C'mon Vancouver: A Zucchini shouldn't be your Best Friend

Poor Vancouver. I often find myself walking down the street, well, okay, it’s not Vancouver, it’s New Westminster. Same diff. The Lower Mainland all feels the same to me now. Cars. Malls. People in a hurry who aren’t smiling.  

Often, let’s just take a stab at it and say at least once a day, I’ll pass some poor waif who has lost his or her humanity. They've forgotten to acknowledge other human beings, even when one has passed within a shoulder’s length, even when I’m the only one on the sidewalk for blocks. Sometimes I say "Hi" to try and force them to acknowledge me but if they seem like a lost cause, like I can tell that someone or some thing snatched their soul a few years back, then I just bore my eyes into the side of their head and hope that some seed of collective consciousness might sense my animosity and awaken; come to their defense.

People can’t connect in Vancouver. SFU is hosting a forum called Alone Together: Connecting in the City.  The Vancouver Foundation has discovered through research that people are alone more than they want to be. But, c’mon people, take some responsibility. Don’t pretend it’s the “city”.  Are you saying the concrete buildings downtown are causing this state of mass anomie? What about Vancouverites taking responsibility for themselves, one isolated little lost E.T. lookalike at a time, and changing their own behaviour on a daily basis with just one stranger. I'm not saying acting like Steve Martin as Rupricht in that old movie, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but the occasional friendly acknowledgement surely isn't asking too much is it?

Here’s a brilliant idea. Wonder if anybody has tried it? Look at one person. Look them in the face. Smile. Say Hi. Take off your personal technological isolation device a.k.a. your iPod or whatever your lonely brain cells are currently wired on and just look at someone, up a bit if you're a certain type of guy, that's right, into their eyes. Try it just once a day. Their face isn’t a camera. It won’t break.

PS: I can’t be held accountable for my hostility towards the lonely city. I just returned from the Fall Fair on Salt Spring, which during the Fall Fair weekend wouldn't know isolation if it jumped out of a hay-filled stall and layed a big fat slobbering calf's tongue on the side of its cheek.

Walking Back to the Love of a Beautiful Place

Have you ever experienced the way the light dissects leaves, noticed how a yellow daisy turns slightly green at its petal tips, or how earth shades become stronger under sunlight, strong enough to overwhelm by a bittersweet purity that feels like your past, present and future in a single glance?

Yesterday was like that. In spite of the brilliant fall sunshine,  I'm hyper aware of the proximity of the rains. They're coming. And, that means no time now to spare inside, better get outside, on day's like yesterday, this couple, caught napping in solidarity would surely agree.

So I drove to Stanley Park. First time there, since I returned to the Lower Mainland 10 months ago and that surprised me.

The route I took to get there was unusual for me.  Over the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, up the upper levels, down Capilano road hardly any traffic mid afternoon, no slowing down across the Lion's Gate Bridge which once across, a quick right hand exit deposits into lushness, stops quickly and delivers Prospect Point. A freighter slides below, glides so wide and tall, might as well be a toy boat taking up the whole bathtub; float planes trade places with ravens.

I parked the car near that pool. Is it Second or Third Beach? I should know that by now.  I set off on a walk that I've done countless times before, when I lived on the park's rim, and as I began to walk it didn't take long before I began to feel fantastic. I was smiling, really smiling, inside even, and I realized how few people really smile because I was looking at them, directly into their faces, even when they were avoiding my gaze, which was mostly. Feeling that good exaggerated the contrast of how I've been feeling lately and how hard my body has been trying to catch my attention; to communicate what's missing.

Here, I must drive for miles to find a place to wander where the trees and the grass and the flowers feel like company. Too much inside, alone, just me and my computer screen, without daily wandering in beauty, observing how the shadows dance across a tree trunk, the wind tickles the surface of the ocean or how waves bursts throwing up silent explosions of beaded gauntlets. No stopping to pick up a shell or a black rock on a beach, and really examining them before gently placing them back down again or absentmindedly tossing it, contented.

You and I are not the only living things capable of changing each other. Natural surroundings can do that as deeply; and the loss of that affects the heart every bit as much as any other lost love now gone.

That's some of what I was thinking yesterday as I walked.

North of Secrets

There is just something over the top exciting about receiving a book in the mail that you created. For me this book, North of Secrets, represents so many things.

It's a representation of a decade worth of personal history. It's a record of some people who have been very important to me. It has some of my favorite photos. It outlines some of my thoughts related to therapy, of emotional struggles, healing and the ability to change.

It contains many poems that I wrote from the past when it seemed as if, as a result of depression and some very sad events, that I would not so much think in words or sentences but in poems that seemed to come to me as if given to me by someone else fully formed. They seemed to come so easily back then when most of them were written in the late 90s.

It contains 59 of my favorite photos from places I've been that have most significantly left their mark on me, for better or worse: The West End and Stanley Park. Saltspring. Abiquiu, New Mexico and Santa Fe. Salmon Arm. Chiapas, Mexico.

Yes, I admit it, these are not exactly international destinations of intrigue but places, in my small life, that are alive in my memories and in photos that capture my take on a time and place where very significant experiences happened for me.

I just can't say enough about how great it is that an idea/reality such as Blurb.com exists so that anyone who wants to has the ability to showcase their creativity. Why wait to be famous when the likelihood of that happening is less than winning a lottery?

There's more than enough room in the world for all representations of creativity, not just of the chosen few that are rather arbitrarily determined (by whom?) to be worthy of public recognition.

I don't believe anything has made me happier in the past year than the process involved in putting together this book and now being able to hold it in my hands knowing that I have created for myself, a bit of a legacy, one that I would have no other way to create since I have never had, nor ever will have, children. (But, in a way this is even better because, unlike offspring, I had full control of the outcome!)

I've chosen to keep this book private on the Blurb.com site because of the extremely personal nature of the contents and because some of the photos of people within it, but [if you are a personal friend of mine] and you would like a copy, I can order one for you. The cost is $25.00

It contains 44 pages of 17 poems and 59 photos (along with descriptions about how the poems came to be in terms of the person, place or thing that sparked their origin).

Here's a little teaser:

On the surface, this book may seem to be about some of my poetry and photos.

And, that it is!

But, those are the end products of a much more important journey that forced me inside to that placed located north of my own secrets.

We all know when we're keeping a secret. But, what of that place that's even deeper and full of secrets that we may not even know we have: the subconscious.

It wasn't a place I thought I'd ever be visiting. A melancholy place, always present, extremely bothersome, causing all sorts of chaos in my everyday existence until the emotions were unearthed and expressed...

Crowd Powered Media Bytes Newspapers

It used to be good for wrapping fish in. Sure, maybe it works to line the bottom of the bird cage. It's great, I hear, for making paper mache donkeys for birthday parties. But reading it every day? Subscribing and paying for it? Are you kidding me? Daily newspapers are headed in the same direction as typewriters.

Poynter Online posed this question in a 2008 poll, "Today it's possible to stay informed without subscription to a daily newspaper?" A whopping 79% of respondents said they agreed or mostly agreed. We have to assume that the other 21% suffered a cardiac arrest just as their HB was about to circle "agree".

I always feel a little sorry for those telemarketers from the Vancouver Sun or Province newspapers. I mean, I'm not even of the generation raised on the Internet. I don't get the appeal of text messaging because it just seems like too much work to try and find the right teeny weeny little keys. I've never Skyped. I only bought a cell phone a year ago.

But, the damp smell of obsolescence fills my nostrils every time I have to cut one of those telemarketers off in mid sentence to say No. Don't want it. Don't have time to read it. Don't think the trade-off between trees cut down and crap written down is good value.

My new favorite way to get news is to go on to sites such as NowPublic.com. It's like having a correspondent in every city and a photographer on every corner. I can even upload my own photographs on to a story. I can comment on the news stories that are there. I can read others comments and see others photos and watch videos.

Okay, maybe Joe Blow from Arkansas was never trained as a journalist. Maybe the writing isn't great, but as the site says journalism is not rocket science. Got a question. Get the answer. Get the answer from people who know better and who saw it firsthand.

Nowpublic.com is like a news-based wikipedia. It's a visual Twitter. And, if you get something wrong, you can be sure that somebody out there on the planet is going to correct you so the facts will be as factual as any reporter can get and the stories will be more immediate.

Now, having said all that, I'm glad I experienced the old days of journalism. I'm glad that I worked in a newsroom that was a bit like the one in the movie from the book The Shipping News.

Being at that small newspaper was fun. It was crazy. I loved it. I hated it. It was so politically incorrect that it's hard now for me to believe some of the things that got said and done. Did they actually happen or was I just dreaming them?

When I worked at that paper there was a rough around the edges, hard-nosed production manager named Graham who actually layed out the paper in the back. I used to go into a dark room and develop by hand the black and white photographs that I'd gone and taken at some accident scene or junior hockey game.

Being a reporter - pre-digital - was in fact the job that demanded more skills than any other job I've ever had to date and it paid next to nothing. It paid poverty-level wages. Why is that okay? Why has that always been okay? For the same reason it's okay that professional athletes can make millions. No reason. No good reason. It's just the way it is.

The rationale behind Nowpublic.com is the same as the rationale for deciding to uncopyright your creative work. In fact, people who have gone that route have found that their work has received more exposure by getting their name out into the world. They choose the degree to which their work is copyrighted, an idea put forth by Creative Commons.

In a world of ever-expanding social media, I can't help but think that newspapers are now in the same position as men were when Gloria Steinem said, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!"

Morning Walk

I don't have much to say these days. I was up early and felt like taking photographs so I left the house at 7:00 am and before I knew it I'd walked around the entire seawall. I really didn't see all that much to photograph that I wanted to photograph. Some days are like that. It is however fantastic to be in the park at that time. Nothing calls forth gratitude more quickly than a walk in the park.

The Never Ending Events of the West End

As always at this time of year the neighborhood has been hoppin, jam packed with people coming down to the Celebration of Light fireworks. Canada scooped the top spot two years in a row and even I have to admit that the grande finale last night of Canada, China and the U.S. was really spectacular.

It made a huge difference that some friends who had been sitting on the beach since 5:30 pm had saved us a spot so we were able to waltz into the crowd at 9:15 pm and plop ourselves down right beside the music. A perfect summer evening.

And, just as the garbage is cleared away, it's time for the Gay Pride Parade today along Denman. It's always a spectacle and a 3-hour marathon where you're sure to see something that will open your eyes a little wider.

It always amuses me that you have guys with their butts hanging out of chaps dancing to the tired but happy YMCA tune and guys dressed up as women teetering around on heels so high you're wondering how many days it might take for them to walk after today.

There are really beautiful women, who just happen to be male, looking better than 90%of real women waving from the white caddys with the red leather interiors. Then there are the topless dykes on bikes and the kids all lined up waiting to catch candy from the cross dressing, fairy queens outside the Dairy Queen. Just another regular day in paradise.

It is the best parade in the city because it is such a fun atmosphere. Yes, it is one central location of all the worst stereotypes of gayness (is that a word?)passing by on the street and it's pretty much a block party, 40 blocks long, West End style.

I went with my friend and her two pre-teen kids a few years back and when we were walking home her then 13-year-old said, "Mom, I just didn't get why that man was hitting that other man with a whip?"

I remember biting my tongue and thinking to myself, well let's see how she answers that. She did a spectacular job. All she said was, "Some people get pleasure out of pain." He didn't ask anything else. I thought it was a good, succinct and pretty safe answer.

I'll try and get some decent photos. Drop by tommorrow and join the parade, virtually!

A Card Carrying Networker

-sculptures at Simon Fraser University (and nowhere to put their cards)

I speed-read that book that Darcy Rezac, managing director for the Vancouver Board of Trade, wrote quite a few years ago now. It's called The Frog and the Prince: The Secrets of Positive Networking.

The most significant piece of advice in it for me was the suggestion to think of networking as a way to ask yourself what you can do for someone else. If you think of it that way then you're just being gracious. It's about them, not about you. You're not selling anything. You're just trying to figure out how to help someone else.

Although, I did wonder when I read that line what would I be able to do for Jimmy Pattison? And, how might he respond to that question if I ever was in a position to ask it? I tried to imagine myself asking it. Now, Jimmy, before I go, is there anything at all that I can do for you? What would his answer be?

Take his photo? Wash his car? Shine his shoes? Wax his really big boat? I don't know. I'm sure there would be something! (If you're not from Vancouver Jimmy Pattison is a Vancouver businessman that everyone who lives in Vancouver would be familiar with even if perhaps you just said "Jimmy"). Yes, Vancouver is too small. It's another reason to be nicer and to network more, or less, depending on how nice or not nice you are.

The book is full of great tips. Never, ever, ever leave your house without your business cards. (Well, maybe if you're going swimming - or to the washroom as we Canadians like to call it - it's okay!)

But, first you must actually have cards in order to not leave home without them. It doesn't matter who you are, he says have a card. It doesn't matter if you're unemployed or if you're a housewife or a stay-at-home dad, have a card. If you're retired, have a card.

What if you're a street person? Imagine if a street person handed you their card instead of asking for money? (Of course he didn't say that in the book! It's just my warped mind conjuring up that image.)

Think of your card as Chinese take-out with your name on it. Less greasy. (He didn't say that either. I did). It's an exchange of information that's portable. It's not about what you do. It's just a way to remind someone of who you are when they get home and two days later think, damn, I can't remember the name of that person.

Make sure your cards are designed in such a way that the text is readable in low light and the paper isn't flimsy so that if you're passing them out at a conference, (or a bar) and the lighting is poor, they'll still be readable, especially after a few drinks. (Just kidding!)

Treat everyone you meet as an equal. The weak links in your network - friends of friends - are actually the most significant links in making connections that can lead to work. Apparently this has been proven.

Try and attend one function per week and force yourself to speak to 7 people at that function that you've never met. Don't walk away from them without giving them your card. Ask for their card in return if they don't offer it.

So, here's an example of why what he says (like so many things in life) must actually be put into practice.

Today, I was having a coffee, passing time before a meeting. This woman sitting at the window a few feet away from me had just finished her lunch. I look over at her. We start a conversation. She's from Melbourne. She is a business analyst with some sort of insurance company. She's here with all sorts of other people who work at different branches of this international company. They are being hosted at the Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver as a treat for doing such a great job. Why have I never worked somewhere like that I think to myself. Let's not go there is my answer.

She tells me that she's a bit nervous because she's recently separated from her partner/husband so she's the only one at this thing that isn't with her spouse and she hopes that will be okay. My first thought was, Who are these people? How is it that they're all still married? I refrain from saying that. I say that it will be fine. If they're all with their spouses, why wouldn't they want to talk to someone they've never met? She laughed.

Then, I thought to myself, if I was really following Rezac's advice, I would have had my cards on me. I would have handed her one. I would have asked for one of hers.

She told me she was in town for four days. I would have said, "Call me." We can go out with my friends. I would have said that I know someone else here who's from Australia who I also, by coincidence, met in a restaurant the second night after she arrived in Vancouver more than a year ago when I was with my friend Dee.

But, I didn't and I didn't. I didn't have my cards. I didn't say what I felt I should say. I was distracted thinking about the meeting I was about to have and not really being totally in the moment.

Who knows? She might have even known the woman I already know from Australia. And, that my friends has to be chalked up as yet another lost connection.

So, have I convinced you to get a card if you don't have one and use it because of what Darcy Rezac said in his book?

I think I've almost convinced myself!

Carbon Tax Reality Check

- foot power or what the world needs now; the newest version of Birkenstocks

If you live in Beautiful British Columbia or "The Best Place on Earth" as the Liberal government has embarrassingly branded our fair province, you have probably received your $100 carbon tax credit cheque in the mail.

There's a lot of complaining, at least in the media, about that tax not being a carbon tax but a gas tax.

Actually, it's a tax on all fossil fuels (well, except for those from livestock). It's hard to tax anything, especially cows or pigs or other livestock, for farting into the atmosphere.

You might want to read this PDF Carbon Tax Reality Check from The David Suzuki Foundation to make sure you understand the true intent of the carbon tax.

Topiary Prisoner or Free Spirit?

-seen on an apartment building on Pendrell Street in the West End

One of my nieces, Megan, is 29-years-old and a free spirit. She loves to travel. She's an excellent photographer. She has worked really hard this past winter teaching during the day and tutoring 7 clients throughout the week at night.

As a result of the tutoring she tells me that she has almost doubled her income. This summer she is about to head off to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. She is going first to a yoga retreat, then she's going to learn some of the more complicated Fire Poi moves that she first learned in Thailand when she was travelling through S.E. Asia a few years back.

After her yoga retreat she's going to find a beach to surf at and do some scuba diving and hopefully she'll hook up with a fellow traveller or two to explore Nicaragua which seems to be the new hot spot.

Five weeks of adventure. Meeting new people. Having fun. Being joyful. Learning about other cultures. And, as the auntie I can't help myself; I must add in staying safe by paying attention and listening to your intuition. Right Meg?

I really admire her spirit of adventure. It's what you're supposed to do when you're young. It's what will keep you smiling when you're really old. At least then, when you're bored, you will have all those fun memories to keep you entertained and keep you smiling as if you have the best secrets, and maybe if you lived with a spirit of adventure, you do.

It's what will prevent you from feeling like the "Topiary Prisoner" in the above photo. I like to think of it as creative gardening with a sense of humour.

I looked at it and wondered what made the person do that. Did they feel trapped? They could have created just about anything. Why this? Or is this a representation of someone dancing? We don't have enough whimsy in our lives do we?

What did you see and/or think when you first looked at this photo?

Follow up: Another photo similar to this I took got published in The Georgia Straight newspaper and I noticed the week after that the actual gardener saw it in the Straight, wrote a letter saying it made his day. That made my day!:-)
Read his letter here!