Schools were closed, so were stores, banks and offices. In my hometown, people seemed to keep to themselves and those who were looking for companionship went to church.
It was a day for quiet contemplation, the austere interlude before the colourful pageant of Easter.
My strongest memories of Good Friday were from my days singing in my church choir. The Good Friday service was as funereal as the day it marked. We sang a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The altar was stripped, no flowers, no decorations. When the service was over I don't really remember much of what we did. I assume I played road hockey or watched TV or shot some hoops in the driveway, but really, I don't remember. Good Friday was a day where nothing happened.
This Good Friday I worked.
It's a stat holiday in my workplace, and the managers weren't around but lots of working stiffs were. It felt like one of those long weekends that governments take off but the private sector doesn't. You can buy a car, but you can't get it licensed. The newspapers published as usual, public transit was working, there were people in the street. A not quite normal day, but not a day where nothing was happening either.
I work a long shift on Fridays, 12 hours. When I book off around 10 p.m., I walk through the guts of Toronto's entertainment district on my way up to Queen Street to catch my streetcar. This Friday there didn't seem to be any action at Roy Thomson Hall or the Royal Alex, but the bars in the neighbourhod were open and the clubs on the side streets definitely were. The lineups were a bit shorter than usual for a Friday, but they were open. The faces of the nightclubbers looked about the same as usual; the polyglot mix of multi-culti Toronto.
I found the experience disorienting. I guess I was expecting something, what? Deader. A Good Friday night where the city rolled up the sidewalks and went to bed early. Instead, I saw most of the restaurants on Queen Street open and doing a brisk business. Gawkers were checking out the Condom Shack. When I got off at Queen and Leslie Streets, the Duke was doing a good business as were the trio of restos on the north side of the street.
It was a real contrast with a year ago in Mexico City.
A Catholic country like that takes Holy Week very seriously. It is a week for travel, family and ritual. The air in Mexico City is breathable, the mountains that rings the city are in full view. The traffic is manageable. The signs of Easter are everywhere. Good Friday is quiet. And it felt familiar.
I'm not much of a church-goer anymore. I don't hold a particular place for Christian holidays in my calendar. But I do like the idea of stopping a few times a year, and when I mean stopping I mean everyone stopping. A day where you can't do any of the "normal" things: work, eat out, shop. You are left to your own devices. Christmas is still like this, but the Christmas season is not. Boxing Day is a shopping day now and December 24th is pretty busy too. It's only the 24 hours of December 25th that constitute a shut-down anymore.
I can see how people of other faiths or cultural background would find all this frustrating. These communities have their own holidays and often have to take time off to mark them. Why do we have to take a day that is one religion's high holiday?
At least in the case of Christmas, I can argue that it has morphed into something more pagan, a winter fiesta of sorts: Happy Holidays and all that. But Good Friday is still fundamentally religious. It's hard to imagine this stat holiday turning into something secular or even ecumenical. It is about as Christian as you get, just like Passover is for a Jew or Ramadan to a Muslim.
Way back when, when Good Friday became a day off, it was a religious holiday. Canada was overwhelmingly Christian and largely observant. It all made sense. My vestigal Christian reflexes let me be part of the day even if I am not actually Part of it anymore. But all the action on what was once my Day of the Dead tells me it doesn't make sense anymore. Good Friday belongs to the Christians, but it doesn't belong to modern Canada. We need a new day to do nothing together.
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