I am now boycotting all of Trump’s luxury properties and hotels,

and have donated my, “You’re Fired!” t-shirt to charity. I don’t just believe in talking about change, I believe in being the change, and so instead of complaining about fascism on my Facebook page, I’ve started to picket the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

This is my journal:

Day 1:

Too cold. Stayed home and watched A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix. An instant classic.

Day 2:

Still chilly, but realized that the world isn’t going to change itself, so dressed in layers and headed down to Bay Street with my picket sign.

Teenager on subway asked me what my sign said.

“You’re a Chump if you support Trump.” I said, adding, “You’ve got to fight the power, you know? You have to BE the change!”

The teenager said, “Your sign says, “You’re a Trump if you support Chump.”

I looked at the sign and saw that he was right, and then asked him, “Well, if you knew what it said in the first place, why’d you ask me?”

The teenager shrugged.

Stayed on subway until it arrived back at the stop I had started at and went home.

Day 3:

Pleasant day. Maybe 10 degrees.

Took an Uber cab to the hotel and began my protest.

The first person who walked out of the hotel was a woman wearing a beautiful sundress, a winter scarf that must have fallen from heaven and a cowboy hat. She smelled like the most impossible music and was so blindingly gorgeous that I dropped my sign.

As she stepped into a waiting limo, I cried out, “I would build a wall around all of Mexico for you, I would make America strong again!” but I think maybe she was mute, as she did not respond.

I don’t remember much else from that day

Day 4:

Woke up and meditated hoping to receive wisdom and light to become better protestor.

I then went down to hotel committed to be the best protestor I could be.

I began to pace in front of the building chanting, “Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump, Dump-Trump!” Although I got the words mixed-up quite a bit, several cars honked, which I took to be signs of support.

Had lunch.

Feeling in the zone, I began to protest again but then got a text from my wife reminding me to pick up my blood pressure medication, and so I went off to the store to make sure I got there before it closed. Took my blood pressure while waiting. 120/70.

Not bad! Got my pills and a lotto ticket and headed home.

Day 5:

Took Uber down to hotel again. Talked to the driver about fascism. He agreed about its dangers. (I feel I am changing the world one little bit at a time!)Gave him a five star rating.

Today I proved an inspiration. As I believe we have to unite as one against Trump, I was delighted when a street person joined in my protest. She might have had her difficulties, but she was a very spirited, loud and creative chanter! Said her name was Parking Lot, because that’s where she did most of her work, and that Trump was a “Fuck Roach.”

He was one of the boys I grew up with in Ottawa, and he was a great guy. Modest, kind and good at everything, he was well liked, the sort of person you always wanted around. Parents watching him grow felt proud, confident and happy in the future that was unfolding before him. He was like all the other pure and wonderful boys we grew up amidst, and whenever I saw him, I saw the happy reflection of all of us who grew up together in that neighbourhood, smiling back.

He jumped from the Alexandra Street bridge last week, falling 120 feet before landing in about six feet of water and then pulling himself to the rocks along shore. Using the word miracle, the police officers said that they had never seen a person survive such a high fall into such shallow water.

The Alexandra Street bridge, which was built around 1900, connects Ottawa to the city that lies directly across the river, Hull, Quebec. I cannot express to you just how important Hull was to teenagers growing up in Ottawa during the 1980’s. At the time, Ottawa was a very conservative, even timid place. There were rules that governed everything and an almost soviet conformity enveloped the city like a cloud. However, in Hull the drinking age was 18, you could buy beer at corner stores and bars stayed open until 3:00am. We flocked there by the thousands, crossing the Alexandra bridge like we were a part of some migratory pattern.

For me and my friends, sheltered, underaged kids who only knew optimistic, suburban existences, the unfettered liberty of Hull was a small glimpse into what we imagined the realm of adults could be. It was a place full of potential. Every time we crossed that bridge we felt that a “first” might take place– the narratives of our lives just then beginning to take shape. It was a never-never land where we could dip our feet into the future, while still returning home each night to the safe nest our parents had constructed.

To this day the bridge has the steely permanence of an antique.

Cantilevered, it vibrates when you pass over it, as if an echo of all the trains that once crossed. Our transits, often by foot or bike, were always made at night. With the water in view beneath the cross-hatched metal and the wind, now feeling slightly alien and hostile pushing at you, a feeling of vulnerable and solitude presided. With untethered blackness above and beneath, and the ghostly hum of the bridge moving up through your body, you were in limbo, as if moving from one realm into the next.

It was here on the Alexandra bridge, perhaps feeling lost between these two worlds, where our dear friend decided to step off. He did not do it at night, but during the prosaic, naked day. What was taking place in his heart at that moment must have been indescribably mysterious and painful, a motivating state of mind that’s bleakly impenetrable to the rest of us, who only by the grace of God, have remained on solid ground.

May he forgive himself everything, and find peace in this living world where he will be forever loved. And may he always remember that he pulled himself to shore. The miracle of his life was of his own creation.

And trailing behind us were two women, one young, the other middle-aged. They were in conversation and occasionally, when the dog idled, some of their words would come into focus.

“It was like everything I thought was real wasn’t, and I was sure I was crazy.”

“Well, they said I would have remained hospitalized but for that one thing.”

“I will never forget the look on his face when I opened the door and saw what was happening.”

“I can’t’ describe to you how sad I’ve been.”

The older woman, attentive and silent, was a witness. She was looking right into the still shocked eyes of her companion, determined to walk with her and listen for as long as it took– the movement bringing the story to the surface and freeing it, if only for a moment.

Further along a little boy held a pile of leaves and twigs in his hands, declaring to his father– who sat on a bench in front of a coffee shop– ” Making a nest is hard!” The father became a necessary expert, “Yes, it is, but birds are very good at it!” His wife, beautifully sunlit and scarved, rolled her eyes and smiled, “Your father’s nickname in college was The Birdman, did you know that, Alistair? He was famous for his nests!”

A middle-aged, maximally bearded man wearing a sweatshirt with something accidental on it, jogged along. He had an easy gait and appeared naturally athletic, but as he loped closer to us and then past, I could see that his smile was wild and uncontrollable and he was muttering to himself. His clothes filthy, he clutched a beaten five dollar bill in his long, thin fingers, and ran straight to the liquor store.

On our way home the dog bounced through the leaves, and an elderly woman in a wheelchair, still wearing a poppy on her blazers, smiled at us, “She looks so happy!” she said. I shouted back that it was a beautiful day, and the woman nodded crisply, “I will grant you that,” she said, before gearing her chair forward and buzzing across the street.

* (Photo of leaves courtesy of Debra Lary)

After family had left and the remaining adults retreated to their bedrooms, the girls began a dance party in our living room. The bass-heavy music thumped away, with the girls singing along together in a harmony that they might never find again. For that moment, they were a perfectly constituted choir—a constellation of sound, movement, energy and potential.

Studying YouTube, they taught themselves new dance steps.

Gas.

Pedal.

Gas.

Pedal.

And as they gained confidence and expertise, their steps grew louder and more choreographed. They were becoming more like the versions of themselves they wanted to be, and their voices, now high-pitched and excited, rose above the music. Lying back in bed watching TV, Rachelle and I could make out flashes of their tossed hair reflected back from the mirror in the hallway, and it was like catching glimpses of agents of nature, unguarded and fierce in their natural habitat.

As it was getting late, we told them that they’d have to keep it down and mind our neighbours, and so they began to dance softly. Having switched to stealth mode, it was as if they were now in moccasins– their feet falling as soft as whispers. And after 30 minutes they had danced themselves dry and all ran to the kitchen, chugging glass after glass of water from the cutest cups that they could find.

And in 10, 20, 30 years, that song they were listening to will come to them over the radio or in a bar, and it will all return in surprising torrents. The moves, like muscle memory, will return, the pretty, downtown dresses bought on Queen Street, the junk food shared and last names suddenly recalled….Yes, that feeling of the endless summer of youth, of being thirsty and drinking cold, cold water, of a life once so simple, pure and beautiful– everything still imperishable and perfect stretching before them.

As we were waiting, two people inside the exhibit started to pound desperately on the wall. The security guards manning the installation jumped into action and opened the door, and amidst a spill of balloons a guy and girl emerged, each one in a panic, shaking and pawing at themselves as if covered in worms.

Rachelle looked over at me, “You’re going to freak-out, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said quietly.

“It says right there on the wall that people with claustrophobia shouldn’t go in. You can’t see at all in there. It’s nothing but black balloons, and if you’re prone to anxiety, it might not be the best experience for you.”

“I’m not prone to anxiety,” I whispered.

“Pickle,” Rachelle answered, “you have sweat on your upper lip and your left eye is twitching, just like when you have a good hand in cards. Are you sure you want to go in?”

I went in, dissolving into the balloons.

The acoustics were muffled and you really couldn’t see anything but the latex exterior of the black balloons. Dislocating rather than threatening, it was still an uncomfortable feeling. I moved slowly about fanning the balloons away as best I could, but they immediately reconstituted around me as if trying to attach and feed–an assembly of   jellyfish clustering. It was disorienting and as I inched along the perimeter the room became denser and hotter, the air feeling remote and less accessible. I had no idea how to get out or how large the room was and I was starting to feel a little anxious, and then  I heard somebody softly crying. I thought it might be part of the exhibit, but I wasn’t sure.

“Is somebody crying?” I asked.

“I’m fine, “ a woman said,  “sorry.”

I shuffled along the wall toward the voice, eventually coming into contact with somebody slumped to the floor.

“Do you need any help?”

“No,” she answered, “I’m okay, thanks. I’m not panicked or anything, just a little emotional. My mother died recently and whenever I was feeling lost, she was always there to help guide me, you know?  It’s a silly thing, but this just brought her right back to me. I’m really fine and sorry for the little scene.”

And then I heard her get up and move off into the balloons.

Julia,

I know what you’re saying.

One night while in high school my friends and I were driving around in somebody’s father’s Mercedes. We had music blaring out the open windows. All virgins, we were a genial pack of average boys, but we thought we were pretty cool—real catches.

A girl I thought was pretty was walking along the street and I yelled out, “nice calves!” She kind of smiled at this remark, saying something deflective and neutral, and we mistook this for encouragement. We thought that this was probably the best thing that had ever happened to her– a car full of cool guys paying her attention. We drove slowly alongside of her, offering her a ride and attempting a flirtatious posture. She was smiling, but she began to walk faster as this attempted seduction proceeded, and then she began to trot. And when she looked back at us there was terror on her face, and she yelled, “Please, please, please, just leave me alone!”

And then the car was still and quiet except for the music.

It is a moment I have never forgotten.

You were right to say what you did to him.

Always your uncle,

Alan, xoxox