The shortest shortest day

The Christ child in the rubble of Bethlehem, of Palestine

I love the idea of December 21. The sun pops up and is gone by like 2:00 or something. Maybe 3, it’s hard to tell these days. The night, though long, is our last longest one for an entire year. We welcome the night: snuggly, with a warm drink and under a blanket of dancing LED lights if we can reach the string with our toes to yank on it.

But like so much of theory and practice, loving Dec. 21 is harder. It’s too busy. The day, filled with everything that gets pushed to it like the last part of anything, feels impossibly short. If cleaning were a day, Dec. 21 is the part of cleaning where you’re left with a million tiny things that have no place to go but the garbage but you’re too sentimental to throw out an errant puzzle piece or a penny.

I know; Dec. 21 was so short that I missed it already. 2023 has been like that. Think about something too much and by the time you come to, it’s a tiny speck in the rear view mirror. Cheques and also chasing cheques. The ghost of Revenue Quebec haunting you into punching yourself in the face. Have I mentioned that our teachers have been on strike for a month? Nothing feels right.

Fine though — what do we deserve, if not an end of the year that mimicks the middle and start of the year too? How are any of us supposed to feel joy on Christmas when Bethlehem is under attack? Have you heard the one about Chrystia Freeland who said that it makes her sad to see the breadlines that wrap around her church? Oh, that was in response to the question: how has the affordability crisis impacted you personally? It has made her sad to see the poors.

There is no hope in partisan politics; no hope in elected politicians. From the ones who have cheered on genocide to the ones whose shoulders are rock hard from the excessive shrugging they must engage in, there is no hope found there. Canadian democracy is a lost cause and nothing short of a rhetorical nuclear bomb is going to change that. Cut your losses; stop hoping for a savior. Prepare for your next battle: a twerp whose eyes are too close together to not wear glasses.

Neither is there hope in media. My whole career, I was oriented towards getting published in the big news organizations. Or at least, I’d try. I hit the summit a few years ago with a column at the Washington Post that I didn’t care enough to fight to keep. And then, 2023 broke me of even having half a desire to try any more with them. The platforms are rotten, especially for analysis and opinion, and they are digging their own graves. I don’t have energy for grave digging. I realized this year that having a column can be great but doing my own thing is much better. I hope that indy media continues to grow in 2024 but I’m tired of all of it.

It’s the heaviness of hypocrisy. That’s what it all is. The hyprocrisy of everything. The hyprocrisy of Pierre Poilievre. The hypocrisy of Mark Miller. The hypocrisy of every single provincial leader, each in their little kind of idosyncratic hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of colunists and national media talking heads and Andrew Coyne and giving a standing ovation to a Nazi and an entire parliament saying “uhhhhhh we didn’t know he was a Nazi” because it is more politically beneficial to tell everyone that you’ve never read a book than to admit that you’re a seal who barks and claps when he hears the word “soldier.” I think it’s that where things feel the heaviest. It’s the hypocrisy.

And yet, it is strongest when everything we’ve ever learned about fairness and justice is turned on its head when we look at Gaza. Nothing makes any sense. We’re all antisemites now, the semites included. More than 20,000 people have been killed and you watch and think — but I thought that Nazi Germany’s horrors were hidden. I thought that that’s how they murdered so many people. And realize that of course not — butchery in the light of day has always been a possibility. And worse, our tax dollars, Canadian jobs, our politicians — all are implicated in the massacre.

There is lots to be hopeful about too, but on the shortest shortest day, there’s no time for hope. Hope can wait a few days. I need to clean my appartment and fold a million shirts. I need to close my computer and find a million socks. I have three book manuscripts, loose sheets of paper that form the tablecloth of my desk. It’s time to set those on fire. Then — then I can think about hope.

I started this Substack two years ago today at about this time. Dec. 20, to be precise. Your support (comments, funding, subscriptions, kind words, arguments) means everything to me. It’s because of this that I don’t feel like I need to grab some column inches in the Globe and Mail. They’ve refused me consistently since 2018 anyway. I don’t need that shit just like you don’t need me to bore you too much longer. So, it’s just to say.

Thanks for reading.