This is My City
This is my city. A city of bridges in the midst of a lonely province centered within a vast prairie.
Joni Mitchell grew up here. This is the river she use to skate away on. The river doesn’t freeze hard enough anymore to skate on. Why? I suspect it is because the river now has a dam upon it. I hear that this keeps the river just above the freezing point no matter how cold winter gets. And, damn, it gets cold up here.
Here is Joni playing just down from the University Bridge. The art is by SCYAP , they have painted various traffic control boxes all around downtown. Another view of the same traffic control box is below.
I’ve lived in this city on and off since the 1980’s. I leave. I come back. It is my favourite Saskatchewan city. And yes, I have lived in other Saskatchewan cities. In this city, I’ve lived on the west side, the east side and downtown.
Each neighbourhood has a different flavour. Each decade has been different. I’ve watched the city ebb and flow. I watched it grow to engulf and swallow up the nearby prairie. I like it small. I’ve lived in bigger cities. I lived in warmer cities.
This is my city (for now). 
I will leave you with several views of my favourite traffic control box. The pictures are in the order I think is most logical!
It is drawn in the tradition of pop art romance comics.
There is a lovely young ingenue and a villainous hero.
Will True Love prevail?
When an outsider comes to a new place, he sees the picturesque and the freakish, whereas the local sees through layers of emotion and memory (Walter Benjamin).
This is my city.
I am a Pedestrian
I am a Pedestrian.
I prefer the sidewalk under my feet, the wind in my face, the exquisite scents in the air, the sounds rushing past my ears, and the completeness of walking.
I walk everyone. I walk back and forth to work five days a week. This is a thirty minute walk when it’s cold and forty when it’s warmer. I walk the Meewasin Trail for fun. The river is intoxicating every day of the year. I walk to the Farmer’s Market, to nearby shops, to Eighth Street for groceries. Occasionally, I walk far. It is approximately an hour’s walk from my apartment to the big, Canadian bookstore that I frequent. I’ve walked there about three times in the last three years. It is somewhere I usually take the bus to.
This time of the year I start to dread walking. It is getting colder. There are days below minus degrees and talk of wind chill. There will be ice and cars will pay even less attention to little, old me as they rush to and fro.
Vehicles don’t pay enough attention to pedestrians now. In the last month, I’ve almost gotten hit twice. The last time I could smell burning rubber after he applied the brakes.
Almost getting run over is a GREAT way to end the day!
The other time the person turning left was not paying attention; good thing I was. I will admit, I don’t always pay attention.
I will admit that I forget the rules sometimes. My generation, a mostly car-less one was “taught to walk on the left, facing traffic, so that we could see cars coming and move onto the shoulder.” (p. 38) There were also less sidewalks then. However, cars went slower, injuries were less serious, and drivers took responsibility for everyone’s enjoyment of the road. Now, there are times when it feels like I’m the only one noticing pedestrians.
I will take responsibility for my own safety but I want the vehicles out there to be aware that they are not the only ones using and enjoying the roadways.
I enjoy relying on my body for my own locomotion. I enjoy walking. There are many benefits to my walking.
“…went out for a walk the following afternoon. I was out for an hour. I walked two hours the next day, an hour the day after that, then three hours a day later. Somewhere in the course of those first several days, I stopped being depressed.” (p. 16)
Since I was a child, I’ve enjoyed walking in the rain. Though, here in the Prairies, that usually means that I am walking in the rain and the wind.
This is not a gentle tropical breeze that I am talking about.
This is updrafts and messy hair and wind tunnels.
How many umbrellas do I go through in a year?
1? 2? 3? Just one umbrella died this summer, at least. It’s a good thing my mom sells Avon. She always has inexpensive umbrellas hanging around for me to commandere.
I suppose, one day, I should buy a high end model. I worry though that our winds would treat such an umbrella the same as the others. Maybe, I should just go for cute. 
Oh look, they even have a warranty. Though, I have a feeling that Mary Poppins had a Burberry.
I know some of you may be wondering why not bike to work? For me, it’s a matter of paying attention. My mind tends to wander here, there, and everywhere. I feel it is safer for everyone if I keep my time behind the wheel to a minimum.
I am a pedestrian.
“I think I can recall a desire to gain knowledge of the city I lived in …. by walking its streets.” (p. 32)
You can live in a city for centuries and never really know it until you walk its streets.
On a recent Sunday morning, I went meandering. I walked back from the university along Temperance, turned a corner, and suddenly had no idea where I was. It took about ten blocks before I could suddenly go, “ah ha, I am here and I know where I must go to get back on track.”
I love that. I love getting lost walking in a city that I supposedly know.
I am a pedestrian.
All quotes are from:
Step By Step: A Pedestrian Memoir
by Lawrence Block
New York: William Morrow, 2009
Lottery Update
I almost bought a lotto ticket on Friday. I almost bought one because I am feeling very poor. I’m cutting my budget too close; almost a third of my take home pay is going into Savings. And, as of last week, my grocery money is all spent for the month. My savings, however, is growing in leaps and bounds. And now I have to ask what is more important, the day to day expansion or the safety net and next year’s trip?
What stopped me from buying that lotto ticket is that the game that replaced my regular ticket is double the price; six dollars instead of three for a lotto with worse odds (I ran this by my math genius friend).
I don’t like feeling poor. If I never had to think about money again I would be ecstatic.
White Poppies
I wish there was somewhere in Saskatoon where I could buy a white poppy for Remembrance Day. The only poppy available here is, of course, the Red Poppy. For those of you not in the know, the white poppy symbolizes peace. The Red Poppy is for remembrance of the war dead. The White Poppy movement started in the United Kingdom, in 1926, as the No More War Movement. I have no problem supporting the troops and remembering those lives, both military and civilian, lost to war. I’m just not comfortable supporting war as a way to deal with conflict. There HAS to be a better way!
Let me start with a little background, for those of you who don’t know me. My dad joined the air force, I assume, just after he finished school. I do know that by the time he was twenty-five, he had a wife and four kids. I was the third daughter and was born when he was stationed on an army base in Germany. My older sisters were born on bases in Canada. My mom was an unhappy army wife, alone and ignored in a foreign country. Not soon after I was born my Dad was out of the service… I’ve heard rumours of a dishonourable discharge. Nobody’s ever discussed it with me. He left us soon after to start over with a new family. Alcoholism ran rampant in his life.
My mother’s father grew up somewhere in Poland, he told me tales of being conscripted into the Russian Army (WWI I do believe), of riding horses during this war, and of starving in Russia & eating tomatoes for the first time. He ate his tomatoes with sugar, which was the way he ate them to the day he died. He hadn’t eaten tomatoes before as he had been told they were poisonous. He didn’t make war sound adventurous or fun or noble.
Most of my siblings, at some point in their life joined the Cadets. The eldest and youngest were active for years. The youngest got her pilot’s license because of the Cadets. My stepmother has been, and still is, very active in this organization. I lasted a week. Didn’t like the marching, the guns, being told what to do and when to do it. It was never an organization where I felt validated or safe.
I can understand the lure of joining the military. It provides you with structure, shelter, and food. It can give you a community to belong to and believe in. A younger brother and niece both joined out of family obligation. Neither lasted. My brother did basic training and was back home shortly after; why it didn’t work out I was never told. My niece went overseas with the Cadets and was sent home early, again I don’t know why. Maybe this is why I have a problem with the military, it seems overridden with secrets.
I am also concerned about who makes up the majority of most armies. By that I mean who is on the frontlines shooting and getting shot at. “We are the dead” as it says in the poem; In Flanders Field. It is the poor and disenfranchised who make up the majority of the dying in both the military and civilian ranks.
This military culture, we (society) glorify scares me. I know this culture. It is a culture that results in a reckless lifestyle that leads to too much drinking and abuse. The ads should say see the world, kill those more disenfranchised than you and escape from your life and responsibilities. Can’t we hope to achieve peace without waging war?
I want a chance to show that I’m tired of this mindset. I want to stand for peace. I want a white poppy to wear.
Weird and Wonderful
Yesterday was Halloween (Samhain) and today and tomorrow I will be in the midst of El Día de los Muertos. This time of year I reflect and honour the goth within. You may have noticed this from last week’s post. I’m continuing the theme this week as I participate in two different memes today and answer them both in a roundabout way!
The memes are from Art on the Darkside and Weekly Geeks.
First off, w
e have a fall, harvest, halloweeny picture for you. He looks a bit bored, don’t you think. I don’t know how many Trick or Treaters he saw but I had none. This is one of the perils of living in a downtown apartment. Most people with children are in the suburbs! I didn’t put him up. I just took his picture and cropped it for my own pleasure.
It seems strange to have Halloween on a Saturday. I don’t remember weekend Halloweens as a child. I don’t even remember Trick or Treating in the light. In my memories Halloween is always dark. I remember rushing home from school, grabbing a pillowcase (that was our treat bag – it was a small town and we planned on hitting every house) and going out with my friends and my younger brother and his friends. The next day was spent in a sugar hangover from all the treats we didn’t normally have.
I have a bit of a sugar hangover today. I saw coloured popcorn at the Farmer’s Market yesterday and just had to have some. 
Grandma Katie (she wasn’t related to us, she lived next door until we moved when I was thirteen) always made coloured popcorn for special occasions. It’s what she gave out for Halloween. Her house was always our first stop. Every child in town got a small lunch bag full of popcorn; the bags were probably six inches tall. She must have made popcorn all October so that she would have enough. It’s a shame that Treats are no longer homemade! So, the popcorn I bought yesterday was way too sweet – Grandma Katie’s popcorn wasn’t sugar flavoured, just coloured.
El Día de los Muertos is a new tradition. I discovered it when I was in Montreal. I’ve always been a bit on the goth side. My best friend and I use to hang out in Graveyards and I still love a quiet afternoon in an old graveyard. I think it’s important that we remember who came before us and that some day we will be gone. Then all that our loved ones will have will be memories or stories or the odd picture (I hate having my picture taken – always have).
I love the fact that you can buy skeleton paraphernalia that depict your dead friends and relatives. I want to make a skeleton reading a book, hiding in the corner, surrounded by her cat and dog. This would be me; this is how I would want to be remembered even though the image is old. That was me over forty years ago though, on second thought, it’s me now too minus the cat and dog. Though I wish I could have a cat here in my apartment. Oh, how I ramble on!
So, Weekly Geeks asks are things getting a little more weird and creepy than usual. My answer would be no. My life has always been weird and creepy. I was a child in the sixties when trolls were a popular childhood toy, a teen in the seventies when Stephen King started writing horror but then again I’ve always been drawn to the Gothic. Never had the money for the wardrobe but horror is something I read widely in. And I covet the clothes.
Right now, I’m listening to Wicked and I must say my sympathies lie with Elphaba.
This weekend remember all of us are only here for a moment and can only hope that someone will remember us as we really were. Me, I’m weird and goth and like to hang out in graveyards.
Stargirl
November 29, 2009 at 5:34 pm (Book Commentary) (conformity, High School, Jerry Spinelli, love, peer pressure, Stargirl, Young Adult)
It starts, oddly enough, with a porcupine necktie and an anonymous act of random kindness. Have you ever noticed that such an act makes people uneasy? They’re not sure why but they don’t like anonymous acts … one assumes either that people want credit or that they have some sinister reason for wanting to stay anonymous.
Stargirl appears at Mica High School at the beginning of Leo’s grade 11-year. Stargirl is in grade 10 and up until now has been home-schooled. In the beginning, the school’s halls echo with “Stargirl”, “Stargirl” as the other students dissect her. Who is she? Where does she come from? Why is everyone enchanted by and curious about her?
Stargirl is an eccentric. She signs her name like this.
She comes to school wearing 1920’s flapper dresses, kimonos and no make-up. She plays the Ukulele and serenades the students, at lunch, with renditions of Happy Birthday. How does she know whose birthday it is? She has a pet rat named Cinnamon. She has a history of changing her name. Stargirl is weird, strange, goofy, unusual.
Leo tells us Stargirl’s story. He is a normal, average student at Mica High. Leo is enchanted by Stargirl and, like the rest of the student body, falls in love with her. Leo sees Stargirl as this “ray of light” involved in everyone else’s business. Stargirl gives secret anonymous gifts. She goes to the funerals of people she does not know. She pays attention to life! She has no ego and doesn’t care what other people think of her, or so Leo tells us.
Before Stargirl came to Mica High the school revolved around Hillari Kimble, cheerleader and most popular girl and Wayne Parr who is admired only because he is gorgeous – his aspiration is to be on the cover of GQ.
Stargirl energizes the school and the community. She gets people out to the football games, she becomes a cheerleader, and she roots for everyone … no matter the importance of their accomplishment. Herein lies her downfall … she roots for everyone, including the opposing team. The energy and originality that first made Stargirl seem enchanting and special in the eyes of her classmates ends up getting her shunned.
All this shunning upsets Leo more than it does Stargirl. Because he loves her he also bears the brunt of the school’s gossip and teasing. Taunts of Starboy echo behind him in the hallway and the things that made him love Stargirl now makes him want to change her. He tells her “we live in a world of them” implying that what matters most is how others perceive us.
To please Leo, Stargirl goes back to the name her parents originally gave her … she becomes plain, ordinary, everyday Susan. She looks like everyone else. She tries to act like everyone else. Her most important task becomes winning the speech contest. This will make her popular. She has to win, she must win, she does win. Nothing changes. Winning does not make her popular. Trying to be someone else does not make her happy. Susan returns to being Stargirl and Leo removes himself from her orbit.
However, Leo still loves Stargirl. He may no longer physically orbit around her but he is aware of what she is doing. Stargirl’s final showdown occurs at the Ocotillo Ball. She goes alone and in triumph ends up a legend, the belle of the ball. And then she leaves. Stargirl leaves school and her parents leave town. Still, in the end, Stargirl is forever embedded in the mythology of Mica High School and in Leo’s heart.
The voice of reason throughout this story is A. H. Brubaker, retired professor of paleontology. Archie the Bone Man, as the local teenagers who congregate at his house, call him.
It is in Archie’s shed that Stargirl keeps her office. Here are her files on people. Her “lovely treasure” as Archie calls it. Archie, like Leo, sees the enchantment behind Stargirl but also understands why others fear her. He tells Leo “You’ll know her more by her questions than by her answers.” Do we fear Stargirl because she has no ego and cares not how others perceive her? Do we wonder if we could be as happy as she is if only we didn’t care about how others saw us? How much of ourselves do we lose because we care so much about how we are perceived?
Because Leo cared how others saw him he lost Stargirl. Because the others cared they lost her as well. Leo, and perhaps everyone else, ends up seeking forever what they have lost.
Stargirl
by Jerry Spinelli
New York: Knopf, 2004
P. S. This is an old review and in searching for images I find that there are two sequels. (Or are there?) Yeah, more for me to read
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