Author: maherrv

This year for the festive season we visited family in Ontario. After flying into Billy Bishop City airport we ended up taking the GO train to Oshawa, and eventually north of Peterborough to the cottage country of the Kawartha Lakes. It was time to find our previous family homes from the 1990s in Peterborough and to remember canoe trips, North of the city.

The second week, we came back down to Scarborough and Toronto. This meant purchasing a Presto card and negotiating the links between the streetcars and the subway system. It is over fifty years since I had been immersed in this urban geography: walking down Yonge Street, visiting the Eaton Centre, window shopping at the Hudson Bay company, staying at the Chelsea Hotel.

On Sunday, we walked around the Don Valley Brick Works Park and visited the Future Cities Centre. Found a couple of interesting books on urban living. Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People. How social infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization and the decline of city life. I liked this quotation.

“Social infrastructure provides the setting and context for social participation, and the library is among the most critical form of social infrastructure that we have”. p.32

Second, Jeff Speck‘s book Walkable City. How downtown can save America, one step at a time. He has ten steps from ‘putting cars in their place’ to ‘plant trees’. Later in the week, we dropped into BMV, a second-hand bookstore and I found Zipp and Storring (Ed) Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs.

Within Greater Toronto, there are several YMCAs. This gave me a chance to address an old knee injury. So we went to an AquaFit class with my brother. Now, on my return to the Annapolis Valley, I must see what is available at the Fundy YMCA in Cornwallis Park.

For our last night in Toronto, we stayed at the Strathcona Hotel, which is near Billy Bishop airport. There, I found a collection of essays, edited by Stephen Katz. He was Professor, Sociology at the Trent Centre for Aging and Society. The book is Ageing in Everyday Life: Materialities and Embodiments.

“The authors of this book have backgrounds in social gerontology, geography, feminism, the humanities, social work, sociology, health and dementia studies which gives this diverse and interdisciplinary group critical access to the immediate world in which we live, the bodies we know and touch, and both the real and fantastic realms of existence with which we engage.” P.10

The country mouse has returned to the country. There is a significant stack of books to read, while the snow blows across the fields. The dogs will need to be walked. The orchard pruned. Visits to the nearest swimming pool. New technology to be mastered – common in the city, less so in the country.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to our extended family and friends for helping with our transition to city living. Patrick, Emily and family in Peterborough. Peter, my brother for the AquaFit experience. Carole, Jason and family, Julia and family for their generous hospitality in Toronto. Heather for her company and support. Edward for his contribution.

References

Eric Klinenberg.2018. Palaces for the People. Broadway Books.
Jeff Speck.2012. Walkable City. North Point Press.
Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring. (Ed) 2016. Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. Random House.
Stephen Katz (Ed) 2018. Ageing in Everyday Life. Policy Press.

Postscript

There are some take-home messages. The city mouse walks much more than the country mouse. There is much greater access to diverse facilities in the city: YMCA, theatres, libraries, universities, shopping centres, restored industrial space.

We went to New Glasgow for the weekend. After a beautiful drive through the Rawdon Hills we arrived in time for supper at the East Side Family Restaurant; followed by a movie at the Cineplex. We watched The Good Liar starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen.

Saturday morning we walked across town to the Farmers Market. Afterwards, we stopped at the New Glasgow Library. It has a much larger selection of books than in Lawrencetown, and I was able to sign out George Monbiot’s collection of short essays: How did we get into this mess? These essays, written over the last ten years, provide a detailed criticism of neoliberalism in British society. Given the library network in Nova Scotia, I can return it to my local library.

Later in the day, I received the link to a review of England’s Last Roar. On nationalism and the Election by Pankaj Mistra. It concludes with the following passage:

“England’s post-imperial reckoning feels harsher, largely because it has been postponed for so long, and the memories of power and glory are so ineradicable. In the meantime, the most important elections of our lifetime approach, and, as Orwell warned, ”a generation of the unteachable is hanging upon us like a necklace of corpses.”

On Sunday evening, it was a relief to return home to the Valley. To put one’s feet up, and watch on GEM, a recent Canadian documentary on Margaret Atwood, A Word After a Word After a Word is Power. The documentary is dedicated to her late husband, Graeme Gibson.

Acknowledgements

To Frank Fox for the link to the review by Pankaj Mistra. Another ex-Pat, trying to fathom the forthcoming election in the UK. Heather for her company on our travels. To Edward Wedler for online graphics.

References

The Good Liar. 2019. The movie starring Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen.
George Monbiot. 2017. How did we get in this mess? Politics, Equality, Nature.
Pankaj Mistra. Guardian Books. December 7,2019. Englands Last Roar: On Nationalism and the Election.
Margaret Atwood. GEM Documentary. A Word After a Word After a Word is Power.

Yesterday, my daughter, Laurel, was looking for a children’s book that she remembered from years ago to read to her boys. Heather checked the attic and found it. Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters. It is a wonderful example of imagination. It includes envelopes and letters to fairy-tale characters: the three bears, the wicked witch, the giant, Cinderella and Goldilocks. The letters are addressed and include stamps. It was published in 1986.

Later, I went online to see what other books they had written and illustrated since that date. And found The Jolly Christmas Postman.

Today, I pick up my mail from the post office box in Lawrencetown. It contains, bank statements, bills, advertising fliers and the weekly Guardian.

Meanwhile, through e-mail, I received two essays by Wendell Berry. From Emergence magazine, Berry’s 1989 essay The Pleasures of Eating and from Brain Pickings by Maria Popova, The Hidden Wound.

My final literary offering, that I pulled off the bookshelf is Heather Menzies’ Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good. A book that I picked up in 2015. Her memoir and manifesto could be seen as a response to the George Monbiot video (previous blog). The same is true of my emphasis on imagination.

If you have grandchildren or are simply interested in creative writing, check out the books by the Ahlbergs, go online, or visit Woozles bookstore in Halifax.

Acknowledgements

To Laurel for remembering a book from thirty years ago. To Heather, for keeping the family treasures. Edward for making the digital connections.

References

Janet and Allan Ahlberg. 1986. The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters. Little, Brown and Co.
Heather Menzies. 2014. Reclaiming the Commons for the Common Good. New Society Publishers.
Brain Pickings by Maria Popova. November 24, 2019: Kahil Gibran on silence, solitude and the courage to know yourself; Wendell Berry on delight as a force of resistance to consumerism and hardship.
Emergence Magazine. Issue #6 Food. The pleasures of Eating and Cooking.