I fly in the park, placing the tiny squares of acid
underneath my tongue. I pick up my hula hoop and I spin and I spin and I spin,
whirling in circles within circles surrounding circles, growing ever larger,
sloppy and breakneck and dizzy and blind, and in this moment I am free.
Saul is sitting on the blanket, his toffee-coloured skin
warm in the late autumn sun. His fire staff lays on the ground beside him as he
rummages through an enormous Ziploc bag of smoking paraphernalia. A girl glides
toward us over the grass, passing the group of b-boys whose rap music I am
spinning to. They are too absorbed in their beats, camaraderie, and soccer to
notice that she wields a gorgeous tri-coloured glass bong in her hands. Yes, an
entire bong (and not a small one either), here in a public park at 4 in the
afternoon on a Saturday.
“You got a lighter?” she asks sweetly. Within minutes two
young guys have joined us as well. Saul is rolling a joint, and the three
newcomers settle onto my childhood Scout blanket. With some reluctance, I slow
my spinning and make my way over to the group.
“Hey there! Your dancing is just absolutely beautiful! I
hope you don’t mind me watching you….” The girl introduces herself as Isabel.
She too has pink in her hair, although just streaks; most of it is green and
blue. It is wavy and just past her chin, framing her broad, smiling, freckled
face. She is dressed in tight black jeans, a leather jacket, and a black toque,
all adorned with patches. She’s pretty cute actually.
Isabel offers me the bong. I shake my head, but accept the
joint from Saul and after a few tokes, I pass it along to Isabel. I examine the
two guys she has brought with her. One of them, who is not smoking, looks
unremarkable and slightly jockish. He introduces himself but his name does not
stick in my mind. The other guy looks incredibly pure and innocent. He has
long, straight dark brown hair, deep and intelligent dark eyes, a sensitive
face and gentle demeanour. I see wonder in his gaze, a soft and probing but
harmless interest. He piques my curiosity in fact…though not quite as much as
Isabel does. The boy looks like the sort who plays guitar or bass in a metal
band, who worships Iron Maiden, who would have the world believe that he is
tough and hardcore as all get out, but in fact he is a soft gentle puppy dog
who just wants to love and be loved. Like most of the tough ones, really!
“So we’re taking mushrooms today,” Isabel announces, quite out
of the blue.
“Aw no way, we’re on acid right now!” Saul blurts, not
missing a beat. The five of us stare at each other for a brief moment, then erupt
into a round of high-fives and laughter. Isabel proceeds to unabashedly pour a
bag of inky dried mushrooms out onto the blanket, and I lend her a pair of
chopsticks with which to eat them. My mother’s chopsticks, from her high school
exchange trip to Japan
some forty years ago.
“I haven’t tried acid yet. I do lots of mushrooms though.
What’s acid like? Is it the same?” the pretty and sensitive boy with the long
hair asks, munching on mushrooms with his gloved fingers.
How on earth to answer this question…. I do not even attempt
it, instead allowing my focus to drift while Saul grapples to translate highly
individual hallucinogenic experiences into a global summary…with words!
Isabel really is kind of cute. I admire the fullness of her
thighs, her round figure, how deliciously her voluptuous ass is cupped in those
tattered jeans. I’m attracted to both her and the sensitive boy, but he seems
too pure for me. Like I would tarnish his beauty, soil his innocence, introduce
contamination, heartache and darkness into his young life. Isabel, on the other
hand…
Again offering completely unrequested information, Isabel bluntly
announces, “We’re seventeen.”
I raise my eyebrows; Saul looks shocked and flustered but
tries to hide it.
“How old are you?” Isabel asks.
“Twenty-six,” I reply with a slow, old, secret smile. A
smile full of sawdust, pipe tobacco, and lonely precious early mornings among
the dew. In my mind, I rapidly calculate the differences between a 26-year-old
and a 17-year-old. Not that I’m exactly a shining image of responsible
adulthood, but still…17?!? I remember being 17. It was fun, in a chaotic, drug-induced
way, full of grind shows and new piercings and new highs. Back when everything
was fresh and exciting and I wanted to be everywhere, know everyone, experience
everything, be a part of something, gobble the whole world whole. I’ve come a
long way since then.
I raise the joint to my lips, psychedelic starburst patterns
exploding and melting behind my eyes as I inhale. I feel even more spinny right
now than when I was spinning the hoop. Has so much really changed after all?
Saul is in conscientious big brother role, trying to pull it
together and act the responsible role model for these kids. He has already told
them that he is 31, and I can see from the crease in his brow that he is struggling
to make sense of this situation, of how he could have wound up doing drugs with
a bunch of underage teenagers in a public park. And in a way I can understand
his turbulence…last year he was a city councillor, for God’s sake.
I shrug internally. Not the first 17-year-olds I’ve gotten high with. And it’s not like
I wasn’t getting high all the time anyway when I was 17, even more than I do
now in fact. I am, however, slightly troubled by the strength of my attraction to
this 17-year-old girl, who is now telling me about how she plays on her high
school (!) rugby team, which she has loved doing ever since she found out “what
a big fucking dyke” she is (her words). A rough-and-tumble dyke? This only
interests me more!
“I used to play rugby too actually,” I interject. “For
exactly one season in high school. That’s how I learned that contact sports are
NOT for me! I was always a big kid, so I was expected to do a lot of tackling.
The coach would yell, “Hit them HARDER! Come on Ellen! You have to get ANGRY!’
And I would be all like, ‘Angry? I don’t even know them….’”
Everyone laughs appreciably at my anecdote. I feel like such
a lazy pacifist pothead. Isabel, looking intrigued, inquires as to what
position I played. “Eight-man,” I respond, and she nods approvingly.
“You know, Ellen and I do yoga. You guys should try that
out! It’s so, so, SO good for you! Makes you so healthy and strong, and just
better at everything you do,” Saul pitches. His impressive musculature is
evident even through his hoodie, lending credence to his statement. Mind you,
I’ve been doing yoga longer than Saul, and the most evident bulges seen through
MY clothing aren’t exactly lean raw muscle.
The rap music of the b-boys across the way catches my
attention again. It’s hardcore gangsta rap, fairly misogynistic, really not my
style. I prefer rap that shares my politics, and fusions with other genres like
ska or folk. Nonetheless, it has a catchy driving beat and all of a sudden I
can’t sit still. I leap to my feet, feeling quite uncharacteristically light
and spry as an antelope. Grabbing my hoop again, I toss it high in the air,
catch it spinning on my arm, pass it quick from one elbow to the other behind
my back, duck my head in and now it’s around my neck, and working it rapidly
down and up and down my body, I whirl off into the ether again.
* * *
It’s dark when I get home. I’m still tripping (I’ll be wide
awake and flying until at least 4:00 in the morning, knowing me) but Saul had
to go run some errands. The kids had gambolled off on some adventure or
another, following Saul’s lecture to them to stay in school. Isabel had asked
if we thought she should drop out of school and run away to volunteer at a wolf
sanctuary in…in…somewhere in the States, and both Saul and I suggested that
maybe that wasn’t the best plan right now. Saul thought she should go to
university and prepare for a career. I thought the wolf sanctuary was a great
idea, but cautioned her that once she left high school, she would never ever
EVER want to go back again later, and she might need that piece of paper for lots
of different stuff, even largely non-academic pursuits such as massage therapy.
“You’re so close right now…just a few months to go, hang in there….”
I leave my jacket on, partially because it’s cold and drafty
in this big old house constructed before they thought of details like
insulation, and partially because I feel tough, cool, and sexy when I wear it.
It’s retro brown suede with cream-coloured fleece inside, and it pills on any
shirt I wear underneath it. All the more reason not to wear shirts underneath
it, I think to myself with a devious grin. Zoey was really well known for
that….
Nobody else is home. I plug my phone into the speaker system
and turn on a Portishead album. Loud. I light some Nag Champa incense,
marvelling at the 3.99 sticker on this box that I bought last year. Every box
I’ve seen since has been more like 9.99. I put the kettle on and run upstairs
to grab the bottle of Jim Beam from my bedroom closet. None of my roommates
drink, which mostly is a good influence on me (and part of why I chose to live
here), but I reserve the right to my closet whiskey collection. Brewing some
blueberry tea that I keep on hand for exactly this purpose, I dump a shot of
bourbon into the tea. Then another shot. Perusing the woefully empty fruit
bowl, I curse that we are out of lemon (and virtually everything else). I
manage to find a half-lemon on a plate in the fridge. It’s evidently been
squeezed several times already and is starting to dry out, but I manage to milk
some more drops from it, and I shave a bit of the rind into my cup too.
With just the glow from a single lamp and the sweet smell of
the incense creating an intimate, birth-cave ambiance, I surrender to the wash
of trip-hop music, grinding my hips to the bass vibrations, feeling it rumble
through my chest, my mind drifting away on a Portishead plane. I sip my bourbon
tea, grind even lower.
I rarely have any idea where most of my roommates are. Sandy is almost never
here, which is a shame because she’s my favourite. She’s just so energetic and
warm and busy and happy and encouraging. She works full-time though teaching
kids with disabilities, goes to aerial silks and circus classes, and is usually
with her boyfriend the rest of the time. Or so I presume. The one or two nights
a week that she sleeps at home, he is here too.
Margot, on the other hand, is the one most likely to be
home. Margot is head-smart, depressed, and lethargic. She loves theory and
philosophy, is a part-time psychotherapy student, and rarely does anything else
with her time except leave dirty dishes around and watch Gilmore Girls on
repeat. As a result, most conversations with her become theoretical and
philosophical, and/or turn into a psychotherapy session – whether I like it or
not. And often I don’t like it.
We have an ever-revolving fourth roommate, a series of
sublets of the front room on the main floor. It isn’t technically a bedroom; in
fact I think it’s supposed to be the living room. But we turned the dining room
into a living room, ignored the terms of our lease, and continuously rent out
the front room. Right now Toby lives in it. They are a genderqueer activist and
writer from Portland , Oregon ,
presently living in Toronto
writing for a queer travel magazine. Toby volunteers at a community acupuncture
centre, eats at a lot of restaurants and writes reviews of them, and then I’m
really not sure what else they do with their time, but they’re not here very
much.
I am tempted to light another joint, but Margot can’t stand
the smoke so we have a household agreement of no smoking on property. She’s not
HERE though….
I roll the joint, bundle up in my winter coat and scarf and
toque and the whole nine yards, and head into the backyard. I settle into a
lawn chair, positioning it so that there is a tree blocking that awful
street-lamp across the way. Sparking the joint, my gaze drifts up to the sky. I
can see at least three stars; not bad for Toronto .
I take a deep drag, reflecting pensively on why on earth I am not in the woods
somewhere, free. Preferably somewhere warm.
The joint keeps going out, and my fingers are getting numb
from holding it without mittens. After four attempts with minimal return, I
admit defeat, and I stand up to have a private moment with the moon before
heading back indoors. I raise my hands to the sky, arms flung wide open with
palms cupped. I gather the energy in, and when I feel it strongly, I pull it
down and into my crown, down through each of my chakras, all the way down to my
root, down through the soles of my feet and into the earth. This turns into a
Vinyasa flow, which I repeat two more times, then bow to the universe and
return indoors.
The living room is dark and thick with incense. It seems
deliciously warm to my chilled body, and Portishead is still playing. It seems
even louder now. The marijuana tingle kicks the acid back into gear, and I feel
the empty deadening effect of the booze at the same time. This is what I love.
Going up, down, sideways all at the same time. I try not to do it so often
anymore. I try to generally be sober. Path of the yogi, not to hide from
oneself, yada yada. But every now and then….
“Give me a reason…to
love you….Give me a reason…to be…a woman…. I just wanna be…a woman….” The sound
system croons.
I dance ultra-slowly around the room, with great exaggerated
swings and dips and body-waves, always leading with a ball of energy and
following it everywhere with my eyes as it rolls through my body. I buck
forward, lean sideways into a wide circle and bend backward with it. I dive abruptly
and melt into the couch, pulling a blanket over top of me and writhing
sensuously in it, maintaining the flow of the dance. I flick off the lamp,
close my eyes, and surrender completely to the bass.
My still slightly icy fingers roam across my body, tracing
collarbone and shoulders and breasts and waist and hips and thighs. I realize
that I am envisioning Isabel’s body under my touch, not my own. A twinge of
guilt strikes me, but with a defensive “She’s 17, not 12! And besides, this
isn’t REAL…” I shrug the guilt away and plunge my hands between my thighs.
* * *
She kisses me, hard. Her hand grips my chin firmly and a
little roughly, hot pink and black nails digging slightly into the flesh,
pulling me closer with her other hand firm against my upper back. She kicks the
stall door open and propels me through, pushing me up against the grimy side
wall and wedging her knee between mine. The door bangs shut behind us, and she
takes her hand off my jaw just long enough to slide the bolt closed, then
returns with a vengeance. She pries my lips open, sticks her tongue inside,
thrusts and rubs the full length of her body against mine, groping my breasts
roughly through the chain-mail shirt. Her own breasts fall out of her open
denim vest; she is wearing nothing underneath it at all. Her abdominal muscles
are taut and heaving above that studded leather belt; her jeans are slung low
and she has a wicked and sensual smirk. She looks hungry.
The small and dingy venue bathroom fills with a deafening
roar every time the door swings open; Fuck the Facts is raging out there. “Hey!
Are you almost done in there??” Someone hammers on the stall door. “Fucking
drunks passed out or people doing blow in every goddamn stall…a girl’s gotta
take a piss, goddamnit!”
I start giggling in spite of myself, but Zoey smacks my
cheek, grabs my chin again, stares commandingly into my eyes so that all I can
do is focus and peer meekly back at her, and then she kisses me deep again,
biting my lips and kneading my breasts.
Zoey is even taller than I am, a butch domme who works in a
bike shop and doesn’t take shit from anyone. Her lean frame comes from cycling
across Canada
three times, and she doesn’t hesitate to flaunt her muscles or show off her
strength. I heard that her last girlfriend left her because she got tired of
being pushed around, but me…I gotta say, I like it. Consensually, of course!
Not from just anyone. But Zoey turns me on something fierce, and I really get
off sometimes on succumbing to her ravenous appetite and display of power.
* * *
Zoey was my first female lover. She’s also the only woman
who I’ve ever explored serious BDSM with. Zoey was 21; I was 17. I had already
been with a number of guys, and had kissed several girls, but I was shy and
uncertain, and girls always seemed to want me to take the lead. Zoey ripped my
world wide open, in the most delicious fucking way possible. God, that was
almost ten years ago! I feel a demanding emptiness, a hot tingling in my root,
and I know that this is the part of me that misses her still. How many times
have I masturbated while replaying our scenes in my head? How many times?
This young girl in the park today, Isabel…she reminds me of
Zoey. A little bit. Isabel is shorter, curvier, chubbier, a little more
feminine. And much younger. But she’s still got that rough, dominant way…and
she’s got the hunger too. I know she does. I could sense it in her as she
watched me hoop. Besides, she loves playing rugby, for chrissake!
Could I be dominated by a 17-year-old? Now, at age 26?
Somehow there just seems something fucking wrong about the scenario. I mean,
aside from the questionable ethics of 26-year-olds having sex with 17-year-olds
in the first place – and that’s pretty goddamn questionable! But even more than
that. What thrills and excites me about playing the sub role is to relinquish
control, to get lost in the power of another, to allow myself to be ravished
and devoured and overwhelmed and eaten alive. Could I allow a 17-year-old to do
that to me? Would she have the skill and the fortitude and the…power…to pull it
off, even if I could allow it to happen?
…Why am I thinking about this?
* * *
I meet Saul in the same park. He’s already got a few joints
rolled, ever the Boy Scout. I don’t really smoke that much to be honest. I
mean, on my own I almost never smoke. Once in a while to treat myself, like on
a date with myself and I light candles and incense and dance and paint and do
yoga and masturbate and eat chocolate and fall asleep. Like last week after
coming home from the park, for example. But ordinarily I don’t. I don’t usually
carry weed; I don’t even buy it that often. It can take me six months to go
through a quarter! But I just seem to always be surrounded by it…all my friends
smoke, and I always used to live with chronics too. I decided to get a place
with Sandy and Margot specifically to clear my head and clean up a little.
Anyway, Saul sparks the first joint, takes a few moments to
enjoy it. I can tell from his deep, blissful inhalations and his slow,
satisfied exhalations that he is really relishing it. Saul loves smoking. He
doesn’t smoke cigarettes anymore, but he’s really gotten into weed in a big
way. I can understand it for sure…I hate to admit it, but there’s just
something kind of sensual and romantic about really enjoying a smoke. Silently
cursing my lack of willpower, I accept the joint when he passes it, and inhale
just as deeply myself.
“Man, those kids were something else, hey?” Saul comments.
“Seventeen!!! I still can’t fucking believe that.” He shakes his head to underscore
his disbelief.
“Yeah, they really didn’t seem seventeen,” I reply. “I mean,
I guess they kind of did…that one boy, the jockish one, he seemed high school
for sure. And the other boy, with the long hair, there was something very…I
don’t know, untarnished about him. But Isabel! Totally thought she was like 22,
23. At least.” I emphasized the last
word, perhaps an unconscious ploy to absolve my culpability for the sexual
thoughts I continue to harbour toward her. Not that I would ever admit to such thoughts
though…certainly not to a fine, upstanding character such as Saul.
I lay back and release into the earth with my next
exhalation, a cloud of smoke hanging momentarily in the air above my face,
creating a lens of wiggy haze before dissipating into the atmosphere. I pass
the joint back to Saul, put my mitten back on, and attempt to relax every
muscle in my body, starting with my toes and slowly working my way up. The
clouds drift, sail, and morph overhead. It’s actually a little windy and
overcast today, not to mention cold, but we’re not ones to miss a chance to be
outside.
“You wanna do some acro-yoga?” Saul asks.
I smile ruefully. “Dude, you know I LOVE acro-yoga, but why
you always gotta ask when I’m high? I can’t really be balancing in mid-air and
doing inversions and stuff right now; I have a hard enough time knowing which
way is up as it is.”
Saul chuckles. “Right, I forgot what a lightweight you are.
Next time then, before we smoke!”
I nod. “For now, how about Thai massage instead?” I try to
keep the hopeful eagerness out of my voice.
“Girl! You owe me so hard!” Saul exclaims.
“I know, I know! It’s just that I still don’t really know
any though, other than that one time we did a bit in yoga class. You gotta show
me, and then I’ll try to do the same to you after.”
This is exactly how it’s happened that Saul has given me a
bunch of Thai massages, and I’ve never really given him a proper one – he knows
what he’s doing, and I just don’t! Plus I’m always high when we do this, and
that’s never a good space for me to learn new things in.
Saul shakes his head in mock exasperation. “Fine, fine.
After this joint.”
The silence resumes, and I lose myself in the clouds again.
There’s one twisty, kind of nasty-looking one, an ominous dark grey, moving
much faster than the others.
“I think I’m gonna move to BC,” Saul breaks in.
My eyes begin the long trek back down to his face. I keep
otherwise perfectly still. “Oh yeah? When? How come?”
“This just isn’t the right place for me. It’s so cold,
impersonal, big-city. All suit-and-tie and pressure. Nobody has time for anyone
else. Plus, fuck this winter!” There is an extra burst of emotion in the final
sentence, and a shiver racks his frame.
I nod. I can’t possibly argue against any of those points; I
feel exactly the same way myself. “So you’re going soon then?”
“I gotta save up a bit more money. I gotta make sure that my
mom’s okay, y’know. She’s been living with me since the summer; she can’t
afford to live on her own anymore. Plus I’ll need startup…I want to buy a piece
of land. Maybe start a commune or something. You know, kind of like that place
you lived at in Nicaragua .”
I nod again. “Any idea where? I suggest either the
Kootenays, or the Islands …they’re both full of
hippies. And beautiful weather. I mean, no point moving to Vancouver …it’s a cool city as far as cities
go, but it’s still a big concrete city, and I hear it rains all the time.”
“Yeah, you’re totally right about Vancouver . I was thinking maybe Victoria Island ….” I didn’t bother to correct him. He
continues, “Or maybe even up north, like Prince
George or something. Although I guess it probably gets
pretty winter-ish again up there…what was that other place you said?”
“The Kootenays. They’re a mountain range, tucked in between
the Rockies and the Okanagan. You’ve heard of
Nelson? Yeah, everybody’s heard of Nelson. Land of milk and honey and traveling
street kid paradise. Or at least it used to be…town council has been really
cracking down these last few years, putting in all kinds of stupid laws to
drive out all the hitchhikers and street people. No being in parks after 11, no
busking without buying a super expensive license from the town, no
skateboarding, no dogs downtown! They even started charging money at the soup kitchen.
And I mean seriously, they police this shit now. They started giving people
trouble for being naked at Red
Sands Beach
“So, uh, why is it
that you’re recommending this place?” Saul inquires, regarding me with a
half-quizzical, half-amused expression.
“Oh! Well, it’s still really cool. Still lots of hippies.
And the natural environment is amazing, there are crystal caves everywhere, I
think it’s practically just made of quartz, and the lake is so pure and beautiful
and amazing, and the summers are hot, the winters are like +5, there are
snowboarding mountains nearby, lots of organic food and environmental
consciousness, weed growers everywhere it’s just cool.” I pause, then continue, “Actually, I heard that in the 1960s
a bunch of draft-dodgers from the US headed up there and settled in
the area, and that’s where the hippie roots come from. Deadheads, you
know…people who followed the Grateful Dead, or just the whole hippie acid wave
culture in general,” I clarified, noting Saul’s confused expression. I keep
forgetting how new he is to drug / hippie / street people culture.
“Wow…yeah, that sounds pretty cool,” he agrees. “You think I
could start a business there? Or like transfer the business I have?” Saul sells
hemp clothing, as well as personal care products made out of beeswax and shea
butter and so forth. All organic, mostly local, the shea fairly traded from Ghana . A
businessman freshly converted to environmentalism and fair-trade ethics, he is
working on merging his two worlds.
“For sure! I mean, you might actually have a lot of
competition because there are already a lot of businesses like that, but
there’s definitely a market…I’m sure you could find your niche.”
Saul passes me what remains of the joint and I take a final
drag. “I mean, at least check it out. Go, spend a bit of time there, see what
there is to see, feel it out. If it doesn’t feel right, you can always go
somewhere else. But give it a shot. I think you’ll like it.”
Saul nods. “Yeah, you’re totally right. Thanks E! Good
travel advice like always. Now, you ready for that massage?”
* * *
“Ellen? Hey! It is
Ellen, right? Sorry!” The girl jogs up to me, rosy-cheeked and slightly out of
breath. She sports a black denim miniskirt over leopard-print tights with a
chain dangling; I’d recognize that ass anywhere. Considering I haven’t been
able to stop thinking about it in the two weeks since I met her. Not to so
grossly objectify people though…ugh….
“Isabel! Yeah, hi! Good to see you! How’s it going?” I paste
a bright smile on my face, trying to exude casual friendliness and reel in my
libido.
“Great! Just going to chill in the park for a little while,
you?”
“I was just there actually. With Saul, you remember him?”
Damn. Foot in mouth. Why did I bring him up like that? Makes it sound like he’s
my boyfriend or something. Isabel does not appear fazed however.
“Yeah, for sure! I suppose I can’t lure you back for a bit
longer then…I have a joint to share if you like!” All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
and exuberant.
Tempting. Very, very tempting. “Listen, Isabel, to be honest
I’m already pretty high and also kind of cold, that’s why I decided to leave
the park. But I was gonna go grab a hot tea to warm up…you wanna come?”
“Yeah, okay! Sounds good!” She doesn’t hesitate at all. Her
lack of coyness is refreshing, actually. “You going to the Jesse James?” That’s
the coffee shop just up the street, a popular neighbourhood hangout spot with
homemade ice cream and 200 kinds of tea.
“No, the Arabesque. It’s a bit further, but it’s my
favourite.”
She brightens up even more. “Oh, I love the Arabesque! I just discovered it last week! Is it new??
Their coffee is so strong, and the
snacks are just delicious!”
“Indeed…did you know they have live belly dancing on
weekends? That’s at least half the
appeal for me…although strong coffee is pretty alluring too.” I flash her a
wicked grin.
“Whaaaat?!? Live belly dancing?? No WAY ! I’ve never even seen actual belly
dancing! Is it…well…you know what, let’s just go! I’ll see for myself,” Isabel
declares, resolutely squashing her own question in the bud.
On sudden brash impulse I offer her my arm, and equally
unthinkingly she links her arm with mine and we literally skip off down the street. We’re off to see the belly dancers, the
wonderful belly dancers of Oz….Seriously, skipping. And I’m not even on acid,
or drunk.
Maybe I need to hang out with 17-year-olds more often.
* * *
Isabel is absolutely entranced. Her mouth is actually
hanging slightly open and she stares rapt at the dancers. Three of the dancers
appear to be of Middle Eastern descent, one appears East Asian, and one looks
white. They are all stunningly gorgeous and dance like serpents, coiling and
rolling and undulating with impossible smoothness. The dance is so sensual I
can taste it. I feel hot all over, and I can feel my hips rolling and shifting
ever so faintly in my chair.
I remember a conversation I once had with my roommate
Margot. She was putting forth the notion that all white belly dancers are
committing the grave sin of cultural appropriation. She was also saying that
having belly dancers perform as live entertainment in cafes and restaurants
only serves to exoticize and objectify them, both as women and as fetishized
cultural artefacts.
On the one hand I can totally see where she’s coming from.
On the other hand, I’m not sure that I agree with her statement. To start with,
even in her hyper-politicized position, she neglected to realize that not all
belly dancers are either of Middle Eastern or white descent (or that white
Middle Easterners do exist), or that not all belly dancers identify as women. It’s
hard to take people seriously in their anti-oppression politics when they feed
into common stereotypes in the same breath.
Besides, I don’t really want
to agree with her. I had actually been considering taking belly dancing classes
for a while, partially out of an interest in the art form itself, and partially
because I think learning to isolate different muscle groups like that would
really help me with my hoop dance.
I have always struggled with the concept of cultural
appropriation. I have come to understand why dressing up as an “Indian” or a
“gypsy” is completely racist, and to understand why turning an entire culture
into a Halloween costume is hurtful and inappropriate. But some people just
take it too far, in my (albeit privileged white) opinion. To say that nobody
can ever participate in a dance, a ritual, a ceremony, a hairstyle, a whatever,
because it originated in a different culture – why, that’s just ridiculous! Nor
is it helpful. I think the world should mingle
across cultures, share and learn from and appreciate one another. Sure, it
depends on what spirit it is done in
– which is to say, it should be done in the spirit of sharing and learning and
appreciating, not in the spirit of mocking or alienating or making a profit. I
have dreadlocks, and I’m neither Black nor Rastafarian. But honestly, I think
every culture had dreadlocks before hairbrushes were invented. I also do yoga,
and I’m not from India …Margot
herself does yoga sometimes, and she’s not from India either! I think everyone
should do yoga. The keys to heaven should be shared.
I swallow some of Arabesque Café’s robust coffee; it is deep
and rich and full and very strong. I poured quite a bit of milk in it and it
hardly changed colour. I steal a glance across the sticky wooden table at
Isabel, who is still completely spellbound by the dancers, sweaty tangles of
blue and green and pink hair sticking out at crazy angles under her toque.
She’s still in high school, Christ, she’s probably never even heard the word “cultural appropriation.”
So young, so new to life, so many directions that she could go in….I still
don’t even know if we can have an intelligent conversation together.
* * *
Zoey liked to ride bicycles most of the time; it kept her
fit, and rejecting fossil fuels was important to her. However, she did own one
motorcycle, and every now and then she would take it out for a spin. She was
planning on taking it on a road trip to Newfoundland
in the summer, back when I was seeing her. I had begged her to take me with
her, but she refused. “First of all, you’re 17! You think your parents are
gonna let you go on a motorcycle road trip across the country with some dyke?
Get real. Besides, there’s something very special about being alone on the open
road….”
Stung, I reminded her that my parents kicked me out when I
was 15; I lived alone and nobody knew or cared where I was or if I came home.
Which Zoey knew perfectly well, having slept over at my place at least half a
dozen times.
“Well, still, you’re underage…I’d have some level of
responsibility for your wellbeing, and that’s just not where I’m at right now.
I’m not your mama.”
Yeah, right. You’ll fuck me, but you won’t take me out in
public. You won’t let me go on a road trip with you, but you sure didn’t think
of me as a child in the bedroom last night, did you….
I knew that it was really the other excuse that came from
her heart; it was just her and the open road and she didn’t want anybody interfering
with that. Least of all some high school kid falling all over herself with
puppy love and hero admiration, eagerness and naïveté. After all, I guess in
her mind I was “only seventeen!”
* * *
Toby asks for recommendations of queer hotspots in Toronto to review for
their magazine. Sandy, Malik, and Margot are all cisgender and more or less
straight, so they look to me. The thing is, I don’t really go out. Not to
“hotspots,” or to anything specifically queer-identified, really. Mostly I go
to yoga and hoop jam, and I hang out in the park and smoke weed with my
friends. I belong to a hippie circus community more than I do to a queer
community. How to explain….
“Listen, I don’t…the thing is…I’m not into the bar scene for
starters, which is where 90% of gay public life takes place, and to be honest…I
don’t really feel welcome in most
queer spaces,” I begin hesitantly. Sandy, Malik, and Margot all frown in
confusion, tilting their heads in perfect unison in a way that is almost
comical to watch. Toby’s expression is hard to read.
“What do you mean? How come?” Margot demands, as Sandy reaches out and
places her hand supportively on my shoulder.
“Well…I think it’s a bi thing, or a pan thing, or whatever.
Pansexual…you know…being attracted to multiple genders, or falling in love with
the person regardless of their gender.” I add the definition for Malik’s
benefit, as he looked a little bit lost. I continue, “There’s just this, I
don’t know, this suspicion of bi and
pan people, this invalidation of our identities. Like we can’t be trusted, or
we can’t make up our minds, or we don’t know who we are, or we’ll just cheat or
leave our partners for somebody of a different gender.”
Malik looks taken aback and rather bewildered now. “I’m
serious!” I insist. “These are the stereotypes. And then when you add in the
fact that I AM polyamorous, most people – most queer people – won’t have
anything to do with me. Certainly not lesbians. I mean, yes, a couple of them, ever – both of whom were very weirded
out by the fact that sometimes I dated men too. I’m regarded as a fraud; if I’m
seeing a guy, it’s like all of a sudden I’m an infiltrator if I go to queer
spaces, and there’s always the question of whether the guy can come, and anyway
what it really comes down to is queer
women, specifically lesbians, not being okay with me being into more than
one gender, not trusting me, not being willing to date or get involved with me
for that reason.” I add, “That’s why I’ve been with more men than I have women,
and why almost all the women I’ve been involved with have also been bi or pan.
It’s not for lack of interest on my part, it’s for lack of opportunity. Bi
people don’t seem to really have a community just for ourselves defined by
sexual identity, we’re kind of mixed in with mainstream straight communities
and pushed to the margins of queer communities, we’re on the margins of both.
If anything, I feel more actively rejected as a pansexual person by queer
people than I do by straight people. Or maybe I just live in a bubble and
shelter myself from queer-phobic straight people, but this has been my
experience.” My voice quavers and I conclude the monologue with a long drink of
tea, staring down into my cup. I can feel the tears burning my eyes; heat
floods my face and I feel really awkward. I keep staring down, trying not to
blink so the tears won’t fall so obviously.
“Do you want a hug?” Sandy
asks softly. I nod silently, still without looking up, and bury my face in her
tiny shoulder. She wraps her wiry arms around me and hugs me until the sadness
and awkwardness is chased away.
Malik busies himself with the stove. Margot looks pensive, and
when I finally look up and make eye contact, I think I catch a glimmer of
understanding in Toby’s eye.
* * *
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