Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
bob everton (1952-2004)
got a call this morning that a close friend passed away last night from a heart attack.
bob everton was only 52 years old, his life spent as a radical and educator, he was a cornerstone of the vancouver activist community and i’m sure his death will impact people strongly, just as his life did.
i have spent the day crying and sleeping and will leave shortly to vancouver where there are people gathering to be with one another in the wake of this powerful life now gone.
there is a tremendous loss in my heart knowing that bob is no longer there as my friend and confidante, for he is someone who helped me through some of my darkest times, providing me with compassion and support and healing energy when my struggles were the greatest. many a bottle of wine we drank on the balcony of my last apartment in vancouver, watching the people go by as he promised me that revolution was just around the corner. bob had a way of making you believe in your work as an activist, and that we would all live to see societal transformation on a grand scale – it was only a matter of years.
he believed that for most of his life i suspect – and as far as i can tell he never wavered in the face of the brutality our system brought to bear on himself and others.
a conversation i had with him last year keeps coming back to me today because it brings me some comfort…. those of you who know bob, know that he was in chile during the 1973 coup by pinochet’s forces, and had been working there as a leftist activist for some time. as a result of his efforts, he was arrested and taken to one of the stadiums where leftist-sympathizers were being detained, interviewed and then shot (in one of the stadiums there was a wholesale massacre of thousands of people at one time – bob was in a different location than this). bob and his compatriots were held there for 10 long days, awaiting their fate which they were certain would be death – after an interview with the generals trying to get further information on people to round up from the frightened men and women of the social democratic movement.
at the end of the 10 days, marked by plots to escape and frightening treatment and threats, the canadian government intervened under some pressure from activists in the country and bob was allowed to leave the makeshift prison.
last year was the 30th anniversary of those events, and during that week bob came over to my house and we drank a bottle of wine while i asked him questions about what that had been like for him, how it was to walk free when so many people he know were murdered by the chilean fascists. what he told me then was this: (paraphrased)
“i never expected to walk out of that stadium alive, when they finally did release me i kept expecting to be shot on the street or re-arrested. because i never expected to live beyond those days, i have viewed every day since then as a gift – time to be spent in the struggle and in having a life worth living”
those thirty-one intervening years since bob was released from the chilean stadium were not only a gift of time for him – but for everyone who knew and worked with him over the years. his energy for organizing up until his last days was infinite and beyond his activism – he was a solid friend who was there for those who he loved.
i only got to know bob well in the last two years (though knew him peripherally for years before that) – and i feel very priveleged to have spent the time i had with him. i am still shocked that he is gone from my life, and the life of my community – and so sorrowful that i will never share a bottle of red wine and a talk with him again.
hella week
woah – hella week….. i have been working overtime like crazy in the run-up to this fisheries announcement made this morning….
and it is almost at a close – shook hands with the minister, posted the website – everyone is happy…. i am exhausted.
once i catch up on my sleep i will update for real.
really fucking normal
sometimes the veneer of “really fucking normal” starts to wear a bit thin.
i seem to be having insomnia every sunday night, a precursor to re-entering the city for the week, and last night was no exception. awoke with a sense of forewarning i would like to chalk up to a sleep-deprived edginess that made me nervous in my darkened house as i got ready for the day.
stayed late in the city tonight as i had to go the public library to pick up a cartload of books i put on hold for the ecopsychology essay i’m hoping to get started on shortly. there is something about december in the city that always makes me just a little bit more hopeless with each passing season – the worn patina that washes over the urban, flaking like gold-plating from the cheap metal below.
as i walked up the great pathway into the library, (for those of you who don’t know vancouver – it was designed to look like a massive roman colosseum), i was seized with an almost overwhelming desire to stand on the stone steps and rant nonsensically at passers-by – about our nature as critters, as wild things -how cities are unnatural – how we don’t belong in these cages of concrete anymore than whales belong in tiny aquarium tanks performing tricks to get fed, or grizzly bears in limited enclosures poked at by human do-gooders on their way skiing for the day. i wanted to shake each person who walked by me and make them see – make them understand – make them confirm that it is not me who is crazy to hear those wild animals inside all of us, but our society for suppressing it.
but of course, i did no such thing, and like a normal person, which i am (so fucking normal) – entered the library, paid my fines and walked out with a stack of books on nature and the self. i went into a restaurant and ordered sushi, reached in the bag and pulled out a book at random, scanning it quickly for something that might be useful in that moment of self-subjugation.
this is the quote that came out at me as i leafed through the pages:
“If every individual had a better relationship to the animal within him, he would also set a higher value on life”
Carl Jung – from Civilization in Transition
exactly.
girlie pics
went to the party in victoria – got three hours sleep on friday night and travelled back on the 1:00 ferry to tsawwassen – didn’t get on the langdale ferry until 5:30 – it’s a long trip when you have two ferries.
had a fun time, drank too much red wine and kissed a stranger (was being completely in the moment), left when the e everyone else took was kicking in full swing (not being much of a drug-taker anymore)…. woke up in the divey hotel i used to work in missing my lover something fierce.
took some photos of my oldest friends (though didn’t get one of my oldest friend who showed up completely unexpectedly). am thinking of extending my holiday trip to vancouver island to spend some time with these good folks….
click on for the girlie pics…..
Red Cedar 