Thoughts on a Saturday Morning

There’s a dude on the balcony across the street smoking a cigarette. He’s sitting on a shitty lawn chair. The plant and the fancy hanging seat beside him have blown over in the wind. He doesn’t pick them up. He stares out at the view. The leaves of the toppled fake palm tree slap the concrete floor now and then as the breeze picks up.

He doesn’t make a move to fix things. Just butts out his cigarette and goes inside.

A few days later I see him again, smoking on his balcony in that same chair, eyes fixed on the view while he stands in the carnage of his expensive condo patio accents. The sad artificial tree and the chair with chains and a stand are still dishevelled, the giant pillow from the chair poking out the bottom of the balcony railing. He doesn’t even look down at the carnage. He butts out his cigarette and goes inside.

What is it like to be that way? It’s not even my shit and I want to fix it. I wish I could float across the divide and secure the tree with a bungee cord, maybe find an attractive weight for the base of the fancy hanging chair, something to make it more sturdy when the wind whips off the lake. It’s not even mine and I want to make it better, come up with solutions, try something. He doesn’t even acknowledge it, doesn’t even step over the debris. Walks across it like it doesn’t exist. He butts out his cigarette and goes inside.

Max is like me, a do-er, a fixer, a “let’s make things better”. I love that about her. For so long I was partnered with people who were happy to leave things in disrepair. People who would stand on all of our debris, butt out their cigarette and go inside. While we sit on her balcony with our morning coffee and tea (and I keep an eye on the negligent neighbour) she googles show times for the werewolf movie she wants me to see. It came out in the ‘80s, the year I was born, old horror movies are her favourite and she knows how I feel about werewolves. “We can go to that haunted mansion restaurant too,” she says, knowing she has my full attention, “It’s close to the theatre.”

Love requires attention. It requires attention and mindful care. It requires learning your lovers’ languages. Love requires maintenance, it requires an investment of time. You must tend to love, prune it and water it, consider how it’s growing.

I am grateful that she tends to me. She bathes me in her attention. She shows me with her words but also her actions. I always know where I stand. I think of past lovers who liked having me uneasy, liked it when I was working overtime to please them, liked taking me down a peg. If I was busy scrambling over some perceived slight, or tidying someone else’s messes, then I had no time or energy to address the bigger issues.

The dude across the street has a girlfriend who will come home from work and put everything on the balcony back where it belongs. I know that, and so does he. I think of all the brilliant badass women being bogged down by a man’s bullshit and I remember that our communities (and our world) suffer because of this. When women sink all of their energy and gifts into dealing with childish or abusive male behaviour they have nothing left over for advocating, for organizing, for building and creating, for rest. Make no mistake, this is by design. This is patriarchy at work.

Leave anyone who makes a sport of draining your resources or wearing you down. If your partner is happy to let you pull all the weight, leave them in the dust. Imagine what might happen if you could funnel all of that effort and energy into your own happiness. Your whole life will transform.

(Another significant drain on women’s resources is the attack on reproductive and health rights. Forced birth is a horror and abortion access is critical and life saving. This month thanks to your generous support I’ve made a donation to a local agency that improves abortion access. I urge you to do the same in your own local communities. Check out agencies like Keep Our Clinics, National Network of Abortion Funds, and for Canadian patrons Action Canada.)