... feel sort of emotionally hung over after participating in "Take Back the Night" yesterday.
It was a good night, maybe even a great night. Apparently it was the best attended rally on record.
We started at a community centre a couple blocks from my house, and marched through streets I often walk down alone, in the dark, filled with fear. We marched past a mosque. Ramadan is still on, and a group of new-Canadian Muslims stood on the side walk looking confused and scared as hundreds of feminists marched past. I smiled and waived at them with my best "it's okay, we're not here to hurt you" face on until a few started to smiled back too. We marched past a sex trade worker who stood intoxicated and shy, and I waved at her and motioned for her to join, but she turned shyly away, waiting for the crowd to pass so she could get back to work. We marched past the apartment building a block from my house where a woman was stabbed to death while people in the apartment watched, too scared to come out to save her, waiting for the police. We marched past the lot where a lone sex trade worker used to stand, vulnerable in the shadowy parking lot all the time, and I wondered if she was one of the 50 missing and murdered women in my city. We marched past an empty apartment block on fire, and abandoned boarded up houses. We walked past houses where families stood, smiled, waved and cheered. Houses where children watched, puzzled and surprized by the noise, and I hoped for a better future from them. We walked past the solvent users from the park near my house, and I hoped for a better future for them too. It was something to behold.