I did a little local shopping downtown and in OEV yesterday. I am not buying much this holiday season, but what I do buy, I want to reflect the support I am giving to my community....my friends, my family, my neighbours, strangers, who are all struggling through this pandemic amidst ridiculous behaviour by an insane and growing fringe who are buying into a right wing oppressive narrative designed to keep the neoliberal wheels of a decrepit and crumbling capitalist system turning. All the while, we can see everywhere, all around us, on every corner, in every family, in every desperate, socially distanced outdoor event, the craving, the desire for connection, for love, for compassion, that is being denied to us by those who would rather continue to hoard and line their coffers while humanity weeps, while the animals weep, while mother earth weeps. Why the man I spoke with yesterday, lying almost frozen on our sidewalks, barely able to speak begged me to leave him, to not call anyone, to not be 'taken away'.....he would rather freeze to death in his misery than to get lost in the systems that put him there in the first place. Today I weep. I weep for us all. And take blankets to those who need them.