Cracking Ice

This morning as I walked to work and turned off of Pacific Boulevard on to our beloved street in Gastown the magnificent spectaculars were out in full force. The piss filled air roams through the streets, as do abandoned condoms and needles. As I pass the Starbucks on the corner and head towards Pender Street a man runs out of the 7-11 chased and tackled by the employee for apparently stealing something. The alleged thief manages to break free in front of the store and while the employee calls the police the thief and his friends discuss what just happened. “Maybe you should take off before the cops show up,” one of them manages to slur out.



As I continue down Abbott St. ahead of me is what appears to be a skinny junkie bent over and sifting through her box of belongings right in front of the McDonalds. One item after another gets hurled over her shoulder in a desperate search for nothing but her lost mind. Her black tights are small and barely cover the track marks all over her calves. As I cross Pender St. another woman covered in smeared mascara, wearing knee high socks and an overcoat is squatting in front of the Budget rent-a-car filling up her crack pipe. Another woman, or is it a man walking sideways, comes barreling around the corner and almost lands on top of the squatter. The next two blocks between Pender past Hastings to Cordova Street feels like a scene right out of Jim Carroll’s Basketball Diaries. I start to wonder like in some of the other popular films about drug culture if a big shipment of crack hit the streets last night. It’s like the Night of the Living Dead – except its 9:00 a.m.!!



My eyes were filled with these images and more on my morning walk while my head was still picturing the footage of the disintegration of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula. A massive 160-square-mile piece of western Antarctic – poof! So the two different scenes in my subconscious today – ice and crack ice. I couldn’t help think how so much of the mechanisms in life, in society, feel as though they are merely here to keep us entertained and oblivious to the real things happening. Sure, I have felt this for some years now but I wonder if more of us are becoming numb or more aware? As we pick and choose what to do with our awareness some of us fall into a blissful state of apathy while others fight off the pessimism of knowing.


Meanwhile, I continue to question everything and live on in constant preparation for a new way.

© Chico Sousa 2008