Thoughts of Sunday

Tues Dec 12/23

Gym yesterday after doing cardio/yoga in the morning. Pretty empty inside but I wasn’t in the best state to be there. The protest from Sunday…families, friends, couples, people alone…fists raised in the air all around me. The same faces up on the truck’s platform, week in and week out, posting online, yelling into a megaphone, eating dinner, going to work, taking care of family. Hope is discipline.  


We move from Dundas Square and head west on Dundas. Chanting and yelling, flags waving in the air. There’s a man in front of me pulling a wagon behind him; I see stacks of paper cups and large carafes. He turns toward me and asks if I'd like some coffee. I decline the offer with a smile and a thank you. He returns my smile and asks someone else. The sky is overcast and the wind is biting. He thought of that this morning as he made some warmth for the rest of us. This touches me. I want him at home on this Sunday in early December. I start to sway inside and remind myself to come back to my centre. 

We keep walking but I want to step out of this, to see it from the sidelines. I angle my way right through the crowd, lightly tapping people's shoulder, until I reach a raised platform and climb up, join others taking in the scene. Help a few kids around 7 or 8 years old climb up too - they have little flags clutched in their mittened hands. Now I start to fall the other way…this is useless, what’s the fucking point? Nothing changes, generation after generation of the same shit with the same people doing fuck all. I feel my face start to harden. Fuck you, no. That way is cheap and easy and feels like shards of glass on my insides. I don’t live there. I breathe into my chest a few times before focusing my eyes on individuals. People of different ages, different colours, well worn winter clothes. All getting ready this morning to come out here. Zoom out and they’re one mass of solidarity, whatever happens. This matters.

I hop down from the platform and move to a side street. The noise from the crowd is a bit muted here and I feel my shoulders relax. I lean against the side of a condo building to block my face from the wind. Across from me, three men and one woman are on their knees facing east. They stand up, heads bowed with hands clasped in front, their lips moving. I let my gaze float to the left where the crowd has come to a standstill across from Toronto Police Services 52nd division. Police are on the ground in full riot gear - they look hilarious to me. One lone officer is on the building’s rooftop.

The crowd is introduced to a 12 year old girl who now has the megaphone. She has light olive skin, curly brown hair underneath her toque and dark brown eyes. She’s yelling for Justin Trudeau to choose a side, justice or genocide. Her voice is strong. Her voice is 12 years old. I think back to the confusion I felt at that age about the world, the contradictions I sensed but couldn't articulate well enough to make people care and was somehow expected to accept with my mouth shut. I wanted to yell out about them, scream and rage against them, thrash and bite through them. I’m glad she has a megaphone. I’m glad her body is shaking with rage for what she knows is wrong. I’m glad she’s screaming it out of her.


So there was all of that going to the gym with me, yesterday! I did what I’d planned to do, which was repeat the hard purple tape strong my first try. Some guy was working on it when I showed up; as I go to brush the holds he tells me his ego needs to know if I’ve tried it before or if I’m going for the flash. Maaan I don't care. My go on this problem isn't about you. I ask him if that’s important to him, saving his ego? He’s not sure how to respond so I turn back to the problem and send. He congratulates me and I thank him and ask if his ego is ok.

I repeat some other stuff then wander to the spray wall, staring at it and waiting for some inspiration to come but I’ve got nothing. Walk a lap around the routes, pausing here and there to read moves. Do some weights then pack my stuff up and head out the door. I want to be in the cold wind with the water and the sky and the bare trees. I want to move through these thoughts of Sunday. 




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