Common Ground

  

“Death is like chocolate. I can only handle so much.”

 

            It seems that we store up the dead. We collect them with little choice. Everyone has lost someone and someone has lost someone else. Years may go by but we still talk to them, a long distance pen pal who has never written back. We usually half expect that they will. Death is the most feared of all things but we linger in it afterward, guessing, crying and pleading with the unknown. Many of us believe we know what lies in waiting, others are convinced nothing is waiting at all. How the fuck do they know?  How can we ever know anything at all? Death is the big question mark haunting all our days and the sheer terror that often haunts our nights. Sometimes, I dream dead people.

            From the time I was a young boy, death followed me. It pursues everyone but that mattered little to my experience. As a matter of fact, the death of my favourite pet introduced me to the idea around age 5. I’ve known three types of physical death: the death of a loved one (including pets), the death of a construct (strangers, celebrities) and the death of a character (literature, comic books, scripture). I have always catalogued my grief. I compartmentalize each event and store it for use later. Every year the collective grows. I tend to keep my friends close and death does not exclude them. I have known the depth of grief and the height of recovery but the entire time death has eluded me, although not always for a lack of trying.

 

“There is no justice, just mercy.”

 

            Grief is more painful than physical injury. The death of my Mother hurt far more than when that steam radiator fell down onto my leg back in 1978. The sources may be different but the effects can linger for years. Physical injury fades with time but grief cements itself, returning over and over again depending on the triggers you might have. Emotional pain does more damage and, apparently, never truly goes away. Lasting broken heartedness does not scar over, it simply hides. It’s like a blind zit that won’t pop, ready to come to a head at any time and at any place. Grief cuts to the core. With time the visitations may lessen, separated by a lesser meter, but they linger, waiting to strike in the most inconvenient  manner. The dead never truly disappear, unless you let them.

            Most people move on. Some people never do. I have never understood how a man, married for 40 years, can remarry only 6 months after losing a wife any more than some old woman who tosses herself onto her late husband’s coffin. Grief is a strange thing and no one experiences it in the same manner. The way people grieve over the death of something significant varies, they are unique to each of us. Everyone grieves differently but the pain remains the same. The death of the family dog may deeply wound one sibling, but is of little more than a passing thought to another. Some people embrace the death of a loved one while others survive through ambivalence. In the end, you cannot be a little bit pregnant. If you cut of the finger tip off two different men, they both feel the same pain. It is the degree by which we suffer that defines our misery.

            Some of the  greatest suffering I have known has been at the loss of a loved one. I have known an abundance of physical suffering but all that anguish, all piled together, does not equal the pain of even one example, including my own. It is hard to explain what I mean by this. All I know is that every moment of grief I have experienced feels like every other experience I have had with grief. The hurt is the same just on different levels, to differing degrees. When my cat Gizmo passed, I was heartbroken. When my Mom died, I was heartbroken. Initially, the emotional response was the same but time and the scope of each relationship determined any lasting effect. Some cuts may go deeper but they all break the skin.

            When my Mom hit the floor she was already dead. Apparently, God was gracious in her death. No suffering, no awareness, just here then gone. In hindsight, it was  a mercy killing. I can only imagine the challenges she would have known had she lived. I certainly know that I have asked myself whether she would be rolling over in her grave, more than a few times. Not an easy feat considering her cremation. She got out easy if you ask me. It’s gratifying to know she deserved that much. When Doug hit the concrete he was gone. Those few brief seconds of terror did not catch him nor hinder his fall. I can only imagine his final thoughts. He deserved better than to end that way. From a distance, both these encounters with death may appear separate, but all these years later and it is clear to me that all that pain, all that misery, it all comes from the same place. The variables remain but the sorrow, the broken  part of me lingers for both. There is a common ground beyond how each landed.

 

“Life is a beautiful ride but I’m hoofing it.”

 

            Some deaths are easy compared to others. I think human beings get used to pain, no matter what form it may take at a specific event or time. It’s not that we aren’t surprised by some. In hindsight, many times we should have seen it coming.  For many, the death of someone close does little but to ruffle the pace. When someone we know of dies there can be a great awkwardness. Whether we have known them in passing or simply know of them, the death of a stranger may not contain the same emotional baggage but may act as a milestone, a point of reference, a vernacular. Nothing connects human beings more than  grief. Out of every death may come compassion whether through empathy or the simple fact that we have all been there and done just that.  

            In early March of 2022, a member of my extended family, who is also a close Facebook friend, lost her husband. I never met him or interacted with him on social media but I was aware of who he was. All the dialogue, all the photographs I saw over the last few years made it more like I knew him rather than merely knowing of him. I have to admit that I could see it coming but that is regardless to the loss experienced by my friend. When I learned of his death, I instantly knew exactly how she was feeling and what she was feeling. I could relate from a common place, a shared nightmare. Her pain was her pain but my pain made me not only sympathetic to her cause but reflective, facing ghosts that have lingered in a silent place for years.  

            When Joan Rivers died, 30 years of encounters with her ended in a doctor’s office. I was heartbroken at her passing and so were 10 000s of adoring fan. I have to admit I shed a few tears. I did not know her in person. I never met her and I never saw her live and in concert. Still, she was one of those constants throughout my life. I experienced the same sadness when Mary Tyler Moore died shortly thereafter. To be honest, I was more affected by these celebrity deaths than when certain family members passed away. Apparently, it is not the physical relationship itself that manifests grief but your exposure to the individual. Every death, it would appear, teaches something new. You do not have to be “close” to someone for their death to affect you. The slightest appearance by the cliché and those feelings rise to the surface. Lately, celebrity after celebrity have been dropping like flies. Betty White, Whitney Houston, even Desmond Tutu, still hold much favour even though each has been gone long enough to miss. It’s like we grieve by osmosis.

 

“There is no monster in your closet.”

 

            The Bible is full of dead people. Every single one of those characters would be long gone and buried (well most of them). My Christianity started early and progressed well into my late 20’s. I was a heathen and an abomination but I did it in private so no one ever really knew. I believed every single word and carried that with me throughout my adulthood. I was a sinner, a saint and a servant all in one. Some of those deaths were subtle additions but some were hard to ignore. There was Judas hanging from a tree (Matthew 27:1–10). King Saul was savagely impaled by sword then died on a mountain side (1 Samuel 31). Jesus just hung there until he was dead (Mark 15: 25). I have to say that for me, as a child, the most flagrant example of death in the Bible came from the book of Genesis.  I’m not talking about when Pharaoh slays all those Egyptian children or even when God reacts in kind. The idea of almost every single person on this planet drowning to death at God’s hand not only opened my childhood eyes but began to wedge in questions regardless of my good Christian training. I learnt early what death was and, in the same measure, learnt that one should really be afraid, very afraid. If God killed his very own son what would he do to me?

            Abstract and ambiguous experiences with death can also effect us. Whether a character in Shakespeare, an obituary or even Spider-Man, the existence of death is not a figment of our imagination. The stories, these tales, act as a cushion preparing us for the real tragedies that this life will bring. The characters and their experiences reveal not only the substance of their life but the manner of their death. We can learn from them. They teach us. They condition us. I believe that this is what all these “little deaths” are meant for. We pile up corpses like fallen leaves or broken glass. Literature taught me all about death. I was 10 years old when my great-grandfather passed. My Mom, did not have to explain a thing to me. I had heard and read it all before. In a sense, all that exposure helped me get through it. I loved him more than anything but understanding the process of death, regardless of any religious implication, allowed my childishness to be placed in context. I understood early on that everyone is going to die and not all deaths are packages wrapped up in bows. Death is harsh, whether on paper or in person.

 

“There is more to this life than we know.”

 

            I had a Near Death Experience (NDE)  in 1995 when I attempted to off myself in response to the death of my partner. I saw the tunnel. I saw the light. I even saw a friend or two standing in that bright. Obviously, I returned from that place. I faced death and survived to tell about it. I did not die. This is the point, I suppose. It’s common ground. We all come face to face with the death through one form or another. Death comes in degrees and so does grief. It is what we do with these encounters that will help to determine how we react to further encounters. Death litters our lives just like joy and sorrow. You get one shot, one chance. When you’re dead, you’re dead and there is nothing else to it. When people say they died in their NDE, I scoff. If you died then what the hell are you doing here?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://quotesgram.com/told-you-i-was-sick-quotes/

 

 

 

Overmorrow

 

“Overmorrow is an antonym of ereyesterday. Ereyesterday is an antonym of overmorrow. In context|obsolete|lang=en terms the difference between ereyesterday and overmorrow is that ereyesterday is (obsolete) the day before yesterday while overmorrow is (obsolete) the day after tomorrow.” (WikiDiff)

 

            When that 450 pound steam radiator fell down the stairs of our family home and onto my left foot and leg, I screamed like I have not screamed since. At 12 years of age, I was damaged, crushed and lying in a few cactus at the bottom of the stairs. Its hard to explain the  horror as I watched that monolith tumble down and land on  me. The pain is hard to describe let alone define.  In a heartbeat, even tomorrow was brutally smashed. I have never felt anything like it before or since. Everything was broken. The entire appendage was purple and swelling and looked more like a tube of Play-doh than what it used to be. My foot intumesced into a giant violet balloon dangling like my toes used to. The skin had been slightly ruptured and I leaked out of a hole on the top of my foot and down onto my ankle. All I know is it felt like a 450 pound steam radiator had been dropped onto my leg.

            What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Tell  that to my shattered foot and the shattered remnants of my childhood. It took years to fully recover but I did just that. There was something beyond any broken tomorrow. Slowly but surely, I rebuilt my resilience just like they rebuilt my foot. You  wouldn’t know any better but for the chunk of my ass that rests on the top of it. The skin graft has never really disappeared even after more than 40 years. There is this thing about tomorrow. By the time you get there its already the day after.

             

“We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.” (B.J. Neblett, American author)

 

            He was frozen solid. From head to toe he was as stiff as a board and he looked the part. I gently and quickly looked him over and started screaming in my head. There are certain flashes of him that linger more than others. His skin was nothing but a sheet of thin ice. His jeans had popped open revealing the whiteness of his undergarment. His treasure trail now a dead end. His hand was raised, apparently reaching for someone like Jesus. His eyes were opaque, wide open and gawking at nothing. The puddle of goo that had seeped from his head was a testament to how he had landed. It appeared more like frozen pizza than the remnants of this brain. Nightmare, pure  nightmare. As I stood there, it all ended. In the time it took him to jump even tomorrow was gone.

            Initially, I discarded my life just as he had done. The result was completely different. Somehow I survived my own self-destruction but learning to live with the horror of what happened was a completely different matter. I look back on this place and time with great sorrow and even more insight. Everything I thought at the time was defective, filtered by grief and shock. I completely lost it, standing there identifying what was left of my friend. I truly believed that by ending his life, he had ended mine as well.  I was wrong. I started out quiet, a resistant nothing, an emotional zombie of sorts. Time did what it always does. No matter the cost, you are forced to either keep trying to die or you keep trying to live. You cannot have it both ways even though many act like they can. You can survive pure horror but you have to live with it for the rest of your life. No matter how much healing occurs or how you move on and let things find their place, nothing can erase the damage that was done. Instantly, there was no tomorrow. The only thing left for me was the hope that their was something beyond tomorrow, although you could not have convinced me at the time.

 

“Would you like to know your future?

If your answer is yes, think again.

Not knowing is the greatest life motivator.

So enjoy, endure, survive each moment as it comes to you in its proper sequence

-- a surprise.”  (Vera Nazarian, Armenian-American writer)

 

            I had not felt so vulnerable since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9,  1989. I was much younger then but I still recall the fear that lingered in the world at that time. The threat of a nuclear holocaust was a reality and had been for years. When Putin invaded Ukraine on February 27, 2022 the world immediately felt divergent. This did not seem like earlier invasions by the Kremlin. This brutal and transparent aggression came with the threat of nuclear war. It’s not like Putin isn’t the man for the job. He has been threatening to use his nuclear arsenal since he first gained control of it. We all knew it was going to happen. Only an idiot could have missed the writing on the wall (so to speak). Standing, watching it all unfurl and I felt like I was in a bad history book or Biblical prophecy. As Magog comes in from the north, I am bewildered. Civilization has come so far but it seems like it was all for nothing. History repeats but that is little consolation. I never imagined that I would have to feel like this again.

            Unfortunately, I can see what’s coming. There may be no tomorrow to follow. It’s just like 1989 but instead of the death of Communism we face our own doom, one more time. The experience is unique to its place in history. Social media seems to have produced  a collective world consciousness. I’ve never seen anything like it. People from almost every country coming together to fight for their tomorrow. A nuclear response is a real threat that lingers like the cobwebs of my youth. When I gather all the current information, once I have settled on my view, I tremble at the thought of it. At any moment, at any time, the world could come crashing to an end. It would only take one missile, one impulse from a mad man. It would not matter where it was aimed or where it landed. I guess, just like when I was a boy, I am going to have to get used to feeling this way again. Tomorrow held such promise but now it’s been invaded. From my vantage point, the day after tomorrow doesn’t look  much better.

 

 

“Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking at her ankles.”

(Thrity Umrigar, Indian-American journalist)

            Some days are diamonds, others are stone. Some are complete madness. You learn to live with a different kind of pain. You have to muffle the voices and silence the fear. You really don’t have a choice. Get on with living or get on with dying. As long as you exist, there is always something after tomorrow, at least until recently. In this global environment, who knows what might happen next. Like losing someone to suicide or a broken body and soul, carrying on is the only way to get through it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to say the same thing about this Ukrainian conflict.

            If you want to get past the idea of what tomorrow may bring you have to focus on today and what lies before you now, not when. Every day brings its own  horror. Sometimes the nightmare lingers, even into forever. You cannot escape the past with a chance at tomorrow. If  there is no tomorrow there is no overmorrow, it just goes without saying. Somehow it always comes. There is always a day after tomorrow and a day after the day after tomorrow.  

 

“If today is not your day, then be happy for this day shall never return.

And if today is your day, then be happy now for this day shall never return.”

(Kamand Kojouri, International Ambassador of the Women Graduates Swansea University Society

Photo 

 

https://futurestateengineering.com/get-busy-living-or-get-busy-dying/

The Switch

 

 

 

            There are details in everyone’s life that are definitive. More a pinnacle than a starting point, these events seem to be a catalyst for change. You don’t have to be an adult for the world to effect you. Life can be cruel and even our youth can’t always  protect us. Things happen, life happens, and there are moments when you can actually say that if this event had not occurred I would not be who I am today. We all experience them. We can say when it happened, why it happened and how it effected us. Usually, these events contribute as we journey along, the conditioning is slow and builds us into adulthood. Sometimes the exchange is as swift as flicking on a light switch.

 

            I was 7 years old and had been walking the 10 minutes to home for almost a year. In the early 1970s, the area we grew up in Toronto was presumed secure, and my parent’s had little concern with me travelling the 4 blocks from my school to our front door. Toronto, generally speaking, was much safer then or, at least, it seemed that way. I am sure the same seedy and threatening culture existed back in the day but it was nothing like the metropolis that now stands before me. In the 1970s, there was a boom in almost everything. Increased immigration, civil rights movements and the struggle for diversity echoed in this cradle of what appeared to be a better place to have them. Civilization corrupts itself. With increased population comes increased crime and with it victims. Arguably, no city is a sanctuary but we tend to only recognize those things we have been exposed to. People thought that Toronto was safe and they still do.

 

            It was a direct route, from Fenside Public school to our home on Roywood Drive.  It was a mere hop, skip and jump away. I walked this way, to and fro,  in the morning, in the late afternoon and every weekday at lunch. Most of my friends ate their lunch at school but my Mom was close enough that I did not have to suffer the brown bag experience like they did. Back and forth, home to school, school to home, I made the familiar journey usually with  my eyes wide shut. Despite the specific destination, my  head was  usually in the clouds every step of my way. Yes, I was a thoughtful boy, driven by imagination and the lack of nightmares that, at the time, avoided my living and a good night’s sleep. I wandered home in a daze, my mind filled with super-heroes. It was a simple life and despite the normal chaos that greets even children, I was happy go lucky in my own little world.

            I was a pretty child. My soft blond hair, Caucasian features (including sharp blue eyes) and a fair complexion always seemed to grant old ladies the right to pinch my cheeks or mess my hair and tell me lovely things. I was not limited in my knowledge of what was going on. I have always been cognizant that some people find my appearance pleasant and that, even as a child, I was attractive to others. In lieu of this fact, the standard “don’t talk to strangers” speech by my parents hung in the air like an old bodyguard, a sentry looming in the background every time I stepped outside. All my siblings and I  knew it was better to be safe than sorry. If there was a doubt, don’t. If you think  you should run, just do it. I remember my Mom telling me “home is safe but this world is not.” Everything was just fine but be careful.

            I was somewhat distracted as a child but I was always aware. I paid attention to everything I experienced or was exposed to, but my innocence was still something that had yet to be disqualified or lost. God was good, life was good and everything would be okay in the end. It was the same silly dream we all have as children. Childhood is ingenuous and is often like going to the zoo. You believe there is no threat yet you know there is. Everyone tells you that it’s okay from this side of the glass. I don’t remember crossing a bridge or some light bulb going off. I didn’t even notice the cage door opening. I don’t imagine I wanted to think anything about it at all, not immediately at any point. All I know is that almost instantly I saw the world differently and my world would never be the same. I have always known a monster when I see it.

 

            Late September forced me to wear the sweater my Mom had plastered on me earlier in the day. Actually, I was glad to have it. I walked by myself, a regular event on my anti-social calendar. I preferred my own company right from the get go. It was a solitude I was glad to claim. The 4 door cream-coloured car pulled up beside me on the street. I looked over, ignored it, and continued on my way. It crept silently behind me, just enough to activate every warning signal that my parents had conditioned as a response. The front passenger door opened and he offered me  heaven. He was older, balding and as white as I was. I can barely remember his face. In hindsight, he appeared like every other old man who tried to be nice to me. I rejected his offer, spied my escape and I ran like I had never run before. The police, obviously, found it impossible to locate him.

            I can see him, his whole being, sitting there playing with my soul. I was in trouble and I realized that fact right away. Somehow, I just knew he was a monster. Danger, Will Robinson. I tore through the neighbourhood, jumped over fences and scattered to get to my safe place. The police said that there was little they could do but that my parents had raised me well. For weeks, I was shuffled back and forth with a parental guidance that eventually made me crazy. I survived but the scar has lasted a lifetime. When I stop to think about what might  have happened had he offered me a comic book, I shiver. The possibility, what might have been, has lingered ever since. It is here I made the switch from innocent child to discerning pessimist. I went from 7 years of age to 30 with a few short feet and some dangling candy.   

 

            I don’t think that I am being dramatic with the claim that this event remains one of the most significant experiences I have had in my life. Little compares. It could have gone either way and the thought still chills me. What could have been in of itself is a nightmare. It’s not that I am tormented but the possibilities linger like a cobweb in the corner of my psyche. There are the obvious triggers. Every Amber Alert activates something from deep within. A television program or a news report on a missing child may well send those shivers through me. I’m not haunted but I can hear the ghost calling me, taunting my sense of safety and corrupting the world that I once existed in as a kid.  No matter, it is always there. It spoils the soup. I can’t ignore the idea of a milk carton with my face on it and what might have happened to put me there.

 

 

            You can’t relive your life anymore than you can ignore it. We all retrace our tracks whether we want to go there or not. You cannot undo what has been done but  you can use it. A great deal of  my strength has come from living with this nightmare. As a child, it built me and fortified me and helped move past the loss of my innocence. My illusions regarding this world disappeared in the blink of an eye. I made the switch and then ended my childhood. I can stop and survey the cost, see what might have been, but the horror has already lingered long enough to not really matter anymore. Like with most things, it remains to remind me. It can be a gentle sting or a lumbering weight. It’s a tale of knowing right from wrong, and surviving in spite of that horrible event and the face of a monster that I no longer remember. Either way, my innocence was still gone.    

 

“An innocent child is a beautiful thing

Secure in a Father's arms

Sleeps while a Mother sings

There's no way to know

All the harm this world can bring

I miss my innocence

Oh to be innocent”

(Innocence Lost, Amy Grant 2003)

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/c18szt/innocence_lost_me_watercolour_and_ink_2019/

Bedfellows

  

            Some relationships can be unusual. People with nothing in common may come together solely because of a shared interest. The adversary may become an ally or a stranger may end up one’s companion. Often, these contacts are minute and grace us with their presence for but a short time. Some are long and everlasting. 

 

 

            The term “Strange Bedfellows,” is  usually associated with politics but the origin of the phrase lies in literature. Shakespeare used the term in The Tempest (Act 2, Sc 2) in 1611. He warned that “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” Charles Dickens used the term on many occasions, most notably in The Pickwick Papers in 1837. As if misery, he too claimed that “adversity brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows.” These “old proverbs” are illustrative but literally, the adage means to share one’s bed with another.

            To coin the phrase, [most] people make for strange bedfellows. Obviously, it can go either way. Either it works and so it lasts or it fails and becomes part of your past. For good, for bad, for nothing at all, people come and they go and we go on with or without them. Occasionally, someone or something comes along when you least expect it. The encounter can be odd and somewhat awkward. 

            The idiom can also mean to align or side with someone or something that we would, under other conditions, reject or simply not associate with. The alliance does not appear to be a natural occurring colligate. While the reason for most relationships is based on an emotional reward that is not necessarily true for every Tom, Dick or Mabel that you “crawl” into bed with. Some things happen while others are forced. There is always a reason we behave the way that we do and often we consecrate for a purpose, a motive  that outweighs our common sense and reason. People will do anything to get their way even if it means compromising their character.

 

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” (Isaac Asimov, American author)

 

            The trucks organized then pulled into Ottawa throughout the end of January 2022. A movement began. For weeks, these social and political anti-vaxers cried out for justice and freedom and no more Covid mandates. It soon came to light that not all the gatherers had such high and mighty intentions. Hate speech fluttered in the wind just like the Swastika flags waving on the grounds of the Canadian capital. Criminal behaviour, including harassment, violence and intimidation appeared to flourish in a breeding ground of sedition and lawlessness. It all seemed to come from the same place as the Trump insurrection back in 2021. They even looked just like them. 

            You can make grand gestures, proclaim yourself messiah all you want, but your behaviour will always give you away. It is like with the duck test; if you look like a terrorist, talk like a terrorist and act like a terrorist then you ain’t Pope Francis and you deserve to be in jail. The entire “Freedom Convoy” cult attempted to dismiss the democratic process. If you want to act that way go live in Afghanistan or Washington, DC. You do not have the right to over throw the government anymore than you have the right to place your children in harm’s way. You do have the right, as a Canadian citizen, to vote for whomever you want in the next election. This is how democracy works. You have the right to assemble, to protest, but when your interests outweigh the good of others you’re not a freedom fighter you’re a Nazi or a Klan member or a Proud Boy. Enabling not only makes you a sympathizer, it makes you guilty by association..

 

            I just don’t get it. How could someone who claims to be a liberal and a social democratic support a movement that demonstrates your rights don’t matter? Bullying is apparently done on masse in the 21^st century and it is just fine as long as I need a job or I can’t drink beer with my buddies. Let’s be honest, I’ve seen you all drinking together regardless of the protocols of last few years. You just want everyone to do the same so you can feel balanced and happy and catch the day’s game. This is the impetus. It’s not that one is not free, it’s that one is Caucasian and therefore entitled to what I want not want you say I should have. This freedom movement came in mostly one shade.

            When I saw what they were posting I was confused. I didn’t understand how politically aware white lesbian women could side with a movement based on the right wing agenda and it’s financial support. The minute that Nazi flag fluttered about, you couldn’t have paid me to join that team. As a Canadian, it seems just like it always does with the US. Canadians can’t handle Americans doing anything without sticking our noses in. We want to be part of a movement and it really doesn’t matter which one it is. It’s not just the ignorant nor is it just the poor who scramble to ideologies that they really don’t stop to think about, especially their implications. We want the Prime Minister, or the President, to resign (or die) so we can put who we didn’t elect in office. We want how we see things, how we feel, to be the force that matters and, apparently, fuck you if you try and get in my way or to steal my fire.

 

“Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Honk, honk. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, honk.”

(Jann Arden, Canadian musician)

  

            I never thought I would live to see a member of the gay community in bed with right-wing extremists and their public displays of hate and bigotry. Did they not stop to think about one of the cult leaders Pat King and his rants about white supremacy and “pure bloodlines?” This gives the term “sleeping with the enemy” an entirely new meaning. How could these aware and compassionate women “copulate” with right wing extremists and their policies? I thought that the homosexual struggle would have made them different, enlightened, but apparently, character is only skin deep. They demand that they should get to pick and choose what works for them and it is clear, screw anyone who doesn’t agree. Just for the record, your enemy’s enemy is a fucking bigot.

 

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's;

and unto God the things that are God's".

(Matthew 22:212, KJV)

 

            A democracy like Canada comes with certain rules you have to follow. You have to follow the law, first and foremost. Hell, you have to wear shoes to enter a store or a government building. Apparently, even Jesus thought that it was best to follow those whom God had put in charge. There are all kinds of protocol and restriction, for all different types of social and political exercises. We live with them and they are an integral part of our society. If you don’t like the rules you can scream as loud as you want but you still have to follow the rules. Nihilism and anarchy are not features that any society should emulate. If you don’t like the direction, change it when the voting booths open. Until then, your rights are not more important or more valid than mine or the heterosexual couple who live across the street.

 

 

            I just could not stand it so I deleted the lesbian couple from my social networking platforms. I could not bear to read one more line, expose myself to one more hypocrisy in the face of pure lunacy. It doesn’t change the idea that people will crawl into bed with anything that serves their own purpose.  You can’t fight for the rights of a person, or group, or idea while you dance with the devil who brought you.

 

“Humour and high seriousness... Perfect bedfellows, I think. Though I usually phrase it in terms of comedy and darkness. Comedy without darkness rapidly becomes trivial. And darkness without comedy rapidly becomes unbearable.” (Mark Haddon, English novelist)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://elements.envato.com/bare-human-feet-sticking-out-from-the-bed-54FQCTW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source

 

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/adversity-makes-strange-bedfellows.html