Dear Charlie,

On the morning of your ninth birthday party, I looked in the mirror and saw my father.  This happens to me sometimes when I glimpse my reflection out of the corner of my eye, especially when I am bearded, as I am now, because it is winter and, as you know, I am a lifelong pedestrian.  In the past, I often tried to deny any resemblance but, it is true that sometimes, from certain angles, even if only briefly, I look like my father.

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Part One

White Stones, Queens, 1974.
Fathers talking shit,
Motherfucker slam the door.
Hit the streets running, cannot take it anymore.
In the reins of the train, I cuddle on the floor.

On the park bench, door, and sleeping here for free
Little kids sitting in the shooting gallery
Set yourself up
From innocence to misery
Oh, this is what you wanted,
Not the way, what the fuck you say?

~ Rancid, “1998”

Between January 4th and January 10th, 1998, a series of large storms dumped 80-130mm (~3-5 inches) of precipitation on Eastern Ontario and Quebec. What began as rain rapidly turned to ice and the ice accumulated and as it accumulated it devastated trees and infrastructure, forests and cities. Kilometre after kilometre of hydro towers fell like dominoes. Millions of people lost power, some for several weeks in subzero temperatures, and at least thirty-five people died. This became known as The Ice Storm of 1998. It was at this time that I became homeless and, one quiet winter evening, carried all my worldly possessions – in a backpack, a duffel bag, and a number of garbage bags, down a frozen suburban street into a future I could not foresee.

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Along with many others, I was struck by the literary brilliance and emotional impact of Kristen Roupenian’s short story, “Cat Person” (read it here).  However, and once again along with many others, I was both appalled and disheartened by the ways in which many men were responding to the story.  I ended up having a rather lengthy conversation about the story with some of these fellows on a friend’s facebook page and I have decided to take what I wrote there and make it into a blog post here.  My intention in doing so isn’t so much to further engage those whom I have termed “the bros” (and will refer to as Bro1 and Bro2 throughout) as it is to offer an alternative reading to those who are unsettled by what the bros have said but who aren’t sure how to refute their arguments.

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Hold me, embrace me, kiss me, I missed you, I love you, with you there’s no place else I’d rather be. Your heart is a glacier and mine is the root of the mountain.  Flow. Over me, around me, cover me, fill the valleys with ice and the cracking sound of thunder.  Bury the peaks, grind down the boulders, turn rocks into sand.  Breathe, advance, retreat, flow.

I drank your waters and they washed away my bridges, turned my coast into a wasteland, devastated my devastation, made my world anew.

There is a line that I can draw from the small of your back to the arch of your shoulder.  There is a line where our fingers connect.  There is the cracking sound of thunder and all these lines become tangled, like stone with ice, like water with life.  There is the cleft of your smile at the corner of your lips.  Flow.

Love flows like a flood and fills like an ocean and we, in our small boat, have barely left port.  Let’s sail, let’s sail, let’s sail away, to the islands beyond the horizon, to the caves in the depths where the sun goes to sleep, and to places where little birds have not learned to be afraid.  The future is not landlocked; the future is an open sea.

They lied when they told us we are worthless.  They lied when they told us the world is ugly.  They lied when they told us we deserve this.  They lied when they told us the walls they built around us are the boundaries of the world.  They lied but the truth, like Grímsvötn, erupted deep beneath the Vatnajökull, and washed them away.  And love is the boat and love is the ocean and, still, we’ve barely left port.

Hold me, embrace me, kiss me, I missed you, I love you, with you there’s no place else I’d rather be. Your heart is a glacier and mine is the root of the mountain.  Flow. Over me, around me, cover me, fill the valleys with ice and the cracking sound of thunder.  Bury the peaks, grind down the boulders, turn rocks into sand.  Breathe, advance, retreat, flow.