Let them eat change

A little girl on the corner of Robson and Howe reaches for her pocket.

Mommy, I want to give.

It was my little girl. He was a youngish fella in a wheelchair, cap in hand friendly on a soggy Vancouver Sunday. Even friendlier when she dropped in the change. A whole dollar was what she chose, though I suggested a jingle-jangle quarter; she really doesn't know the difference.

Warm smiles among us all. A lovely end to a spend-free trip downtown thinking about what, if any, shopping we might do this Christmas. A happy day only a bit consciously carefree.

First thing we'd packed our glorious van with cast-offs from the kids closets -- to give. Both of us forcedly explaining how we must share what we no longer need with those who can use it; strangers. Our tongues tripping on "what is poor?" We headed for the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, the downtown eastside.

Ah my dear conscience and child conspire. They prick the awkwardness of the morning magnanimity showing it too easy. And, as always for us much too much is too easy. I know the downtown eastside, do NOT bring your pity. They are fierce, smashed to smitherines, yes, but not to be pitied. How dare I? There are the poor I locate in a wave of a hand for my kids. Over there at this drop-in give them three bags of hand-me-downs. Downs.

I was never a bright child about the pains of class. I am a true Canadian in that regard, hiding behind the myth of our classlessness. I don't know that my ignorance was only bad, though. Thankful am I for that full array of friends I had at my mixed-up small public school. They stay with me, the ease I have citywide for one. The fact that, like my girl today, I don't fear the poor or reel from those who might stand for 'other.' In my father's house given a choice between a filthy beggar and a pompous ass we would always choose the former. I know I am just a grandpa away myself.

In my life the regret for oversimplifying it all did come. When I had to pay my own way I started to really get it. It would echo to me. Friends without, the women at risk. The horror in my mother's voice when my playmate's poorer mother came down with Multiple Sclerosis. The agonies she must have truly had, especially as she was the breadwinner to a nearly dead-beat dad. I am ashamed of the obliviousness. But I will not wallow in it. I cringe at the nobility made of savages no matter how articulate the class commentary.

People. Not class. People being valued not weighed. So hard to lay plain.

The poor they might be on my street. Our neighbours hold secrets I cannot explain away with the convenience of heroin and alcohol, the things I called 'poisons' for the comprehension of my four-year old. Our trip downtown this morning was an intersection with the 'easy poor'. The ones we cannot legislate away or be more taxed to catch in a safety net. What about the other ones, the downtrodden, might be strived for? What will I do for them? Something trickier than unloading my old baby blankets? Any real change?

I don't often give to panhandlers and somehow I will find a way to explain that to the girl but today it sat well. All the better for the attention it put on how complicated all we come to know must be. All the better for the pressure it placed on us not just to know but to share... and to give. Seriously.

Connectivity... or Transferrable skills

I have been a lot not blogging this week and for weeks before. We have instead been blessedly intersecting with our blogging content in a considerable portion of molecules and atoms

I mean we have been, not instead of blogging, but also communing in the physical realm. And as I used to say in the corner of some eighties dance hall standing tall in my mustard suede pointy shoes... "It was a slice, or maybe more like a wedge." It is a lot this embarrassment of riches. We are well. Ensconced in connectivity.

On this past Saturday I collaborated with neighbours on a massive block party project. More than 200 men, women and children joined us at the playground for a picnic. That afternoon our dear nonlinear ones arrived, next day a concert with them in Stanley Park. And then after they left a man of letters flew in full of Fringe charisma and the promise of a story.

Since then I have gotten to see Vancouver schools open and I have talked and talked and talked and talked to teachers new and old about helping children read and research. I write you tonight exhausted... but happy. Feeling beyond satiated with opportunity. Yum.

And I think about that the cribcast hosted by the brilliant and beautiful bon last January. As a special tribute to the social justice goals bloggers Jen and Mad bon asked us to chat. At that time I got caught in the sidebar of how self-serving and overly introspective blogging can be. How we manage, for example, courtesy and pedantic comments on our own blogs. We all know we exercise regularly, if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all. Convenient.

But me? I just can't shut up. Lucky me, only slightly ashamed to be Just Postless again this month yet oddly full with the fuel of company and courtesy and sharing on my micro-level. Filled to the toe-top full of direst fraternity.

I think of the rushing earnest friendliness that filled the gaps of so many moments with our recent guests. And I think, largely, of the sweat and tears I put in for our neighbourhood event. I mentioned to the NLG "I don't know that I would have done that sort of thing before blogging." Not that I wasn't friendly then. I just was not quite as forward and in charge over courtesy. I would look at options to connect less sure of a course to proceed. Having virtual relationships has surprised me by enhancing my overall risk taking in real life relationships. YOu know that and parenthood. Excuse me let me clean my kid's puke of your carpet can do that. There MetroDad, does that answer your question?

Now time for your reading assignment.

Riviera

Regularly now they trot out the platitudes of myth-making. Even the most respectable news agencies in the world are making swift posting of every available salacious detail in the trial that runs near my house. Each broadcaster spits out the dimension of terror with piteous nods of respect to the targets. Ah, they were mothers and sisters and children they throw in. Those women. The prostitutes in the freezer. (How uncomfortable did that post make me?)

You see I have a small stake. I whisper a bit about the horrible crimes with agency. For I hate this case as many people do. I balk at its reflection on women. I shy from digesting the magnitude of the reality.. as a member of the community where this crime was perpetrated. Mostly I cannot stand it all because I am someone who knew Riviera. While the judge will know her as Sereena. I knew her as Riviera. A street name for a remarkable person who was bright and brave. (She looked nothing like that picture.)

In the years as this news developed I have always asked inside how could she have been a victim. She was always the heavy. A heavy-duty personality in the pool of sex trade workers working the toughest neighbourhood in the country.

I was a meek and talkative volunteer taking shifts in their living room. The WISH Drop in centre was a place for a hot meal and a shower before work for those who persist in the trade and for those many now missing. Women would put on their make up opposite a clunky old tv night after night. While they all watched, you guessed it, Blind Date, and got ready to go to work, I doled out shampoo. I mediated knock-downs over mascara and told them where to find the street nurses. It was how I finished some of my Thursdays. A scant few hours and then I'd shower before bed.

Riviera was the first woman I really talked to, though to be honest she did most of the talking. In exchange for a smoke she told me 'how it is'. She seemed to be my interpreter to this other Vancouver I could not manage alone. The mutant kindergarten where childen in the bodies of adults (often but not always) trooped around doing damage to each other inside the Downtown Eastside, poorest postal code in Canada. Entertaining visitors who came to do damage to them; those dreams of being whisked away almost always being nightmares.

Women were missing then, too. It was late 2000 and the count was high. The cries for justice rang in my righteous ears. I wondered what people there thought. What they knew. Riviera would tell you what she thought. To this day I wonder if we really ever had that conversation. Part of me thinks it is a not a memory but a lie.. not really a lie but rather the sort of mirage of memory that the mind offers when all sense seems to have evacuated an event.

What do you think is going on? Where are all the women going I wanted to ask her. My mind tells me she knew. I can see her face, resolute, unflinching knowledge of 'how it is'. "Oh everybody knows. It is out to the farm."

My mind lies I'm sure. She never said that right? If she did how would it be she would ever go? I think the unspoken. A deathwish? A desire for end? No. Couldn't have been. Not Riviera. Couldn't be. That is why I can't remember right. I must have never asked. How could I have? I was scared shitless anyway. As, I say I let her do all the talking.

Do we do that now? Are the women speaking? No. No. The aren't. A babble of voices from here to Timbuktu all reporting reporting reporting. And we hear little new. A man is accused of killing almost 50 women. Who are they? Daughters, sisters, mothers. A lot of talk out there. The horror and the recoil. The man. The man we see. His fate we hang on hearing.

So little will really be known through the process. But it does remind me of that feeling. The shallow simple sensation of a warm shower after charity. The futile rancour of my life. The thinking affected little in action. The way I used to feel as I would lie in my bed, clean under my sheets to fall asleep in security barely knowing the 40 women I had seen that night. So tenuously connected to the beings who at that moment had just begun a long night's work on the street.

Everything I have will be poured into making sure that my children grow up to at least as much indulgence as I had every night after my WISH shift. The warm bed. The security of home. Fuck preschool selection.

Addendum. I would like to thank Metro Mama for calling to our attention the Sleeping Children Around the World charity. P-man and I found that this organizations bedkits made a great addition to our Christmas shopping list this year. Thanks HBM, too. And, Mad for encouraging me to write about my whole life /whole world everyday.

For more on the WISH Drop In Centre including donations see the website.
For an alternate media option see this link. (thanks Jill!)