Today I saw a beautiful black woman in a black bikini with gold trim and a hot body wearing a waterproof black hijab. She looked like an observant Bond girl. I am sure there are people out there one side or the other who don’t agree with either the bikini or the hijab but I thought it was rather spectacular. It seemed honest to me. “this is where I’m at with my faith and my body, despite what you think.”
Third day of my 10,000 steps and I’m walking my old dog farther. We are reaching out into the shadier parts of the neighbourhood. Today it was the ass end of Venables. I crossed the tracks and tagged rail cars, through a ripped out metal fence, past the skate boarders and into the scrubby park. A cloudy couple carting groceries were yelling at their little girl for…I don’t know…skipping merrily? How dare she be happy when they are hung over?
I met five dogs. Four of them were pit bulls and one was a huge bruiser of a German shepherd dragging a tiny old Italian man in a fedora out for a walk. Empty playground. Torn swing. Some well intended urban planning with paths and a solar lamp surrounded by an inordinate amount of McDonald’s take out garbage. Spray painted along a wall was, “I HATE”. I am certainly outside of my lovely East side hippy lovey multi-cultural neighbourhood.
I stood there staring at it. “I HATE”. Thinking of an article I saw in the Calgary Herald linking Trudeau’s mosque visit to terrorists by Anthony Furey. Shameful hateful fear mongering and terrible writing, which for me, is an equal crime. I think of Donald Trump, but worse, Americans who support him. Are they insane? Am I really living in this day and age? His racist rhetoric. I think back to the couple yelling at the child. All their anger pointed in the wrong direction. It was disgusting. Disgusting. And worse, dangerous. Because the uneducated will believe anything.
I head home, down the scrubby path. I crawl through the ripped out metal and cross back to the right side of the tracks. Back to my safe liberal loving community where a black woman in a bikini can swim with a hijab in peace.
