the revolution is
my CRUSH
Bike there. Bike there to see it for yourself. Go with Alia at 11pm on a school night. Go through Jeanne-Mance even if the path is cracked. Down Parc, through the rain. Take a right and stop at the giddiness.
On Tuesday, hold up tarps for strangers to fasten. Pretend plastic forks are tent stakes, try pushing them into the ground. Tape two Dollarama broomsticks together, try to make an A frame. Troubleshoot with your now semi-friends, you have time.
Wednesday, layer. Get soaked after four hours, muddy after seven.
People are sleeping in those tents. I saw one student with trash bags to protect their feet from the rain. Think of those sleeping in Palestine, I saw one, many, to protect, I didn’t see. I saw but I was far, I turned off my screen.
On Thursday, the encampment is officially a secret beast. I don’t know how it’s doing what it’s doing. I do know that every day there’s free breakfast, lunch and multiple dinners for both those inside and outside the tents. Laundry pick up is at 10:30 am, scrawled on a sign. I imagine the hearts and brains behind the encampment pulsing, adapting, crossing out. The truest of architects.
A year ago all I knew about Israel and Palestine was that it’s complicated. Now there’s a place my friends go to every day. Here, there are loud buds on trees and officers in yellow raincoats. Abby calls them ghosts, they watch in the distance.
Here, there’s dancing and cop horses with knee pads. There’s a stable on the mountain for the cop horses, apparently.
There are emails from McGill, emails that smell of bureaucratic fear. There are talks, prayer, film screenings, paint, prayer. A zionist counter-protest at 11:30 am. Some CBC journalists who forget to focus on the strength of our singing. Even if it’s hard to miss, the singing. We do it for so many hours.
I don’t think we’re heroes here. I think we’re trying to move faster than the question: what if here doesn’t last? And what if we could make here last just a day longer?
Friday, I saw a kippah decorated like a watermelon. I saw an Hochelaga activist that I mistook for a grandma. She tells me she dumped her zionist husband when she was twenty years old. One, we are the students. Wishlists sent across the city fulfilled in less than 30 minutes. Two, we won’t be silenced. Ex-best-friends of ex-crushes lounging on the grass. Three, stop the bombing. One tall white man with an unshakable desire to climb a tree. Impeccable knot tying skills, it pains me to admit. Chants to get stuck in your head. Now, now, now.
Volunteer lawyers at the ready, legal observers at the ready, the mountain cop horse stable at the ready, a truck with two hundred meals at the ready. Too many donations, let’s not get them wet.
There’s despondency for months, and then something like this. A burst of collective desire — wild and precious and shocking. Desire that stretches the day, desire that makes you come back for more. The hours come easy when the revolution is irresistible.
The term “irresistible revolution” comes from Toni Cade Bambara.
On the sound front: revolution, yalla, New things to reach towards and new world spell are uprising soundtrack suggestions from Alia, Orlando and I.
Also, we (plus Abby and Karl!) have been working on a podcast. It’s called Brûler / Bâtir, it’s about dreaming new ways of keeping each other safe.
When we see each other next, you will tell me about your favourite crush x revolution intersections?
— zo