Exhaustion

I leaned over the counter in my kitchen. Sweat dripped from my forehead and ran down the side of my face. My condo was air conditioned, but it had little effect on the way I felt. My limbs creaked with every movement, and my brain moved in what seemed to be slow, concentric circles.

I pushed away from the sink and lurched towards the balcony. Outside, the sun had started its long descent, but the heat hadn’t diminished. My shirt clung to my chest as I sank into the chair.

“I did it, Nelson,” I said to my cat, who had followed me outside. “And tonight I’ll go out and have some fun.”

I scratched him behind the ear and leaned back. Sixteen of seventeen days completed. Twenty two of twenty five. Without question, it was the most lengthy and difficult stretch of work I’d ever experienced, and all of it on the heels of an emotionally exhausting year.

I glanced at the book I’d brought out with me and dismissed it. I was too tired to read. Too tired to do anything. I popped open a beer and let out a long breath.

Over the past month I’d barely written, and while I’d managed to stay in touch with my friends, I couldn’t remember what it was like to get a full night’s sleep. Couldn’t remember what it was to have it all together. Couldn’t remember what it was like to, well, remember things. It was like my brain had taken a vacation.

I lived in a city that pushed people to be constantly moving. Over the past month I’d done that, in a way I’d never done before. And with a full three day weekend looming, I expected to feel relief. Three glorious days of writing and sleeping and working out.

Instead, I felt anxious.

   

I sipped my beer and sighed. The sun began to skirt lower along the buildings, casting an orange nimbus about them, as if the steel structures had suddenly earned halos. As hard as I’d worked, as spent as I felt, instead of feeling the release that was supposed to come with it, I felt an urge to work harder. To push farther. To do more. I’d checked daily into my work account for my monthly earnings since I'd started the run of work. Felt myself smile at the number. Felt something like pride when I saw it.

I can do this. If I keep working like this, I’ll be ahead of the game in no time.

Understand, youth workers don’t get “ahead of the game.” Not financially. Not in a city like Toronto. The best you can hope for is a sort of equilibrium, where your bills are paid and you have a bit left over to save and spend. Unless, of course, you’re willing to be exhausted. Not just for a month. Not just for a few moments. But consistently. Until it becomes a state of being. I didn’t think I wanted that – hell, I’d never wanted that – but after surviving the past month, I wasn’t so sure.

Do I really need three days off? Maybe I should call work and see if they have anything for me. I’m not THAT tired.

As I stared down at the traffic, it occurred to me that I hadn’t written in a while. That my novels were beyond due. That I hadn’t kept up with my friends and family the way I would’ve liked. None of those things put money in my bank account, but they were important. At least, I remembered them being important.

I tilted my bottle. It was empty. I thought about grabbing another, but it seemed a long way to the fridge. I stared down at the cars and tried to think about my writing and where I was going with my next book.

It was like sifting through lead.

All I really wanted to do was sleep.

And work again.

I’d never been a “work at all costs and get ahead” person, so that I was actually thinking that way worried me.  Was I becoming that person? The one who worked endlessly for the pot of gold but never saw the rainbow? The one I’d seen I’d the subway with the tailored suit and perfect makeup and dead eyes?

I tried to convince myself I was being practical. That everyone got busy. That a little sacrifice now meant a lot towards the future.

It wasn’t working.

After more than a little effort I managed to find my way to the fridge for another beer and back on the balcony. I cracked it open. There was little to find in literature about the benefits of exhaustion. Generally speaking, Western society – particularly North Americans – tended to work too hard for things that didn’t really matter. It had been a long held criticism that we worried too much about keeping up with the Jones and Smiths. The criticism, as legitimate as it was, had been around for so many years it no longer seemed to matter.

Advertisers still spent billions on creating needs. We still held far too much personal debt and most of us lived from paycheck to paycheck because we lived beyond our means. I was guilty of it, too. Maybe that’s why creating some financial space was so important for me, why it felt so practical, why it felt like I was making too big a deal of things.

   

I sipped my beer and stared at the relentless train of vehicles moving and weaving and honking up and down Yonge Street like worker bees in a honeycomb. It didn’t seem to matter what time I sat outside. The cars were always there, as ever present as the buildings towering above them.

Maybe that was it. Maybe it was that in working so many hours at such an exhausting job I’d lost my sense of space. That everything around me suddenly felt narrow and restricted. I’d often lamented with my friends over the shallow tendencies of our culture when it came to things like history and critical thinking and the ability to be present. But when it cost so much just trying to get to the next appointment, the next shift, the next thing, those things became impossible. We’d become a society of selfies, not mirrors, where it was more important to document our life than to actually live it. I’d never really understood that, but it made sense now. We took pictures to prove that we’d been somewhere, not only to others, but to ourselves. At the end of the day, I could pull out my phone and say, “See, I was living! I went there. I ate that. I was with her.” Even if we couldn’t remember any of the details.

I let out a long sigh as Nelson rubbed up against my knee. “Yeah, I missed you too, buddy.”

As a lifelong weightlifter, exhaustion was part of the routine. I’d work out until I was sore, wait a day or two, and the next time I used that muscle they’d have repaired themselves. Exhaustion made them stronger. But that wasn’t true about this collective urge to get more and do more and make more. Sure, I’d learned that I could work a month straight without a break at a strenuous job, but the other muscles in my life had been completely neglected. Like the ability to see beyond my own tiredness and empathize with others. The ability to think critically about social issues. The ability to consider my actions in the light of the future.

I swigged the last of my beer and followed Nelson back inside. In my room, I climbed onto my bed, too tired to even pull back the covers.

I thought about the plans I’d made for my first night off.

Maybe tomorrow.  

New

Below me, the roar of traffic is constant. It is unlike any place I've ever lived. Twenty stories above the street and it feels like I am on a ship on the ocean. Although where it is going, I am uncertain. The only certainty of my home is the newness of it all.

A new journey.

A new life.

A new direction.

This worries me less than I thought it would. Displacement is difficult because change is difficult, which is what makes moving so traumatic. And in my case, it isn't the only significant change.

There are people who love change, embrace it, seek it out even. But they are rare, and I am not one of them. I much prefer status quo, with perhaps the odd "challenge."

This is not that.

For most of us, change of this magnitude creates fear. What will happen? How will I get through this? How did I get here? The list of questions is as endless as the sea, because the inevitable impact of change is just that: questions. Self examination. World examination. Life examination. Everything we have ever believed is under scrutiny, and it is here where change becomes extremely valuable. It gives us a chance to re-examine everything, because the world not only seems different, it is entirely unrecognizable. And in this strange new place we have the opportunity to see ourselves with new eyes. Is it challenging? Yes. But it can also be rewarding, if only we have the courage to see ourselves through a different looking glass.

WHERE AM I?

I have, for the past few months, desperately tried to figure out how my life went from "there" to "here." I am still without answers. Oh, I could detail what happened, but I still don't understand it. Not fully. Listening to the roar of traffic still makes me feel like I am drifting out to sea. And so I wonder. Where am I headed? Am I moving in the right direction? Am I open to the inner work that needs to be done?

I pause and glance up at the sky. Clouds have moved in. The balcony faces east, and so even on the brightest of days, the sun is gone by mid-morning. On this day, a typically hot summer Toronto afternoon, I am grateful for the relief. It is still odd to write with so much movement and noise below me, with the continual awareness of so many people heading in so many directions. I try to reassure myself: I, too, am headed somewhere. Even if my steps are a bit slower than they once were.

But I am still overwhelmed. That much is clear. Every day I add a piece or two to the puzzle that is now my life, and slowly, achingly so at times, I am beginning to see a new portrait. It is difficult not to rush things. To throw the pieces together however they fit and force them together.

It doesn't work that way.

It's not supposed to work that way.

As much as I do not like to wait, times like this -- and we all go through them -- are necessary to create the lives we want to lead going forward. It gives us a chance to breathe, to remember our dreams, to remember the things that excited us about the future.

It can be difficult to accept, but that future is still there. Even in the midst of turmoil, it breathes inside of us, waiting for a chance to speak, waiting for a chance to remind us why we're here and the joys of life yet available to us.

I do not write those words in a vacuum. I can tell you what it means to be in pain. I can tell you what it means to feel trapped in a joyless existence. I can tell you what it means to live your life based on the next thirty minutes.

I can tell you that, but there comes a time when explanation is redundant.

We do not need comprehension.

What we need is hope.

Two years ago I saw the ocean on the sandy shores on the East Coast. It was winter, the beach abandoned, the water cold. I thought it would just be another body of water. It was not. I was shocked to find myself experiencing something entirely different.

The waves were gentle enough, but there was a distinct sound to them, an endlessness that was difficult for me to fathom. I remember thinking, 'this is not a lake. This is nothing like a lake.'

On the edge of the ocean, my mind was drawn to many things. Its power. Its endlessness. Its eternal nature. And for those moments, I felt small in a way that I'd never known.

Not belittled.

Not less.

Just small.

As if I finally realized what it meant to be human.

ETERNAL

We are all shaped by vast sources that we can hardly fathom. Regardless of our life, or the dramatic changes within it, we are a speck next to the ocean. We are human. Part of something much greater than ourselves. An important part, to be sure, but just a part. What seem like mountains to us are nothing within the scope of those parameters. And when we overestimate the size and complexity of our lives, we lose perspective on how easily we can find happiness again.

We are not mountains. Or glaciers. Or oceans.

We are human. And we exist to create change in the ones around us by changing ourselves. By accepting all that happens in our life as a by-product of living. And by understanding how and why we these changes have occurred and what we can do to create an even larger impact on the world around us.

Change makes us vulnerable. It asks us to stand in front of the ocean and acknowledge that we are are mortal. It teaches us that we know much less than realize.

I look down at the traffic below me. Can I do that? Can I look at myself through the ocean's mirror and see what needs to be done? Can I raise my sail and trust that I will move in the right direction, even if I do not understand all that is happening? Can I lay aside my need for control, my need for an inflated sense of importance, to do what needs to be done?

These are the questions we need to answer. The ones I need to answer.

I do not know how I am going to respond. But I'm listening.

Selling Out to Sell Books.

Am I too harsh in my public criticisms? Am I turning away potential readers because I insist on being so aggressive about certain issues on social media?

I've been wrestling with these questions for the past month or so, ever since The Last Angel was published. Writing is a business, and it takes a lot of work to build up a readership apart from writing great stories. For all the ease and availability of finding a book, it has become increasingly difficult to find readers. Turning off a potential reader to make a point about certain "hot" issues is risky.

In the past, I never even considered the consequences of such things. I didn't care if I lost a "friend" or "follower" over something I'd written. As a writer and observer of human nature, there were certain inequalities too upsetting NOT to comment on. (Like anything to do with animal rights/factory farming and social justice)

Unfortunately, when I did comment on these issues, subtlety was, err, not my strong suit. I can be abrasive when I believe our society or certain individuals are whiffing on a topic that revolves around kindness. I'm particularly aggressive when it comes to apathy. It's one thing to not be in a position to help (though I do think we can all help in small ways), it's something else entirely when people just don't give a shit.

And yet, am I really going to change anyone's mind? On Facebook? On Twitter? Probably not. So why say anything in the first place? And for heaven's sake, why be so damn obtuse about it? If it doesn't matter, then focus on the good things and sell a few more books. Don't be so political, and that way more people can enjoy your stories. You'll have less aggravation as well.

Sigh. (This is why you do not want to get inside a writer's head.)

I wrote about this a little while ago, although I attacked it from a different angle. Artists are NOT politicians. However, we sometimes have to be a little political, especially when you have a temperament like mine, to ensure that we don't anger people before they've even seen our work.

Or do we?

As proud as I am of THE LAST ANGEL, and as excited as I am for the release of three more books this year, I certainly haven't "made it." Not by a long shot. I'm still a starving artist. Still struggling to pay the rent. And yet, as much as those questions haunt me, there is one question that haunts me more.

Twenty years from now, when I look over my career, what will my legacy be? I can tell you that it won't be about the number of books I sell. (Though I would like to sell a lot, obviously.) I think, on that day, I will ask myself if I pushed for better in society. I will wonder if my stories were not simply entertaining, but if they asked the moral questions that all art should ask. I will think back to this time right now, when my future as a writer was very much in doubt, when I had no idea if I'd sell a hundred books or a hundred thousand of them, and ask myself whether I was more worried about myself, or this world I inhabit.

And if I can't say that my stories reflected my heart about issues like poverty, racism and bigotry, if I can't say that I strove to correct social wrongs with passionate tales of courage and redemption, and if I can't say that my works were nothing more than entertainment, then I will know that I have failed.

I do not want to be a failure.

That isn't to say that I do not hope to make a good living, of course i do, and it's not to say that perhaps I could tone down some of my comments on social media, if not the message. But I will not sell out to sell books.

THE MODEL 

I've written about this before, but the first positive portrayal of a gay man was a secondary character from one of Robert B. Parker's books. A tough, wise, funny cop. To that point in my life, all I'd heard about the LGBT community was that they were a bunch of perverts. I'm not exaggerating, and if some of you grew up in a small, conservative town like mine, you may have experienced the same thing.

That was the start of a journey for me. Along the way, that enriched worldview, or at least, that wider worldview, has been expanded to race and gender.

Books like Twillight and Fifty Shades sell millions of copies, all while giving women and girls terrible role models. Role models that suggest they need to "surrender" to men and that they aren't worth as much. Perhaps these books are popular because women Identify with those characters. Perhaps they are popular because they speak to the patriarchal worldview that still grips most of the world.

But I find it destructive. As a youth worker for nearly twenty years, these are not the models that I want young girls, sisters and daughters and nieces, looking up to.

That will not happen in my stories.

Will I lose readers?

Maybe.

Probably.

But I won't consider that failure.

Starting your own business, whatever it is, inevitably means compromise. But where? In this case, selling out to sell books is something I will work hard not to do, even if the questions still plague me from time to time.

Parker showed me that one could be successful novelist, tell thrilling action stories that people loved, and still make a point to change the world, even in a small way, by staying true to his principles. And in the end, that the goal for all of us, isn't it?

A Confrontation

"You pushed me! I'm sure they have cameras." The speaker was a thick woman with a heavy Pakistani accent.

"I didn't touch you!"

The woman pointed her finger at a young man wearing a bright orange vest. "Yes, you did! They have cameras!"

I was standing at the service counter at Loblaws, waiting to pay for a small box of wedge fries. The two were arguing five feet from where I was standing.

A manager walked over, a big man with a thick mane of curly hair and a speckled gotee. He listened to both sides before leading them away. I don't know what happened, (though I did see the young man back at work organizing the carts later in the afternoon) but  that wasn't what I found interesting

What interested me was how a visible minority clearly not born in Canada, was able to speak her mind to a young white man who'd been born here.

Now to most Canadians, particularly those of us in the bigger cities, this is not a big deal. This is what we expect to happen. And if the young man did push her or swear at her, she not only deserves to be heard, but the young man obviously deserves to punished. Again, this seems obvious. But think about all issues we've had with systemic racism within certain enforcement agencies. And this isn't just about our friends to the south. We've had issues here in Toronto as well.

Racism (like bigotry and misogyny) will never go away, though we do what we can to at least minimize its effects. And so often we see those negative examples on the news or pop up on our social media platform.

This is fine, because the only way we can correct things is to understand what's going on in the first place. Still though, it's nice to examples of when we get it right. Today, it wasn't about being white, being male, or being born here. And it was nice to see.

The Man at The Garage (RAOK Alert)

A couple of weeks ago, my missionary father-in-law was headed to a week long retreat outside the city. He'd been having issues with his car, so one of the other men volunteered to drive. The man suggested that my dad drop off the car at his mechanic. (I'd explain what was wrong with his car, but since the only thing I readily identify about automobiles is their size and colour, so I'll refrain from explaining it, err, trying to explain it, here.) Suffice to say, the bill came out to well over a hundred dollars. When my father-in-law tried to pay, the mechanic said that someone else had already taken care of it. This person identified himself only as a Christian and asked that his name not been given. A true random act of kindness.

When dad first told my wife and I this story, I felt something lift inside my chest. Maybe it's because you need to know my wife's parents. I know people hear all kinds of stories about missionaries, and some of them are disturbing and awful. But Tim and Lorna are extraordinary people. Everything about them is soft and gentle and loving. Tim grew up in Ethiopia, where his dad was a missionary, and became one himself. When he met Lorna, the two of them went back there where they built English schools and dug wells and did everything they could to help a people in need. My wife moved 21 times before she was 16 years old, and through everything -- a drought, a civil war -- they stayed firm, an example of love and kindness with little consideration to themselves.

Here in Canada, they continue to serve as missionaries, albeit in a different capacity. They are, without question, two of the most loving people I have ever met. They have adopted a very simple, very kind life, and it is always a joy to spend time with them. (It's difficult to explain, but when you're with them, it feels like everything slows down. Like the hurried and harried needs of our ultra-fast society are somewhere in the background. It's like breathing clean air after so many years of rushing to take a breath.)

That someone, a random stranger, would pay for their repairs, struck me as either wonderful coincidence, or God (and using a Humphrey Bogart voice, of course) ordering someone to 'do them a solid.'

I started wondering what would happen if every Christian, if every person of faith, stopped campaigning for who shouldn't be included and ripping every "sinful" act every committed, and simply started doing this. Obviously, I included myself in these considerations and decided that the entire world would start believing whatever people who espoused such kindness had to say. Who wouldn't?

In the end, at least for that one person who payed the bill, it wasn't about credit. It wasn't about being recognized for their generosity. And it wasn't about showing the world how great they were or how much better their religion was. It was an act of kindness, from one person to another, to two of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. Ah yes, a Kind Life indeed. 

The Lady at the Bus Stop (RAOK Alert!)

There's a Bingo Hall just down the street from us, a large building that also houses the Fitness Connection where Bethany (my wife) and I work out. A few weeks ago, she met an elderly woman waiting at the bus stop. The woman stopped my wife and asked her if she was was going to take the bus. Bethany was headed to the gym. On a whim, she asked the elderly woman if she needed help.

"Oh no, Dear," she said with a smile. "I just wait here every morning until someone comes along who can use my transfer. It's good for another hour."

When Bethany told me that story it brought a smile to my face. Such a small thing, you know. And yet, what a wonderful act of kindness.

Sometimes, it's good to hear about large extravagant acts of generosity. But for my money, these little ones often mean a lot more.

-Steve 

The Importance of Mom(s)

I smile at my wife as I walk up my parents’ driveway. Snow lines the edge of the street, but most of it has melted. Another green Christmas. When I was young, it snowed more often, and Christmas was the way Bing Crosby would have liked it. That was long ago. Like many things, the weather has changed.

My parents have lived in this house for forty-two years. They moved here two days after I was born. That, at least, has not changed. It is a red brick bungalow with white siding and a carport hedged with hanging ferns and flowers. The big evergreen in the middle of the yard is gone, replaced by a birdfeeder. But the old maple beside it, the one I used to climb and swing on as a child, remains. It is even cozier inside.

As soon as we enter, my dad’s voice booms across the room

“Heya, Partner!”

We hug. I greet my sisters the same way. My mom gets a hug and a kiss. No snow, but it is still Christmas. My mom takes me by the hand.

“I want you to meet my friend.”

“Okay.”

She’s told me about her friend, an elderly woman who moved in down the street and lives alone there. This is my first chance to meet her. Her name is Aluweya. She wears an African style dress that sweeps down to the floor and a matching hijab. She has a kind face and smile lines around her eyes. She is from the Sudan, a widow with eight children, all of whom are highly educated, two of which are doctors in the U.S. My mom has told me this before I met her. I say hello and we exchange pleasantries before I am swept away by the entrance of more family.

My mom takes her friend’s hand, the way she took mine, and leads her to the front entrance. I watch them, not surprised, exactly, but it still hits me with a quiet, redeeming force.

Aluweya is black, and she is a Muslim. That is not a big deal in Toronto or Ottawa, my two cities of residence the past sixteen years, but this is not those places. This is Welland.

WELLAND

My hometown of fifty thousand seems to shrink every time I visit. That is not an insult. It is slower here, the pace less frantic. A walk down the street seems more reflective and less harried. Born sometime in the late 19^th Century, it was birthed on the edge of a canal, which fostered ships along between the great lakes and down the St. Lawrence and out to the ocean. It became an industrial town, steel mostly, and filled with Italian and French immigrants, nearly all of them Catholic. Most of the steel mills have gone now, but the makeup of the population remains the same. Many Wellanders are Catholic, nearly all of them are white. In my high school of over a thousand students, there were two black students. Neither was Muslim.

This does not seem to bother my mother. Nor does it bother her new friend. Both are devout. Neither would ever consider the other religion. Neither care. My mom has bought her a gift. That Aluweya doesn’t celebrate Christmas does not matter. At Christmas we give gifts to people we love. People we appreciate. Aluweya has also brought a gift for my mother. It does not to bother her that she is, in a manner, celebrating a Christian holiday. When Ramadan comes the next year, my mother will make her friend special cookies without yeast. Sometimes wisdom is not spoken, it is only seen.

MOM

My mom is a small woman, quiet and strong with a good sense of humour. She hovers in the background during family gatherings. She takes pictures at odd moments. All moments. My sisters and I have become good at insta-smile. I am faster than most gunmen with my camera smile. It is a learned behaviour.

My father is as generous as he is boisterous. He is loud and fun and was beloved by many of the boys he coached, both basketball and baseball, for over forty years. He has received awards for his volunteer work. That is not why he did it, but he is known in the community. My mother’s kindness is quieter.

During my childhood, any stray cat was welcome. My mom kept a food dish on our porch. We adopted many of them. Mitsy. Professor. Blacky. Smokie. The same was true of any dog. Any wounded animal. She spent hours walking the neighbours’ dogs, or walking the homeless ones at the Humane Society. She cooked for people. Cooked for us. Cleaned up after us. Nothing was done for attention. Nothing to get attention. She taught us that kindness does not have to be loud to be effective. That it is more powerful when it is quiet.

TODAY

The world has changed since I was young. We hear stories about faraway places more often. Stories of tragedy and conflict. Every day they are thrust in our face. We are asked to choose sides. Sometimes they use nations. Often they use religion. We are told that if one is bad that all are bad. That one idea is better than another. That we can tell a book by its cover. Things are so fast that mostly we look at covers. We have stopped reading books. We don’t have time.

But kindness is not fast. Kindness is slow. Kindness volunteers hours at the soup kitchen teaching the poor to cook. Kindness walks homeless dogs. Kindness provides a home and love and care for family. It does not make waves, except the gentle kind that ripple slowly to shore. It does not seek attention for its own sake. It does not counter angry rhetoric with argument, nor ignorance with logic, but acts of its own accord and dares one to challenge it.

My mom will never win an award for this. She would not want one. She does not expect such things to be calculated or quantified, because this is how we are supposed to be. We help those who don’t have. We help the wounded and the strays. We befriend our new neighbours. We do it because we are human. 

Because this is the life for which we were created. It is not a life of affectation, but affection. We do not have all the answers. We do not know what will happen in the future. We cannot be sure what will happen when we die.

But we do know the people next door. We do know our family. We do know our friends and family and work colleagues. We know them because we know ourselves. We know what it means to struggle through a world and life that often befuddles us, resists our attempts to be strong, steals our resolve to be better. And so we don’t try to change the world. It is too big.

Instead, we put out food for the stray cat down the street. We call him Ginger Ale, because of his coat. He is too scared to come inside. And when he disappears, we continue putting out food for him. Maybe he has been killed. Maybe he’s just gone for a while. But we put out food for him anyway, every day, just in case. And if something has happened, another kitty will be able to eat.

We put out food for him, and we tell our son and daughters about it. We become friends with the elderly woman down the street. We volunteer with Pathfinders. We join an organization and take our dog to senior’s homes, to let them visit with her. We are quiet and gentle and what people are supposed to be. We inspire our children with our kindness. With our wisdom.

The world has changed. The weather has changed. But our mother has not. She is mom. She is kind. And she is amazing.

Dancing with
mom at my wedding.

Does The NFL Hate Women?

It was a slow walk up the apartment steps. I appreciated the quiet of my old apartment building, only four stories high and too short for an elevator. After a long workout, however, even four floors felt like a lot of work. As I opened the door to my hallway – top floor, of course – one of my neighbours was running from door to door, frantic.

            She was a stout girl who I’d bumped into once or twice in the laundry room, usually with one of her children. Now, however, she wore a nightshirt and underwear and nothing else. She still hadn’t seen me as she pounded on my door.

            “Please help!”

            I sprinted towards her. “Stephanie,” I said, thankful I’d remembered her name. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

            She turned. Two marks – one purple, one red – marked the left side of her face. She was breathing hard. “It’s my boyfriend. He won’t leave! The kids!”

            Adrenaline and rage washed over me, and for a moment I felt blind. Not again. Four weeks earlier I’d been woken up by the smashing of pots and pans in the apartment above me, accompanied by a few screams. I’d rushed upstairs and ended up throwing out a Nigerian man who’d just finished beating his girlfriend. She’d begged me not to call the police, and as I wasn’t sure what their status was regarding immigration, I did as she'd asked.

            I followed Stephanie down the hallway. Her door hung open. I stepped inside the dimly lit apartment. Her three kids – all under the age of five – gaped at me. All three were either naked or wearing only a diaper, and they were sitting on a bare mattress in the middle of the living room. The girl – the oldest one -- appeared to have been crying.

   

            Empty beer cans and overturned bottles covered every counter in the tiny kitchen. Water dripped from the faucet. And behind the kitchen table stood her boyfriend.

His beard was thick and black, and he dangled a gold and black tallboy from his hands. With the beard, it was impossible to tell how old he was – early thirties, maybe older – and he was small and lean. One of the children started crying.

“Shut up!” he yelled.

“Get out,” I said.

The other children started crying. This time he ignored them and looked at me. He wore a half-smirk that dangled around his lips like expensive jewelry. He noted the size difference – I probably outweighed him by fifty pounds – and put his beer can on the table. He shook his head a little, glanced over at Stephanie and back at me. “Women,” he said with his eyes. “Drama queens.”

Stephanie had gone to her children, content to leave this part to me. I ignored the attempt at misogynal bonding and jerked my head towards the door. He swaggered past me. I escorted him out of the building. He tried one last time when we reached the bottom stair.

“It’s her fault, you know.”

I gave him a blank stare. He shrugged and walked outside. I went back upstairs. Stephanie still hadn’t closed her door.

“Call the police, Stephanie,” I said. “You need to report it. If he comes back or you need anything, I’m just down the hall.”

She nodded. “I will. Thank you.” She turned back to her kids, distracted, and I closed the door behind me.

When I was young, I used to think that helping people in distress made you feel better. Well, this was about the fourth time around this particular rodeo, and all I felt was dirty.Sick. Like I’d just waded through a sewer of human shit. It’s always the same, I thought. Even if you’re trying to make it better. Even if you’re trying to help. You’re the one gets covered in it, and you’re the one who stinks.

RAY RICE 

It had been a while since I'd felt that dirty, but when the news about Ray Rice broke a few weeks ago, I felt that way again, especially after watching the above video. Yes, that’s the Baltimore Ravens’ star running back Ray Rice dragging his unconscious wife out of the elevator. According to the police, it was a result of a “minor altercation,” during which Rice beat her until she lost consciousness. It's about as disgusting a thing as you'll see.  

The NFL commissioner thought this was such a grievous incident that he suspended Rice for two games. To put that in context, if you fail an NFL drug test for marijuana, which they test at military-like levels, you get an automatic four game suspension. If you, say, stomp on the head of another player during the game, like Albert Haynesworth did, you get five games. If you beat your wife or girlfriend unconscious, you get a two games and the people around you, like Ravens’ coach John Harbaugh, will say things like “he’s a heckuva guy.”

"REAL MEN" ONLY

It goes without saying that the NFL has always had its own set of patriarchal tendencies. But within the changing societal landscape and under the weight of its own enormous influence within the culture, it has become a seemingly last-gasp playground for misogyny, white-knuckled fists clenched hard against the “progressive" agenda of equality.

And for many of the people who work around the NFL (most of whom are men) it’s clear they haven’t got a clue what to do with the changes to what was once a simple code. Classy old coaches like Tony Dungy, who works as a studio analyst on the most popular show on television, (NBC’s Sunday Night Football) said he wouldn’t have drafted Michael Sam, the first openly gay linebacker who was taken by the Rams with the last pick in the draft, because he wouldn’t have wanted the ‘distraction’ on his team. This from the guy who pushed for a team to take another chance on Michael Vick, the quarterback convicted of running dog fights. (Uh, what?)

Of course, if you’d have told the "establishment" around the NFL ten years ago that a three hundred pound lineman would take a nine game leave of absence because he’d been bullied (?!) by his fellow lineman, they would probably suggest that you’d lost your mind. And yet, that’s exactly what happened last year with whole Jonathan Martin – Richie Incognito incident.

The only thing that’s clear nowadays in the NFL is that, at least to most of the old-timers, nothing is clear. That’s true of many of its fans as well. (Question: How many ‘stop the effing sermons’ comments do you find on any article that talks about women or gays or bullying or anything outside the patriarchal domain of “bro” chatter? Answer: A lot. Or, watch the above video on YouTube and see how long you can read before you start to feel nauseous. I lasted four comments.)

In general terms, the NFL has managed to navigate these waters by staying away from them, ignoring them, or offering general platitudes while winking at its hard-core fans. It forces its players to wear hot pink for an entire month to raise money for breast cancer research, but when something real happens, when something that may affect the game on the field happens, it offers a two game suspension. And for anyone who thinks that a player beating a woman unconscious is pretty serious, the NFL flips us the collective bird.

It also doesn’t really care what happens to the women on the sidelines, the ones wearing short skirts and halter tops. I don’t have a problem with cheerleaders being on the sidelines, and for those who raise questions about objectifying women, I disagree. Vehemently. Those kinds of accusations may have some truth to them, but then you have to start extending that to look at women who choose to be models, women who choose to work as hostesses in restaurants, etc… I’m sorry, but a grown ass woman has a right to do what she wants, and leading cheers while waving pompoms is what it is. What I do have a problem with is the NFL’s inability to pay them a decent wage. Or let them form a union. And then there’s the lack of female commentators and analysts and studio hosts. (Every year, about halfway through the season, it becomes nearly impossible for me to watch the pre-game shows with all the fake ‘bro-chuckling’ going on in the studio.)

In a way, you can’t blame the league for doing it. They’ve done a better job mythologizing the game than any other sport over the past forty years, with the possible exception of baseball. (Baseball is better equipped to do it simply because it has a longer history. And the two sports are radically different in their mythological approach. Baseball has always been a father-son family game. Football is for men and building young men. Similar, but different enough in that most of the hard core NFL fans, especially the older ones, can’t fathom how the name “Redskins” might be offensive while Major League Baseball designates a Jackie Robinson day every April when every player wears his number.) The NFL doesn't need to explain anything. They don’t need to justify anything to anyone, especially a bunch of pushy liberals who never played the game.

Now What?

Varsity Blues "bro-ing it up"

Well, I’m not sure how pushy I am, but I played football for three years in high school. I loved every second of it, too. Changing in the hallway. Wearing the jersey on game day. Bro-ing it up with boys. It was like bathing in testosterone. If I’d been a peacock, my tail of feathers would have been wagging me. I remember watching Dwight Clark’s The Catch in the NFC Championship game with my dad back when I was a Cowboy fan. I remember standing on the table in a tavern as a twenty year old, screaming at Scott Norwood “Lifetime contract if he makes it!” during the Bills’ first Superbowl. (He didn’t.) So many memories. And now, well, now I’m not sure.

Living a Kind Life isn’t a religious thing or a cult thing, it’s about trying to do what we can in a pretty messed up world to be decent freaking human beings. My wife and I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart because The Evil Empire represents everything I hate about big corporations, in everything from where they buy their meat to how they treat their employees. That said, our little boycott is not a big deal. Those twenty bucks we’d spend there don’t matter, but that isn’t why we do it. We’re not interested in standing around their headquarters holding up a giant sign that says “Look at me! See how hip and countercultural we are!” No, it’s so much simpler than that. It’s about living a decent life and trying feel like you haven’t had your soul sucked down the black hole of materialism and greed and the shallow facades that permeate the three hundred billion dollar ad industry.

Hell, that’s part of the reason I love sports so much. I don’t want to watch another news story about the tragedy of humanity or Nancy Grace or Honey BooBoo. I want to dive into the mythology and story of a sport, the same way I do with fantasy. But it has become increasingly difficult to justify diving into a sport that clearly doesn’t care about some of the things that I hold dear, equality being one of them.

So what to do? How do I justify the attention I give the NFL? I’m not sure, truthfully. I don’t want to stick my head in the sand, because that goes against everything I believe. That a player can beat a woman unconscious without truly getting penalized leaves me feeling like I’ve been gut-punched. And every time I hear someone like John Harbaugh saying things like ‘he’s a heckuva guy,’ I remember Stephanie’s boyfriend looking over at me with that half-smirk, trying to appeal to my “bro-hood,” and I feel dirty and sick all over again.

I don’t think the NFL hates women, because the National Football League is a business, and businesses don’t hate their customers. Green is green. But does it cherish women, does it even consider the two genders equal? No. The league – which includes the players, coaches, media and management – condescends to women in much the way it always has, except now they have a few games where they wear pink. I'm not sure what I'm going to do just yet. Maybe wait and see how sick I feel this year. Or see if the league can redeem itself. The NFL may not hate women, but does it despise them, at least a little? Absolutely. 

And, well, that ain't no Kind Life.

-Steve

UPDATE: (September 1, 2014) The commissioner issued a public apology this week, and increased the ban for domestic violence charges to six games for a first offense, and a lifetime ban for a second offense. This was brought about because of the outcry from major news sites to blogs like this one. This is why we fight for a Kind Life, why we have to fight. Equality doesn't just happen. Now then, if we can just get the NFL to lighten up on the whole 1950's weed issue... 

Why I Married (Her)

My beautiful, kind girl.

We were hanging out on the stoop when I pulled out my phone. It was cool, fall evening, and we'd been dating for six weeks. The street was quiet. My housemates were inside, and she flashed me a curious look when she saw the phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, now that we're dating, I should delete these other numbers."

As a single guy over the past two years, I'd collected more than a few numbers from women, though nearly all of them had gone uncalled. As a "playboy," or serial dater, I was notoriously bad. I seemed to have the ability to coax women to give me their phone number, but absolutely no ability whatsoever to "close the deal." Not that they (or I)would have been interested anyway. My friends had found me, more than once, listening to an available single woman telling me her "story" and providing counsel and encouragement. In other words, I was a dating moron.

Bethany did not know this, however, and she frowned as I not only deleted the numbers, but happily provided details on each of the women. (What I remembered, anyway.) I thought it was funny. She did not. What she didn't know was that while many of the women I'd met were pretty or smart or both, I was looking for more. I was looking for someone like her. Pretty was important. So was intelligence. But she had something else, something more, and when she agreed to marry me seven months later, I was overjoyed. (Yup. Seven months. Doesn't take long when the most amazing girl ever says she loves you!)

A Kind Life

Bethany came home yesterday and told me that she'd met someone at the grocery store. A developmentally disabled woman had randomly approached her.

"Excuse me, do you know where the Feta cheese is?"

"Um, sure. It's right over here," Bethany said.

The woman stared at the different packages, and my wife patiently explained the differences between them.

"Do you know how they make feta cheese?"

"No. I don't."

"Why is it so expensive?" the woman asked.

"Well, what are you trying to make?" Bethany said.

"Pizza!"

"You know, you can use mozzarella cheese. It's not as expensive and tastes just as good on pizza," Bethany said.

"Can you show me where it is?"

"Sure."

She led the woman across the grocery store, and showed her where they kept the mozzarella. She explained the different kinds near it, and when she'd finished, the woman smiled at her.

"Thank you!"

She took the cheese and bounced happily away.

When Bethany told me this story, I couldn't help but shake my head. You could argue that it wasn't that big a deal, what she'd done. But it was. I'd spent most of my life working with special needs kids, and any time I heard grace filled encounters like that, I always felt a particular happiness. It wasn't surprising, though. She, too, had worked with special needs children, and that inherent kindness was part of her makeup. Probably the most important part.

Important

As much as we need our partners and spouses to be physically attractive (and smart), there's nothing quite like kindness. I hear horror stories all the time about men and women who act in a manner that is so unkind, its almost unfathomable. My friends tell me stories about horribly selfish individuals, of both sexes, and their frustrations with dating.

My advice? While you have to be attracted to someone (That HAS to happen. If you don't think your partner is attractive, your relationship will fail. Period.), stop looking for peripherals that don't matter. (money, family, etc....) What are they like? Are they kind, or do they have a capacity for cruelty?

I can tell you this much, if you end up with someone who isn't kind, you'll never have the life you hoped for. Cruelty and selfishness have a way of invading every little happiness. But kindness? Kindness works the other way. Kindness is the ointment that soothes all ills, and over time becomes the underlying song to every moment of joy you will ever experience.

I got lucky. I didn't deserve to meet someone like Bethany, let alone marry her. Every day we're together, I'm reminded of what it means to be with someone who consistently puts others above herself. And the simple truth is this: the only thing better than a Kind Life... is sharing it with someone who see things the same way.

-Steve

Building Fences

There's a towering old maple in our backyard that looks like it might be sixty or seventy years old. I love to sit under it during the summer. Love the way its long branches swish in the breeze. In a world of concrete and brick and florescent lighting, it always reminds me that the world is not closed, that nature exists, even in suburban towns. Unfortunately, our fences reflect the opposite. They look like something from the eighties, green wire and steel poles that look more like sentries on duty than a part of the landscape. A backyard isn't quite the same when the only thing that separates you from your neighbour is some plastic green wire. I've been thinking about adding some wooden lattice to those fences, but seeing as how they're expensive and we're still just renting, it probably won't happen. For now, I have to hope my neighbours aren't outside if I want some privacy.

My wife and I moved to Richmond Hill (about forty minutes north of Toronto) last year, and we liked this house from the outset. It's an old neighbourhood, and I imagine our duplex was built shortly after the Second World War. Many of the people who live here rent (a duplex this close to Toronto now sells for $650K), and it's an open, friendly blue-collar street. We met our neighbours within days, and were invited for beers and barbecues throughout the summer. As opposed to life in our previous place, a twenty-six floor high rise, we were part of a community. I've always felt that this is the way things were supposed to be, this sharing of our life. (If only because it's very difficult to live a Kind Life when the people around you won't speak to you, or think it odd that you want to talk to them.)



IRRESISTIBLE

By the end of the first month, I had visions of Shane Claibourne's Irresistible Revolution. (Claibourne is a Christian social activist who moved in with a bunch of friends in one of the poorer communities in Philadelphia. The book is inspiring.) I'd heard sermons about helping people and doing it with your daily living and how we needed to be more than just a bunch of religious know-it-alls most of my life. So, I jumped in with both feet. We both did.

A year has passed, and my perspective has changed. Oh, I still believe in a Kind Life. Still believe that we need to, in the words of my missionary father-in-law, "be present," with our neighbours, I also better understand why people (who can afford it) build massive homes with huge plots of land so no one will bother them. A year of living IN, as you might say, and I'm less inclined to judge them. Fact is, if you're going to try a Kind Life in a neighbourhood like ours, you have to be ready for the shit storms that inevitably follow. Because they WILL follow.


STORMS

In the past month, I've walked past a neighbour telling her teenage daughter to "shut the f*ck up, you stupid, f*cking moron," had to walk over to another neighbour who'd just been thoroughly beaten by her boyfriend and subsequently smashed the front window, and then waited with her while the taxi came, listened to a screaming fight one street over, where the only word you could consistently understand was "f*ck." There are days we can't open the window in our bedroom because the neighbours behind us smoke so much weed our entire house smells like a dead skunk.

And then, of course, there's the noise. Some days, I'm pretty sure I'm back in my hometown and its 1985 and the guy next door is blaring his ghetto blaster to make sure everyone else gets to hear another Steve Miller song. (Middle aged white guys and classic rock stations. Nothing has changed.) The houses are all duplexes, and the people here don't seem to care who might be listening, because they're going to scream at the top of their lungs, EVEN WHEN THEY'RE HAPPY.

It's the arguing that drags you down though. Good grief, sometimes you just feel like screaming back at them. YOU KNOW THAT YOUR YELLING DOESN'T WORK, RIGHT? IF IT DID, YOU WOULDN'T BE YELLING ALL THE TIME! You begin to feel like you're under siege, and your home doesn't feel like a home so much as a few thin walls and that crappy fence separating you from total chaos.

More than once recently, it's crossed my mind that a Kind Life isn't worth it. That Shane Claibourne is full of it. That a one acre lot in the country would look damn fine right now, if only for a few moments of freaking peace. And quiet. Oh blessed Saviour, how we LOVE it when things are quiet. (And by quiet, I don't mean silence, though that would be amazing. I mean the absence of yelling, fighting, and blaring music.)


MOMENTS

But then, there are these moments. The other side of our duplex is occupied by two single moms. As a rule, I cut their lawn as well as ours. I'm not sure how it started, but this spring I noticed their lawn was pretty long, so why not. It's not a big deal, and it only takes an extra thirty minutes. But when I'm done, the world looks a little different. I don't mean that in a overly dramatic sense, I just mean that for a while, the earth feels a lot more firm beneath my feet. And then there are other moments. Like figuring out where a stray cat can spend the night with the person across the street, or Bethany driving around the neighbourhood for thirty minutes after a finding a lost puppy and experiencing the gratitude of an owner who clearly loved the little guy. (He'd slipped out the door and taken off.) Or having your neighbour's little girl run up to you and give you a hug. ("Hi Steve!") Or spending time in conversation with younger friends on the street, listening to their struggles and offering some advice and encouragement. We never had those moments in the high rise.

Nothing about the Kind Life is easy. It's not. (And it isn't condescending either. Just because Bethany and I try to "be present" doesn't make us one whit better or different than the people around us. They've helped us, too.) And it can't be done in the abstract. Life is a grubby and often nasty mess, and humans are prone to stupidity and cruelty as often as they're prone to kindness and laughter. But is it worth it? You bet it is.

Despite my frustrations, despite our frustrations, my hope is that you stick it out. (Please. I need someone to vent to.) There'll be days when you're fairly certain that if you hear Stairway to Heaven one more time you're going to tear your eyeballs out, but hang in there. Think about the moments that matter, the ones that light you up in a way nothing else does and give purpose to our rambling and often incoherent existence. There's nothing wrong with building a fence or two, so long as we don't start putting up walls. Trust me, you'll miss all the good stuff.

Steve