– 2: Boundaries and Spaces –
March 20/2020
It’s been the better part of 6 days now that Daffyd and I have sheltered in place. He has only been going out to restock our basic supplies. He is coping well, so far, in these early days. But I know that being cramped inside, unable to take his customary walkabouts to coffee shops and the library, is starting to impact him deeply.
I on the other hand have chosen to embrace the isolation, at least for the time being, despite the depth of depression it brings. I’ve barely been outside for most of the last 2 weeks, save that final trip to the coffee shop on the day the lockdown went global, and my small ventures to smoke in the courtyard. Those have quickly become a crucial part of my existence, sometimes being the only reason I leave my bedroom. After each time, I walk back into our apartment with a sense of safety settling over me, despite the anxiety that comes from the heavy restrictions set by the building management in its natural state. It’s always warm, in summer sometimes too warm, but now, in the earlier months of spring, it is still pleasantly so. It smells soft, and comfortable, like worn cotton sweaters and freshly washed linens, with a subtle hint of green marijuana emminating from my stash box. It is a place where people have lived, loved, and made lasting memories, even though we’ve only been here for less than a year.
Tuesday night I finally gave in to my need for connection beyond the home environment. I broke the isolation orders to visit my lover, Nights, for what would have been our usual weekly rendezvous. I likely will again next week, so long as he allows it. I would travel worlds to be with him, to feel the security of his warmth. I take all the recommended precautions, and go to even more extensive lengths; hand washing and sanitizing, the new normal of “Social Distancing”. I wore my PVC bodysuit, and while that in itself may seem extreme to some, it at least put me into the proper fashion for this apocalyptic world. How ironic that what we used to wear to those nightclubs that were only a fantasy construct of dystopia have now become our reality.
Yet for all of the preparation and protection, I still suffer that paranoia and trepidation, the fear that I may already have done damage in my movements throughout the city. I struggle deeply at times with what I fear more; being sickened from this virus myself, or sickening someone that I love through my own selfish need to be with them. I am a creature in need of human contact, and the sudden, harsh separation from that contact has left me in a state of withdrawal that is just as potent as from any chemical addiction.
For so many years I was addicted to the night life, to the clubs; the blacklights making colours dayglow bright against the darkness, the movement and the music, the passion of the people in the fray of the dance floor; all of us united as one in the heart of that music. When I close my eyes and drift back in time, I can remember it all so clearly;
I remember drifting through the crowd, our movements in synchronicity to the music we shared as a holy prayer; an act of worship that united us into something greater. I remember every smile on every face, every bracelet or trinket exchanged as tokens of love and unity in a passing moment. Some made as friends for life, others met once and never to be seen again beyond that night, though neither less in value than the other. Some few I grew to love more deeply with time were always there; RandWulf waiting in the wings with coolers full of midnight freezies; Mykey Void and his spiralling energies casting outwards from the center of the dance floor, making space for me to fly; The bouncers that I knew as brothers keeping me safe as my 17 year old self ran wild across the Queen West scene; The DJs who let me hover over their decks for hours, teaching me the knack of it from their own lived experience; The motley crews of the afterparties, gathering together at the end of the night, filtering out from the multitude of coinciding events, led by whomever was willing to or able to fit us all into their apartment, to hide us from the sun, to create another magical world, another mystical state of being, until we were ready to emerge once again into the night and do it all over again.
Now I fear that we may never see the light of those nights again, never feel the warmth of each others bodies moving in unison to that higher sense of presence. And even if they do someday return, when all of this is over, what will be left of us? How many of us will survive? I fear less so for casualties from the virus, than from this growing isolation that even now I feel is slowly draining that spirit of connection, draining our strength to go on.
Mykey used to refer to life outside of those precious moments as “The in-between times” – Those times which we must choose to endure to reach the magical moments once again. And so with his memory in my heart, I hold tightly to those moments in for fuel, for strength and comfort. Whatever may happen next, nothing can ever change the fact that I had been there. That I had lived it. That just as I had come into that nightlife world as a child, well after many of its progenitors had already moved on, that someday after this catastrophe has ended, others will come after me, born into something new that we cannot yet envision. Even if we are all gone, and nothing of that memory of us survives, there will always be music. There will always be love. There will always be life in this world, and we are all here, living through it, one day at a time.