Red Cedar

The replies to my party invite keep rolling in – the latest from my favourite Chilean radical who promises to show with good wine – and I’m thinking that it’s going to be a wonderful homecoming. So far it seems that around 17 or 18 adults and 4 children will be attending… and I’m hoping I have enough cutlery for all the eating. I mapped out the menu and shopping list last night and I’m really looking forward to cooking for people again – it really has been ages since I’ve had such an event….. (and – oh nostalgia – it makes me wish that Darren could be here even more than the holidays coming up do).

December – you know, it’s such a difficult month – anniversary of Bob Everton’s death, anniversary of the arrests, anniversary of my marriage that fell apart, and now a lover ending things on top of all of it – seems that every December brings a new shitty memory…. So I’ve been distracting myself as best as possible. Spent yesterday wandering around Granville Island picking out locally-made xmas gifts for the family, today will be a grievance hearing I’m presenting at and then a bit more xmas and grocery shopping, tomorrow the party, Thursday the homebrew tasting contest and party at a friend’s, and Friday to Victoria. I really am just hoping that if I keep myself busy, and my eyes squeezed shut tight, this month will pass quickly and allow me to get on with my regularly-scheduled emotional stability.

It’s tight, this sadness pullling at the edges, but I’m lucky that I’ve got my life to plan and Darren’s life to support and all the other things that keep me busy enough not to dwell too long. At the moment I’m listening to an absolutely beautiful album of improvs on the piano music of Bach by Gabriela Montero and so glad to have been born to appreciate this as much as I do.

Alternating, I am, between counting the struggles and counting the blessings…. if I just click my heels three times can we get this month done?

The city is returning like pieces fitting into a puzzle inside me – those that comfort, those that irk, and those which just make me raise an eyebrow at how can people be this crazy? My car has returned to being the east-van loaner, the 7 am line in front of United We Can is as anarchic as ever, and I’m back to grousing about the dearth of buses going to the east end with the others in my downtown lineup… Like slipping back into an old skin, I wait for the weather to become a bit warmer so I can trace my favourite urban hikes past Strathcona gardens and La Casa Gelato and onto the train tracks towards home. In the meantime, I take a little solace in the fact my coffeeshop is still staffed with the same people it was when I moved away 2 and a half years ago.

Although I moved – I never really left the city – but I never really moved to the country either – and instead, I lived in a limbo between places and travel, not committing to anything. It’s very likely that the most I got out of the Sunshine Coast was during the first few months I lived there, suing the solitude to engage with my depression and work my way out of it – for those are the most distinctive months in my memory of there. The rest being a blur of doors opening and shutting, suitcases in and out of the car, ferries delayed and cursed.

Re-orientating to being rooted in a place that I live 24 hours a day, my work is no more than a short hike from my home, and my friends accessible by more than a phone call. Not to mention living in a neighbourhood where being single at 33 isn’t seen as suspect, where I’m not viewed as an outsider, and where my neighbours are filmmakers, web developers and musicians rather than loggers and homemakers. Not that I have anything against the latter, but I will admit a natural affinity for the former.

I feel like I fit again. Each piece of the city returning reminds me of the picture I tried to dismantle when I moved away – and every passing day is bringing it to a completion I’m finding myself very reassured by.

There’s a car on my block that has a number of bumper stickers plastered on back – all of them left-wing amusing, but my favourite being the one that says “Oh No – Here comes another Learning Experience!”. Since I have frequently been heard to ask “Geez, why does everything have to be a fucking lesson?” – I am glad to see the sentiment shared with thousands on sticky vinyl.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a blog post where I recount yet one more thing learned the *hard* way – there’s been enough of those in the last year already – but more of a lament at how difficult it seems to actually become a better person. Aren’t there people out there who just are better people without getting beat up by the cops, or losing their friends to the fugitive underground? I mean – why is it that my sainthood has to emerge from the death of one of my closest confidantes, harassment by csis agents, or the snap of an ankle on a windswept island hiking trail? I’m sure that not everyone claims their growth in these ways, or feels that almost *every single encounter* they have is some sort of a personal test… Really!

And yes, I do know that so many of these things are the result of personal choices, but then again, some of them are just plain freak occurrences too. Perhaps it’s just my privilege balancing out on the other side (Okay Meg – you get a really good paying government job, but as a trade-off you’re going to fall in love with an animal rights activist who you will feel compelled to support through numerous court appearances and jail stints for the rest of your life….) Or maybe there is an afterlife reward that I’m too much of an atheist to believe in.

As usual, not really complaining, but I’m just saying…. I think it might be time to put an end to this sort of personal growth 🙂

Sentencing dates for all of those who have plead guilty in the Green Scare case have been set (finally! it was supposed to happen today….) Chelsea and Darren will appear on the 18th and 19th of April respectively. I’ll be heading down to Eugene for the hearing (and to sort out Darren’s personal possessions to bring home). Just putting it out there as some folks wanted to know… and now we do. Press release from the CLDC can be found here. In the home stretch now….