As I listened to the tour guide speak about the history of the city I live in while we gallivanted around on the sunshine trolley, I reflected about how my version of the tour speech would be different from his; about how our cities are all uniquely shaped by what we experience in them and what I would share on a tour was drastically different from what I was hearing:
How We Got Here
The history detailing any city development in Canada is sordid and painful for Indigenous peoples. Anytime we learn of the experience of European settlers and their descendants on this land we are blessed to live upon, let's keep in our hearts awareness and compassion for those who suffered and for those who continue to suffer because of the actions and ignorance of colonizers. If Europeans had come to Canada expecting to find light in Indigenous peoples, we would all - our earth and her inhabitants - be much healthier.
May we look for and value the light in every living thing.
The First, the Best, the Biggest, the Only One Like It
Not everything in life is a competition. May we feel worthy however we show up in any circumstance. May we all have someone excited about our existence regardless of our flaws.
Mercantile & Museum
When my 8-4 feels too heavy, too heartbreaking, too maddening to experience, I daydream about having a gallery show, about having space to live a wildly creative life in a manic zone of constant inspiration and making. In these physical spaces is where I feel pulled toward a whimsy that is almost too tempting to step away from. When I die*, I want my memorial to be held in a space turned into a gallery decorated by all the art I made while alive because I’m the most alive when I create.
*I’m not planning on dying anytime soon. I got a good 45 years left of love, healing, and art.
Humans without Homes in Riverside Park
A green social worker shared at a workshop I attended a few years ago that when she visits a new city, instead of touring the wealthy areas, she asks her hosts to show her the most impoverished communities because they are the true marker of how a city is doing. Witnessing economical & societal honesty of how a city presently fares is meaningful, albeit uncomfortable. In their discomfort, instead of rallying for increased inclusivity & a fair housing market, the community members in my city demand that the police hide the homeless so they don’t have to see them. So humans in need, who have experienced the worst circumstances capitalism can create for a person are further stigmatized and isolated. I hate it, and think it’s a waste of police resources. If you are a person of influence, calling the police demanding for them to hide homeless, please rather use that energy to look inside yourself with intent to learn why you feel so uncomfortable acknowledging that those humans sitting in a park do not have a home.
If we look beside the gazebo filled with humans worth being seen, you will note a train and a tank. My grandpa swears he drove that very tank in his youth. He said once that he recognized the serial number. (I don't know if I believe him).
Prickly Pear
A field of prickly pears post-bloom remind me what it’s like to experience life with C-PTSD. Beauty has her seasons while something prickly always needs to be acknowledged before reaching sustenance.
Strathcona
When I was a teenager, school was done at noon on Wednesdays so my misfit crew would mischief around in various parks around the city. I vaguely remember climbing over a fence one afternoon to sit in the stands in the ball diamond in Strathcona and do things I won’t share on a blog. In my later years, this park became a constant in my life for handheld walks, or breaks from the office when the work needed nature’s help with processing. My favorite place in the city can be found in this park, further down the path behind the pavilion, across the bridge, past the old railway tracks, under the pass, and beside the creek. I could sit there for hours.
Lizzy’s Tree Tour
On a green space beside a main drag in the city lives a massive, gorgeous swedish aspen that receives a mix of reverence and bittersweet nostalgia from me as she holds memories from a time when I was a young momma driving my children across the city to school each morning.
Behind the 13 Stations of the Cross in the park beside St. Joe’s, there is an American Elm that has played a significant role in the love story of my present. Speaking of the 13 Stations, my beloved and I were walking through one afternoon and were so blessed and a little starstruck to meet the artist, Jim Marshall. I whispered this to my child when Jim was mentioned on the trolley tour. Oh, the ache I have to live a life devoted to art.
A few blocks from my mom’s house, in a park I would mischief about when skipping school, there is a maple that provided momentarily solace through a particularly challenging time just a few years ago, my beloved and me flatbacked on the earth trying to figure out next steps. I now consider her my best tree friend.
A couple blocks from my house, an oak reminds me of my mother, and a pine receives my gratitude each time I walk past because she let me hang 20+ embroidered snowflakes on her one at a time for photos a few winters back. Just a few blocks over and a couple doors down from a neighborhood lawn library, there is a cedar that ever so generously shared a branch with me one time.
A chestnut tree across the street from the hospital receives my marvel each time I walk past. One time, my youngest and I filled our pockets with chestnuts on our way to the hospital. The chestnuts provided an icebreaker for my babe who was incredibly nervous to meet with more health professionals during a phase of life that was tenuous and in need of hope.
Building of Flood Berms
As I watched remnants of 100 year old cottonwoods be scraped from the river valley close to my home all those years ago, I wept. I had only realized this gorgeous wilderness existed so close to me a few weeks previous. I understood that the homes facing the river valley needed protection from flooding, but I was devastated for my community to lose such an authentic, wild piece of land. I acknowledge my depth of sorrow during each walk atop the berm.
Wildfire Smoke From The Viewpoint
He had a headache the other day, my beloved, from the thick wildfire smoke that settled in the valley he lives in, three hours away from me. The next day when the air was thick with smoke here, I felt like we were closer somehow, like we were breathing the same air. Air means something different when it appears as a grey haze hovering in coulees. How much of these wildfires are part of the natural life-death-rebirth process and how much is an angry response to the ecological crisis we are living through.
Goose Crossing
Geese inhabit the college grounds during mating season. The college even blocks off sections of the parking lot to protect both goose and student. While attending the college, I witnessed many an aggressive goose side eye, heard stories of goose attacks, & awwed plenty at the sweet goslings waddling about.
And of course, I can't mention geese without paying respects to how much I love hearing goosesong. One chilly Canadian morning, I wandered over to the river and witnessed thousands of geese singing on the frozen river, my life forever changed with the acknowledgment of how wild & free my soul felt listening to the holy honk. I strive for my life to a be a goose crossing of sorts.
The Return
As we journey back to where we begun, may I encourage that we all grasp firmly to the eager curiosity of a tourist.
the only one like it,
E
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