Not feeling in the mood for spring

It's hard to think of rebirth amid unthinkable suffering

“Spring is the season of rebirth,” a friend told me over a mocktail this week.

We were sitting at Turbo Haüs, the punk bar that's been making news by openly denouncing Montreal's nightlife policies in regard to noise complaints. Supporting your favourite businesses lately feels like a political gesture — activism of sorts.

I could say a lot about the past month. Gentrification, the housing crisis, feminist issues, language laws, ongoing wars and general insecurity — I can't think of anything positive in the news of late that brings me comfort and relief (though the eclipse was neat). When I need a break from all that's negative in our city, in our province and in our world, I find myself dissociating — disconnecting from my thoughts.

These moments have been happening more and more lately. I'll be doing something mundane — getting my nails done, walking with a friend, buying beer or writing a column — and I'll have to stop to empty my mind of other thoughts that encroach and overwhelm. So I look around me and force my mind to name the things that I see — “computer, cat, wall art, pen, notebook” — until I'm back in my body and a place of relative comfort. More and more lately, thoughts of Palestinians caught up in a war with no end in sight lead me to this kind of dissociative thinking.

Survivor's guilt overwhelms me. It seeps through my blood like a disease, flows through my veins and hits me at random moments. I'll be working, and it happens. I'm transported to the war-torn Middle East,

I can't think of anything positive in the news of late that brings me comfort.

expecting to survive the apocalypse. I think: I shouldn't be alive, yet I am. I shouldn't be sleeping in a comfortable bed at night, safe and warm, but I am.

We've seen now seven months of killing in the Middle East. At this point, many of us have probably lost count of the number of dead. But we have not forgotten the stories and the images of suffering. At least I can't forget. My mind won't let me.

At home, the protests are getting smaller and people are getting exhausted. Or distracted. There are things to worry about that make us less receptive to the suffering of others. Grocery prices are increasing, housing is scarce, businesses are closing and people are struggling to make ends meet. For some, faraway conflicts may seem, well, far away.

Meanwhile, I live with the constant reminder that my skin colour and the way I look are perceived as a threat by some. I write to friends and ask them how they can go on.

When a friend of mine writes “Gaza is killing me,” I barely know what to answer. I feel his pain, and yet, increasingly, no emotions. I cannot reassure him by offering him the hope that he might find a sense of inner peace, or that his resilience will see him through. Not anymore. How do you maintain resilience if you feel you must rebuild yourself again and again? I have no words to offer. Hope seems not to exist. I dissociate, disconnect.

And yet, it is spring. It is a time for rebirth, for a new start.

My friend Hannah has been active on social media about her involvement with local protests. She attends the demonstrations and brings friends. She describes them as people coming together not just to protest, but to celebrate life in the face of death and for the greater good — for humanity. I understand and appreciate that.

I asked her last week if I could go to a protest with her. I haven't been yet. Maybe this can be my new start, my form of rebirth is some small way.

I told her I might cry.

“It's OK,” she said. “I'll hold you tight.”