After being kicked off the ledge lawn. |
For the June 30 Vulnerability Vigil we set up on the BC
legislature lawn. We have done other vigils there. The naked bike ride with hundreds of participants was there earlier in June. I use my naked body to share
vulnerability but I am cognizant that not everyone chooses to see a naked
person or people so we hold the sign and, when we're at the ledge, we stand in
front of trees or the fence along the front of the building.
Yesterday, there was an aggro Sergeant at Arms who was
having none of it.
He told us he would arrest us for disturbing the peace if we
didn't leave the property. So we picked up our bags and left. When we were
going to go across the lawn he got really mad so we walked along the sidewalk
west of the ledge, crossed the street and set up on the sidewalk across from
the ledge, where way more people could see our offending bums (either on the
sidewalk or from the inner harbour walk below).
This video above shows the Sergeant at Arms after waving down a
Vic PD guy and exhorting him to "burn a u-ie." The Vic PD guy
approached me as a human being and looked rather beleaguered. It was my sense
that he very much didn't want to arrest us but was in an awkward position what
with the Sergeant at Arms getting all excited and whatnot.
In the video I am explaining to him about the project. I
also told him we have done it at the ledge before and that we were standing in
front of the fence, etc. He asked me quite kindly how long we usually stand
there. I said about an hour. He asked about how long into the hour were we? I
said about 10 minutes.
I felt bad for him. I asked him if he would like me to put
on my underpants? He said, could you? He asked if the guy (Keith) was also
naked? I said yes. He asked if Keith could put on his underpants too? Keith
did.
The sign says CALGARY. My hometown, where last week both my
childhood homes were under water. It's a New Orleans-Hurricane Katrina kind of
wake-up call. One of my best friends who grew up there died under suicide-like
circumstances earlier in June. Last year around the same time, a close relative
from Calgary committed suicide. As someone who has extensive experience with
emotional pain, I understood these women were in emotional pain and were unable
to express their pain to people close to them or even satisfactorily to
themselves. In my opinion, the culture we grew up in was not conducive to our
emotional health. I feel sad about Calgary for a lot of reasons.
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