babyhead

On Valentine's day I went to the Downtown Eastside Memorial Women's March. It's a mass procession that every year trickles through the streets of Vancouver's poorest, most drug-addled neighborhood in honour of the more than 69 women, mainly low-track survival sex workers, that in the last several years have gone missing or been murdered. I'm sure many of you have heard of Robert "Willy" PIckton; he's the pig-farmer that has been convicted of 6 of these murders but undoubtedly was responsible for waaaay more. Read about it; the story is creepy as fuck.

Anyway more than 2000 people were there; we walked to the sound of Native chanting and drumming; traffic was blocked off so we were able to see a beautiful perspective of the inner city, walking through its veins, so to speak. The sun was out; birds circled overhead; afterwards, in front of the Vancouver Police station, talks by family members of the women and survivors of the DTES sex trade were given. I stood and listened (and wept) nestled amongst people of every possible stripe, all joined together to honour these women, women whose mass disappearances garnered zero interest by the RCMP until public pressure demanded that something be done, women who were never given a choice, women whose very existences were no doubt a hell that none of us can even imagine...it was so moving. Especially during this shit-show Olympics bullshit raping the city right now...but don't get me started on that.

I've been falling in love with humans a little bit more every day. Believe me, there are many I could do without, but having those moments where, we're all here, we're made of the same bones and gristle and tendons and matter, and we feel it; it's just fucking awesome.