We are now in Hell’s cold armpit of Winter. We’d call it the Dark Night of the Soul but even that has poetic (and spiritual) benefits. There is no cathartic introspection here, no Sarah McLachlan soundtrack. These days we’re salting the sidewalks and sending thoughts and prayers to the residents of Ottawa. The shitty London version of the brigade passed through downtown last weekend and it was 45 minutes of honking. We’ve been to lefty radical protests that were tea ceremonies in comparison. This was nearly an hour of ceaseless noise as if ALL the teams at the Word Cup were victorious. Cooper stood at the window and barked at all of them, which was nice. And a good number of people hid in our shop, asking, “What are they honking at?”
“Freedom,” we replied, and everyone stared, blankly.
And we admit, too, that there will be folks who are pleased we were irritated by the protest. That’s the sport here, isn’t it? Froth everyone up. However, while Canadians are spitting on each other, and the already exhausted yet inflamed tensions in our communities are pushed to their brink, no one is talking about what we think might be the big picture. While those truckers LARPed “Smokey and the Bandit” down Richmond Street, irritating our dogs, we began to wonder WHY there are such limited capacities in our hospitals and WHY no one is talking about increasing them? Why is the public debate about freedoms and lockdowns and anti-government terror? Why is no one pointing out that if we had a greater capacity to care for people in our hospitals, then perhaps we wouldn’t have people storming the Marketplace of Ideas with a bullhorn.
Does Aunt Jo get conscripted into these actions because she knows, as most of us know, that the stabilizing safety of our communities–basics such as schools, hospitals, churches, libraries, and the like–is vanishing? And that when a pandemic hits, and there are not enough hospital beds to go around (in one of the richest counties in the world) she must DO SOMETHING? But instead of demanding that there are MORE hospital beds, which is completely within her right and power to demand, she takes a truck and occupies Ottawa. And when she gets there what does she ask for? More hospital beds? Seriously. WHAT THE ELSE SHOULD YOU DEMAND IN A PANDEMIC? Is the Liberal party demanding it? No. Are the Conservatives? No. Is Aunt Jo? No. She asks for freedom.
One thing grounds us in all of this above anything else: if Jason was born in the US, he would be blind. But he was born in Canada, and because he was born in Canada his City Worker dad and secretary mom were able to have ONE (count them, one) of his eyes saved. To those who have sympathy for this, God Bless You. To those who would say, “Well, that’s your lot. You carry that to the City on the Hill the best you can,” he says, “Go fuck yourself.” While he stood in his bookshop listening to the whining, repulsive trite honking of his neighbours on their whirlwind tour of downtown, he thought of his friend, Bob, who runs a funeral home. He thought of how, in the past two years, Bob has fielded probably quadruple the usual number of deaths (ordering quadruple the number of body bags each week). These were COVID deaths, overdoses, suicides. He thought of how Bob consoles the tiny gatherings of family members who are allowed in to say goodbye after capacity limits are respected. Jason thought of the generation born before these honking asshats who had the foresight to support a health care system that, before he came along two generations later, offered one bed for every 1000 Canadians.
Now we have 1 for 10,000.
If someone organized a protest to solve that problem, we’d gladly attend. Instead, we count our lucky stars, put on our N95’s, and wash our hands of it.
Much love,
Jason and Vanessa
