'm not straight, and part of my mind still believes that I am going to burn in hell for that reason alone. Black and white. Only thing is though, absolutes don’t exist in real life.

We moved again. This time we moved far away from my ocean, my islands, and my mountains. I never imagined a place could exist where I could not see the mountains. So to educate me on my fallacies of thought, my parents moved me to Saskatchewan. My bright blue and green oceans were replaced by seas of wheat, my mountains replaced by the combines on the horizons at harvest. My friends were replaced with ignorant strangers who thought I was an American only because I was not from around their “parts”. I didn’t have many friends that first year. I was picked on because I was a stranger, bullied even. I started to gain weight from the stress and the hurt, which only led to more bullying. Little children are vicious bastards, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I’m done. Writing all this in chronological order? Who actually remembers things in order? I sure don’t.

Spinning around. The hard wood floor flashing around me. A childlike smile of glee plastered to my little face. The world tottering around my little body, the floor getting closer and closer with each revolution. Of course reality came crashing down when I did the same. I have vague memories of getting in trouble for this, and I’ve never enjoyed the feeling of being dizzy since then.  

An Infinite Sky

     I was out for a walk today with my dog, and the sky was absolutely breathtaking. Right in the middle was heavy cloud, flanked on either side by wondrous colour: one side was the oranges and yellows of the setting sun, on the other a light blue, everything stretching to the horizons.

dramatic shot of Teasag (pronounced Chessa) digging

    Under this impressive sky I had to stop, just to try and process what I was seeing. As I stood soaking in the majesty of the infinite, every care and worry on my soul shrank into trivialities. I stood on the edge of forever and everything fell into perspective. The universe was open to me, and for one beautiful instant I saw just how trivial all of my problems were compared to the whole. 

    Our world is falling apart, and I was worried about getting a book published. People are fleeing for their lives, their homes destroyed, and I was worried about bills. 

     As I stood there, under eternity, a wall broke inside of me, and I felt the pain that humanity itself is experiencing right now. It wasn't a piercing or stabbing pain, it was a dull ache as if something had been torn out a long time ago and never been replaced. 

     Never before this moment, have I felt the connectedness of all humanity. It burned through me, leaving me shaken. All this hate around the world is breaking us apart more than we already are. If the human race has ever needed love, it's right now. I pray to the gods above for love, to heal this fractured world we live in. Everyday something happens to try and break my belief in the human spirit, and everyday it is harder for me to believe in humanity, but I have not given up hope. I can't. If I gave up hope in humanity, I would be resigning myself to a dark future. I cannot allow myself to be part of that. So everyday I get up, and I stand up for humanity. I stand as a light in the darkness. I am turning the other cheek, and I am reaching out my hand to help those who need it. 

     The other day, a "Christian" asked me if I would help someone if they had hurt me, my response was simple. All I said was: Matthew 5:39. For those of you who aren't Christian, the verse, including the one previous for context, reads: "You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also." We live in an age where the answer to any aggression is revenge, and even Christians are joining in on that. Which baffles me because it's the exact opposite of what Christ would've done. Maybe it's silly of me to believe that Christians would follow Christ's example though... I try to, but most Christian churches in the area don't exactly care for my "radical" version of Christianity. Radical being I try to follow Christ's example. 

      Funny old world. 

     Amazing what a sky can do.

     Especially when that sky is showing you the infinite.