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andistewart · 2 years

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Pandemic of an Outsider

(Originally published in 2021 in "Chronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic)

“Korean man stabbed near NDG.” The headline said. It continued, “Attack believed to be racially motivated. Suspect under investigation.” The article spilled through my screen as I read. Stories of similar situations had been appearing with greater frequency. They contributed to the construction of the new reality that began just two weeks ago. A world where new terms like “viral load”, “quarantine”, and “social distancing” entered the layman’s lexicon.

I finished the article and tossed my phone aside. I shook my head; “… that can’t happen here.”

I took comfort in the idea of multicultural Canada. This wasn’t the United States. We don’t have their problems with race. I reflected on my own experience as a visibile minority. I’d never had to suffer the trauma of aggressive and active bigotry; though, there had always been uncomfortable moments. Situations where I had been made to feel different. I’ve always attributed these instances to ignorance; the cycle of mimicked prejudice that runs in families and culture. Offensive jokes, yes. Head taxes, no. However, there is a very thin line between the passive and the active. Could this pandemic be pushing some to cross it? I shook my head again and rose from bed. I needed to go buy groceries.

Looking out the window I saw an overcast day. Spring and fall are mythical seasons in Montréal. I never know how to dress for these times. On temperature, will this outfit be too warm, or not enough? On the pandemic, will this outfit hold up to repeated washes? On safety, will this outfit invite conflict? I recalled videos of ethnically Asian Canadians being confronted about their role in “bringing the ‘China Flu.’”

I take a deep breath. I settle on a bulky black sweater and jeans. “That couldn’t happen to me.” I thought.

Now having finished getting ready, I went to check the mirror. I saw myself and stood still for a few moments. “Was I really ready?” I utter a quiet expletive in response. I took my eyeglasses off to put in my contact lenses. I slid into my sunglasses despite the weather. I tied a scarf around my nose and mouth. I tucked my hair in a toque. My face now covered, I find the tallest boots I possessed. Actions born from the recognition of my reflection. I became distinctly aware of how different I truly looked.

Closing my front door and walking down the steps, I wondered if I’ve covered up enough of my ethnicity to be safe. As an immigrant child and as a visible minority, I learned that I was more easily accepted when I hid or abandoned characteristics of my ethnic self.

In this new normal, the stakes feel higher. It isn’t about acceptance anymore, but safety. There’s danger out there for me, either by catching the virus, or by standing out.

#published #pandemic #asian hate #aapi month #personal essay

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andistewart · 3 years

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Ghosts (Part 1)

(Part 2)

There is a difference between the silence that is experienced above the ground and below. Above ground, silence is light and alive. The noises that breaks through are always familiar even if they are unexpected. When it is quiet below ground; however, it is dead and heavy. It envelops and suffocates like a tomb. The noises that can be heard here bounces around walls and comes in echos. The sound is caught, but carries an uncertainty of character.

It was a basement silence that held in this non-descript room between the therapist and patient. Echoing between the two was the last question asked: "How are you doing?"

Therapist or not, he always struggled with a response. He plumbed around attempting to find the right answer. He sat on the drab blue couch leaning against the back rest and his head tilted downwards. He blinked his eyes as they were fixed on the carpet and the generic pattern of muted blues and grays so often found in offices. He did not trust what immediately bubbled up. "I'm fine", for him was true and it was not. He could usually feign "fineness" to fit with the dynamics of the interaction. Most of the time, he felt nobody was really concerned with how he was doing. Responding otherwise would break that societal trust.

Here was a person that was asking in earnest, and he wanted to respond in kind.

≈≈≈≈

My pace was frenetic and haphazard. Lights. Windows. Did I have everything? Oven. Patio door. Did I check the oven? Shoes. Keys? Keys. I had shut the front door and subsequently pushed the handle hard a few times. I flipped up my apartment's mailbox lid. It was a Saturday. It seemed that I was on autopilot now and under the influence by the shadows of my anxiety.

It was just before half past eight at night. The birthday party invite was an hour ago. I was biking fast, but soon reminded myself to slow down. It's just a birthday party of some people I barely know: this isn't worth dying for. I then coasted slowly through stop signs and in between French-Canadian brick rowhouses. I pondered why I'm late so often; someone I dated once told me I'd be late to my own funeral.

I was headed to Baldwin Park, a popular green space in the city which lay on the eastern edge of a neighbourhood called the Plateau. An area that had been reincarnated many times throughout its history. In the nineteenth century it started as farming estates for the ruling bourgeoisie. At the onset of the twentieth, it densified to become a working and middle class area. From the thirties it transformed into a hub of tenant immigrants and poorer Quebeckers reaching an apotheosis in the sixties with the seperation referendums. When the eighties came artists flooded in for the cheap rents and it began turning from rundown-bohemian to renovated-cosmopolitan. Now it's a posh neighbourhood with tree lined streets, expensive apartments and upscale boutiques inhabited primarily with French expats and Anglophone university students. Despite all this change, the bones of its past are still visible. This is why I moved here.

I arrived at my destination with the early September sun having set sometime ago. In the dusk of the early evening, I saw it was still thronged with groups of people. I also am reminded that despite having spent so much time at this park before, it still is my favourite one in the city. I forget too easily so many things, one of them is how secluded, peaceful and beautiful this place is.

The park in itself is not anything special; it's as large as a city block with maple lined tree paths extending in a star from a central fountain. However bordering the park are small, speed bumped, one-way only streets; when cars do appear they have to go slowly. Opposite the park on all sides are walls of three story brick rowhouses built at the turn of the century. They are all lived in with the fauna and flora of urban life: plants, patio chairs and people.

There's something celestial about lying down in the middle of this park and looking up. The unnatural city dissolves with the sashaying of the swaying trees and murmurs of nearby people. The sky becomes like the eye of God with an iris canopy of branches and leaves.

In a way reality had disappeared. This still was the year of the pandemic and there were groups of every size throughout. All huddled together atop blankets and drinking beer. Some with guitars, some with djembes, some grilling food, some slacklining between trees. A virus wasn't going to stop parklife.

I found the gathering at the north eastern section of the park. They congregated around a bench with some sitting on the grass in socially distanced patterns. As I approached I only recognised three people out of everyone. I slowed my pace.

"Bonne Fête Guy!" I called out as I was in speaking distance. We knocked elbows.

"Ey! Merci man! Thanks for coming. Ça va?" he responded back with a voice that had a slight nasal tone but a heavy spanish accent. His real name was Guillermo but in a play and homage to being in a French region, we called him Guy. He had immigrated a few years ago after meeting a Quebecoise back in Chile. Their marriage had turned toxic a few years in and they seperated. He enrolled in French school soon after; both to get better at the language but to also meet new people.

"Ça va, ça va, I'm alright," I said. We circled around small-chat topics slowing the conversation down to a staccato. Soon his partner Kristen joined in. She had blue eyes, a round chin and a slight space in between her front teeth. She wore loose fitting pants as well as a sleeveless shirt. It was the type of clothing pattern you could find at stores that sold all things "eastern"; crystals, buddha statues, and incense. They had both met in French school. I wasn't close to Kristen either.

"So ... how do you feel? Day is almost over, how did the birthday day go?" I asked.

"Pretty good, but man, Weird. You know, I got a text from my ex. We haven't spoken in mmmmm ...." He often hummed when he needed to think; "... three years?"

"Well, that's nice." I paused, then added "... I guess?"

Kirsten, laughs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, it's nice alright. Pandemic year and all the exes come out of the woodwork."

"Nooo," Guy tells her, extending the vowels of the word. "She's not like that."

"Anyway", she sighs, "Yes, it's 'nice'".

The energy of the conversation quickly died and was then replaced again with awkward silences. We were all haunted by the fact that we had run out of topics to talk about. Guy excorcised the situation by waving his arm towards the group: "So yeah man, grab a beer, sit down, meet some people. Everybody's nice! I'm happy you came!"

#cesfemmes #personal essay #nonfiction #ghosts #women #therapy #psychology #mothers #exgirlfriends #jazz #haunted

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andistewart · 3 years

Text

Ghosts (Part 2)

(Part 1)

"So. I, got a birthday card in the mail last week. It was from my mother."

"Mhmmm." acknowledged the therapist. "And, are you still not speaking to her?"

"Yes. That's right. I wasn't expecting the birthday card."

Silence.

"What did you do?" she asked him.

"Um. I stared at it for awhile. I have this box where I keep, souvenirs and memories and things. I went to my room and threw it inside. I didn't open it."

Silence.

"... I didn't feel much. Really. Well, I was a little bit annoyed. I have thing thing with birthdays, and I'm a little happy she remembered. But um. I'm still, like, a little angry. I guess. Seeing that card, seeing her name on the return address. To have her descend into my reality again made me upset."

"I see." She gently nodded her head, pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes.

Silence waited to be punctured by the echo of an emotion or a memory. He could feel his hands getting sweaty. He clasped them together loosely and placed them on his thighs. He used his thumb to wipe down his palms.

"I don't know though."

"What don't you know?" she asked.

"Um. I. Don't. Know. If ...." He spoke as if he was trying to translate a language in his mind that he was unfamiliar with. "... it was the right thing, to do."

"Mmhmm." She reassured the question.

≈≈≈≈

"See. That's the thing though. People don't understand what jazz really is. It really bothers me." Kohl said as I sipped my beer. "It's too, defined, you know?" His vowels traced a reverse parabolic arc in tone. The word fell and bounced up, and fell again.

Kohl was another french schoolmate. He was in his twenties with wispy brown hair above a gaunt face that was usually covered with a toque. His entire aesthetic was thrifted Wes Andersen. He looked like he belonged on a boat in The Life Aquatic. He even had the mustache.

"Yeah I see what you mean. I think when she said she hated jazz, she meant bebop and excessive drum solos. She's fine with the other stuff, Billie Holiday. I think." I said.

"That's what I mean. So, like, your ex, she doesn't understand what she's saying. But most people don't. Jazz is everything that's new in music. That's what real jazz is."

"You really think that?"

"Yes. Jazz doesn't even mean anything. It was a made up word to explain what wasn't contemporary music at the time. It was a made up word to explain this energy, this vibe in the clubs where they'd be trying new things with music."

As he spoke I had caught a glimpse of something familiar from the corner of my eye. Something that had always lingered in the blank pages of my conscience but never fully erased. Faded, sticky remnants of what used to exist.

"... so yes. There's so much to explore and still to discover with it. Like, there's a lot of interesting jazz being put out now. That crosses genres."

The figure grew larger as it kept moving towards me. I recognised it sooner than I could believe the coincidence. Years later, out of all the cities, out of all the parks, a ghost from my memory had appeared.

The shape walking towards me was my ex Anya: it was all unmistakeable. A gait as if a giraffe had become human; her long neck craning around slowly while the rest of her body stayed fixed. A narrow frame with long limbs and a slightly protruding, pointed chin. A left kneecap turned inwards. Hair; long, brown and straight were still the same. Glasses; large, black, and thick frames were still the same. A faint lisp when she spoke was still the same. Through the dim lights of the park those large, but sunken blue eyes were still the same. She was walking through the park with her friend who looked physically opposite. If Anya was all angles and bone, her friend was rounded corners and softness.

I'd run into her before, but it had been two years now since. They were quick affairs where I'd thought she was rude; but, who really knows the truth when a love story ends? I told myself after the last encounter that the next time our paths crossed; I'd ignore her. I'd pretend we never happened. If you ignore a ghost, were they ever alive in the first place?

I brought my attention back to Kohl.

"... but really the problem with old jazz, or what people think as jazz ...." Kohl kept on. Anya and her friend were coming closer. It was difficult to keep my gaze on Kohl. "... is that it's just dead music. It's dead music, from dead people, from a dead era. It's been played to death." They were ten feet away. I lost my composure. I swung my head behind me.

Our eyes met.

For a few moments in the dim twilight amongst the murmurred commotion of the park it could have been as if the past few years hadn't happened and we were still together. But time changes all. She said nothing. I said nothing. Soon, after some seconds I turned my head around to face Kohl. They never stopped walking.

"There's nothing new to discover there anymore." Kohl said.

I felt them pass behind us and drift away. Where she occupied one corner of my eye, she now occupied the other. I turned to stare. I secretly was hoping she'd turn back to look. She didn't. I thought of chasing her and saying hi; but, I had no physical compulsion to do so. And in a breath, they were gone.

"When I was a DJ at college," Kohl said "I really tried to play the kinds of records that would make people uncomfortable. It's because its important people learn to be uncomfortable with new experiences, new sounds you know-"

"I think I just saw my ex." I interrupted.

"What? Oh. Those two?"

"Yeah. The tall one."

"Oh I see. You didn't say hi?" He asked after pausing.

"No. No. I guess there's no point." I replied. "It's in the past now."

≈≈≈≈

"Well, like I've said before. There's no right thing to do. It comes down to what it is you want, what it is that makes you feel better." She fixes her glasses. "If you don't want a connection with your mother because it makes you feel better, emotionally, mentally, then ignoring the card is a perfectly justifiable action."

"I remember that." He replied. "To be honest, I'm really not sure what will make me feel better. I think it does. Yeah."

"Mhmm. That's common. And normal."

Her phone on the table beside them began to beep. It echoed through the room, the closed wood door, and faintly into the basement halls outside.

#cesfemmes #personal essay #nonfiction #ghosts #women #jazz #therapy #therapist #mothers #exgirlfriends #haunting

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andistewart · 3 years

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Flowers

It was still summer, but barely. A late August morning where the defining heat of the season had evaporated. In its place remained a cool breeze with touches of warm air.

As the season began to depart I could see life was still largely the same; bicycles and helmets, shorts and sandals, friends and parklife, tar and hi-vis vests, beer and concrete steps, green floating above and flowers blooming all around. But it was also the summer of the pandemic and life wasn’t the same; case fatality rates, asymptomatic transmission, viral load, comorbidity, personal protective equipment, and social distancing were among the few of the many new realities changing our vocabulary through trauma.

A summer of the same yet different, new yet familiar.

As a recent habit, I began to take morning walks to a cafe on the far side of the neighbourhood; but, rather than a straight line, I decided to zig-zag through the “ruelles” or alleyways in between. Montréal’s alleyways are a different world. On the streets, you’re presented with neatly organised tree lined sidewalks, brick apartments and metal staircases.

The ruelles “au contraire” look as if someone put a small town in a shaker and sprinkled it behind homes: urban chaos. Vines and vegetation taking over fences both new and decayed. Rusted cars. Old tires. Broken toys. The type of things we have that defy categorisation but we cannot throw out all lay rotting over loose gravel and bombed out potholes. And flowers. All types of flowers blooming in every corner, every crack, every container and all over the pavement. Yellow bisque on lime green. Barbie pink on linen white. Blood red on cadmium yellow. Ocean blue on apple green. Alleyflowers, both wild and curated would be the ones I’d pick for myself in this new habit to sate an old appreciation.

On this specific day during my return journey, a coffee in one hand and two burnt sunset daylilies in the other, I thought of a video I saw a few days back. In it, a woman asks her partner, a man: what are the equivalent of flowers for men? Puzzled, his eyes dart around. He responds slowly, “… are flowers not allowed?” She laughs and affirms. He then continues, slowly, sheepishly, and with a smile:

“I … like … flowers …”

The punchline, admittedly funny and adorable wasn’t what stayed with me. Nor was it the small uproar in the comments section that followed. It was, instead, the slow and delibrate way in which he responded.

Roughly half of the comments were supportive or adorative; however, the other half was a mix of strange assertions that questioned the sincerty or the masculinity of the partner. One of the more common responses was that he wasn’t really a man and whatever his sexuality was, it did not fall under cishet. This implication unpacked: it’s bad to be “girly”, and it’s “girly” to like flowers. Another common response was that it’s impossible for men to like flowers. As a result any “self-respecting” man would only say such a thing for some type of sexual reward. This is proven, they argued, by the slow response which could only be interpreted by them as calculating.

I heard differently. He replied the same way I would have replied stating something boys are taught not to like through cultural osmosis while coming to terms with the idea that this video could blow up and that he and his response would have its five minutes in the sun as a viral internet superstar. This slow cadence where each word falls over like a melting glacier wasn’t calculating, but cautious. It was a slow moving train of thought hauling the baggage of persona, reality, culture and masculinity: the I’m-gonna-say-something-I-know-you’re-gonna-say-doesn’t-make-me-a-man-but-I-know-I’m-a-man-so-why-does-it-bother-me express.

For most of the summer a construction crew near my home was constructing something on the road: yellow machines, orange cones, spraypainted concrete, and plastic hats. In order to get to my front door, I’d have to walk across the street and in front of the site. Directing traffic was this large man: black workboots, yellow hi-vis outfit, neon plastic hardhat, and a face that looked like a hairy wrinkled dumpling. He silently stood, waving people by.

I would pass by him every morning as I left my apartment. Everytime I crossed the street during this new season of picking flowers, I felt again the same old anxieties and thought again of the same old comments section.

I developed a routine. Upon nearing my home with flowers, I would move them to the hand facing opposite the construction site. I would take the colourful and fragile petals and gently cup them inbetween my fingers and close gently. Softly cupping them and their green stems, I would place them beside my thigh and have my hand match my gait. For the minute that it would take me to cross the street, they were now effectively hidden if you looked at me from the other direction. Like a magician, I made the threat of judgement of my masculinity disappear.

On this particular August morning; however, I decided against this ritual. I would just hold the flowers as they were meant to be held. As I held them gently between my thumb and fingers, I exited the alleyway closest to my home, turned left and saw, no one.

In the long morning walk to get coffee, the construction crew must have finished what they needed to finish and left. Leaving behind pavement haphazardly resurfaced and orange cones pushed towards the sidewalks.

I slowly moved myself to the centre of the now finished construction site. I stood for a few seconds with flowers in hand. I looked around the empty street, took a sip of my coffee, then continued the last few feet towards my front door.

#personal essay #nonfiction #flowers #masculinity #cecorps

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