This is the start of a new thread or a series of conversations with myself (and anyone who happens to stumble across my ramblings).
I am thinking of moving.......again. I appreciate that thousands if not millions of people move every day. Many of them move even further away than I am thinking of. Of the millions of people who move each day, many if not most of them are gambling (and losing) far more than I am. But still, for me, moving is a big deal - even thinking about moving 500 kilometers to a different part of the province is mentally exhausting. Moving 5,000 kilometers across the country is almost beyond thinking about. The very thought of moving could make one question one's sanity. While I am surprised that I have I have come to the point where moving is a possibility, people I have talked to are not. In fact it seems as if they are surprised that it has taken so long for me to make the decision.
So why am I doing it? Why would anyone think about moving for the fifth time in 10-11 years? That is an absurd amount of work and expense. One could think, with some legitimacy, that I didn't know what I wanted or that I was infected with a particularly virulent form of the " grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. The fact of the matter is that I do know what I want (but what I want/need changes over time) and with one exception, I have only made the previous four moves after much soul searching, anxiety and profound reluctance.Three of the four moves have been painful and even as I watched the truck with all of my possessions drive away I would have done almost anything to change my mind. But I didn't then and I suspect that I will not this time.
I am 66. While my health, with one small exception is reasonably good, I can feel that my body (and sometimes my mind) is getting older. I don't move as much or as fast as I use to. While I like to think that I use my energy in a smarter, better planned way, the fact is that I have less energy to use. And there are certainly days when I wonder if my brain is deteriorating at a faster rate than my body.
I live alone, in a beautiful city with all of the needed supports. I have a great dentist, a doctor and a cardiologist. Peterborough has great food, music, two post secondary institutions, lots of green space and nice people. It is also five hours by road from my daughter and six ( not counting getting to the airport) hours by plane from where my son lives.When (not if) I need some help (as I age) both are too far away to help. If I needed a lot of help, they would have to make some major sacrifices to be there. While I know that they would want to help, it seems to me that that is far too much to ask.
It is not that I don't have friends in Peterborough - I do. Some of them I have known for well over twenty years. But most are my age. All are busy, all have families. I don't think that that they are that much healthier than I am. While it is tempting to fantasize that we would all grow old together - and then die around the same time - that seems an unlikely fantasy.
So if I need to move closer to family, and given that one "child" lives in central Canada and the other on the West Coast - where should I move to? It is not as easy of a question as it would seem to be.Moving
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #10
When I was first invited to Hornby a few years ago I was warned that one needed to get a ride from someone on the Buckley Bay to Denman ferry as there was very little chance of getting a ride from anyone once on Denman Island. Once the ferry traffic has disembarked from the ferry, there is no one else travelling to the other side of the island to catch the next ferry to Hornby. This complication was the primary reason why I had not visited Hornby. I don't like asking for a ride. I don't mind standing somewhere with my thumb out - if people choose not to stop - I don't feel as if it is a rejection of me personally. But if I ask them face to face and they say no - then it is a direct rejection. I prefer to not be exposed to such possibilities. It also feels like begging or asking for charity - I don't like that feeling either. Which may be a bit strange as I spend some summers travelling through the help/charity of other people.
I, because my hosts had picked me up in Nanaimo on their way to Hornby, had had no problem getting across Denman Island the first time. I was concerned however, about my return trip. On Wednesday morning my host drove me to the Hornby ferry terminal. He had only time to ask one driver if they were going all the way (the answer was no) before the ferry was loaded. I walked to the front of the small ferry and hoped for the best. I was the first off the boat and as soon as I could, I stuck out my thumb hoping that someone who was going across the island and ideally south on highway #19 towards Duncan would pick me up. I was fortunate in that the person who my host had spoken to took pity on me and while he hadn't planned on going to the ferry terminal, did so just to drop me off.
I was feeling pretty lucky and in my silliness assumed that the hard part of the trip was over. I was wrong. It is a bit of a hike up the hill from the Buckley Bay terminal to the entrance ramp on the highway 19 heading south. While I suspect the ambient temperature was about the same as it had been on the smaller islands, the lack of a sea breeze and the heat being reflected off of the dark pavement made it feel much hotter. Halfway up the ramp there is a notice saying that pedestrians (and farm machinery) were not allowed on the four lane divided highway. It is perhaps interesting to note that bicycles are allowed. The shoulders are very wide and are great for hitchhiking and biking. I remain unconvinced that someone on a bike is at less of a risk than a pedestrian. At the very top of the ramp there was a large sign stating that hitchhiking was not allowed and that drivers could get charged for stopping. Clearly not a spot that was conducive to getting a ride.
After experimenting with standing at various places over an hour or two - I gave up following the law by standing by the entrance ramp and headed down the highway for a kilometer or two. I felt that I needed to be far away from the sign warning drivers to have a reasonable chance of getting someone to stop. The speed limit on this part of the highway is 120 KPH. That is pretty fast and there were times when I wished the shoulders were a wee bit wider.
I got my first ride from a young lady from one of the First Nation communities. I say young because she looked no more than 16 - very small/petite. She was driving a large pick-up truck. Within a few minutes we had established that I knew her uncle on Salt Spring, that she had at least one child, and that I was her first hitchhiker (she had seen me from the back as I was walking along and thought I was a woman). It was a very efficient conversation. She was bright, enthusiastic about life - an absolute charmer. I think I must have misjudged her age by half a decade or so. She was just too mature and knowledgeable to be only 16. Just before she made the turn to Port Albernie (which meant that I had to get out), my driver said that she was doing some work developing a community plan for her community. I passed on some quick suggestions about lending cameras to the young people and the elders so that they could take pictures of their favourite parts of their community. This helps the planners develop community plans based on strengths as opposed to looking at what the community doesn't have. Community plans that evolve from strengths are always, in my mind, better than plans that evolve from deficits.
In relatively quick succession I got a ride from an older gentleman who had taught welding at the local community college for 18 years and a Duncan contractor who had a crew of three or four working for him. Each of the gentlemen were interesting and we could have talked for another hour or two without a break. In fact the last driver and I chatted in the parking lot of Thrifty's for ten minutes. It was a relatively short walk to my son's house and I was home by 4:30. It had been a long day. I had only travelled a fairly short distance but it was a tricky hitchhike considering that I had had to cross two islands, take two ferries and encourage three drivers to ignore a really silly law about not stopping to pick up hitchhikers.
I, because my hosts had picked me up in Nanaimo on their way to Hornby, had had no problem getting across Denman Island the first time. I was concerned however, about my return trip. On Wednesday morning my host drove me to the Hornby ferry terminal. He had only time to ask one driver if they were going all the way (the answer was no) before the ferry was loaded. I walked to the front of the small ferry and hoped for the best. I was the first off the boat and as soon as I could, I stuck out my thumb hoping that someone who was going across the island and ideally south on highway #19 towards Duncan would pick me up. I was fortunate in that the person who my host had spoken to took pity on me and while he hadn't planned on going to the ferry terminal, did so just to drop me off.
I was feeling pretty lucky and in my silliness assumed that the hard part of the trip was over. I was wrong. It is a bit of a hike up the hill from the Buckley Bay terminal to the entrance ramp on the highway 19 heading south. While I suspect the ambient temperature was about the same as it had been on the smaller islands, the lack of a sea breeze and the heat being reflected off of the dark pavement made it feel much hotter. Halfway up the ramp there is a notice saying that pedestrians (and farm machinery) were not allowed on the four lane divided highway. It is perhaps interesting to note that bicycles are allowed. The shoulders are very wide and are great for hitchhiking and biking. I remain unconvinced that someone on a bike is at less of a risk than a pedestrian. At the very top of the ramp there was a large sign stating that hitchhiking was not allowed and that drivers could get charged for stopping. Clearly not a spot that was conducive to getting a ride.
After experimenting with standing at various places over an hour or two - I gave up following the law by standing by the entrance ramp and headed down the highway for a kilometer or two. I felt that I needed to be far away from the sign warning drivers to have a reasonable chance of getting someone to stop. The speed limit on this part of the highway is 120 KPH. That is pretty fast and there were times when I wished the shoulders were a wee bit wider.
I got my first ride from a young lady from one of the First Nation communities. I say young because she looked no more than 16 - very small/petite. She was driving a large pick-up truck. Within a few minutes we had established that I knew her uncle on Salt Spring, that she had at least one child, and that I was her first hitchhiker (she had seen me from the back as I was walking along and thought I was a woman). It was a very efficient conversation. She was bright, enthusiastic about life - an absolute charmer. I think I must have misjudged her age by half a decade or so. She was just too mature and knowledgeable to be only 16. Just before she made the turn to Port Albernie (which meant that I had to get out), my driver said that she was doing some work developing a community plan for her community. I passed on some quick suggestions about lending cameras to the young people and the elders so that they could take pictures of their favourite parts of their community. This helps the planners develop community plans based on strengths as opposed to looking at what the community doesn't have. Community plans that evolve from strengths are always, in my mind, better than plans that evolve from deficits.
In relatively quick succession I got a ride from an older gentleman who had taught welding at the local community college for 18 years and a Duncan contractor who had a crew of three or four working for him. Each of the gentlemen were interesting and we could have talked for another hour or two without a break. In fact the last driver and I chatted in the parking lot of Thrifty's for ten minutes. It was a relatively short walk to my son's house and I was home by 4:30. It had been a long day. I had only travelled a fairly short distance but it was a tricky hitchhike considering that I had had to cross two islands, take two ferries and encourage three drivers to ignore a really silly law about not stopping to pick up hitchhikers.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #8
My three days in Hornby were delightful. There was an upstairs room in the charming little house that I could have slept in but I choose to sleep out in the front yard in my tiny bivy sack. It rained a bit the first night, but the other two nights were warm with thousands of stars twinkling, visible between the leaves of a big old maple. It was amazingly quiet - with the exception of some unusually raucous crows, and a mother and her baby calf bawling over their forced separation, I could lay there for an hour in the morning and not hear a sound. It was quite delightful.
It must be a generational thing but my hosts who are of a similar age to my son and his wife, are not early risers either. They have managed to train their10 week old baby to follow the same sleep patterns as my West Coast grandchildren follow. Late to go to bed and late to rise. I kind of like it in that it gives me an hour or two in the morning to read or write without others puttering around or me feeling the need to be social.
While on Hornby I went for a number of walks to the nearest "beach" or just down the road for 45 minutes because I was curious as to what was there. There were, while not enough blackberries on the bushes beside the road for a meal, enough to satisfy my craving. The air was warm, sometimes veering towards hot, but there was always enough of a breeze to make it feel comfortable.
The first night my host and I went to a winery just down the road where there was a reggae dance. Reggae is not my favourite type of music but the crowd was into the music and it was fun to watch the folks dance. There was a young man who joined the band with his trombone. I don't know if trombones are a usual reggae instrument but this kid was good and well worth listening to. As we drove home we talked about this specific musical genre, why it is important and how it has been carried around the world. I still don't get but I do appreciate the energy that it generates.
On one of the days we walked along a nature trail that followed the cliffs. Looking out in between the trees one can see Denman Island and then further on, Vancouver Island. It is interesting to note that while Hornby Island is quite hilly and of course Vancouver Island has whole mountain ranges, Denman Island in the middle is as flat as the proverbial pancake.
Hornby Island, while it is home to approximately 1500 permanent residents, is far busier than that. Hornby is a major tourist destination. What few stores and restaurants there are are focused on collecting as much money possible in the few summer months. There is of course that love/hate relationship between the locals and the residents. The two food stores, the paved roads, the frequency of ferry service and the income of many of the residents is a direct result of the visitors and their willingness to spend money. The fact that the beaches, the roads and the stores may be busier than one would like is a small price to be paid compared to all of the benefits.
Hornby Island, like some of the other Gulf Islands has created an image of itself that it sells to outsiders. It is an image of being somewhat laid back, relaxed, perhaps almost hippy like (this laid back relaxed atmosphere extends to having a nude beach). The tourist love it - perhaps because it is not really an act at all. Hornby struck me as a place that was pretty laid back.
It must be a generational thing but my hosts who are of a similar age to my son and his wife, are not early risers either. They have managed to train their10 week old baby to follow the same sleep patterns as my West Coast grandchildren follow. Late to go to bed and late to rise. I kind of like it in that it gives me an hour or two in the morning to read or write without others puttering around or me feeling the need to be social.
While on Hornby I went for a number of walks to the nearest "beach" or just down the road for 45 minutes because I was curious as to what was there. There were, while not enough blackberries on the bushes beside the road for a meal, enough to satisfy my craving. The air was warm, sometimes veering towards hot, but there was always enough of a breeze to make it feel comfortable.
The first night my host and I went to a winery just down the road where there was a reggae dance. Reggae is not my favourite type of music but the crowd was into the music and it was fun to watch the folks dance. There was a young man who joined the band with his trombone. I don't know if trombones are a usual reggae instrument but this kid was good and well worth listening to. As we drove home we talked about this specific musical genre, why it is important and how it has been carried around the world. I still don't get but I do appreciate the energy that it generates.
On one of the days we walked along a nature trail that followed the cliffs. Looking out in between the trees one can see Denman Island and then further on, Vancouver Island. It is interesting to note that while Hornby Island is quite hilly and of course Vancouver Island has whole mountain ranges, Denman Island in the middle is as flat as the proverbial pancake.
Hornby Island, while it is home to approximately 1500 permanent residents, is far busier than that. Hornby is a major tourist destination. What few stores and restaurants there are are focused on collecting as much money possible in the few summer months. There is of course that love/hate relationship between the locals and the residents. The two food stores, the paved roads, the frequency of ferry service and the income of many of the residents is a direct result of the visitors and their willingness to spend money. The fact that the beaches, the roads and the stores may be busier than one would like is a small price to be paid compared to all of the benefits.
Hornby Island, like some of the other Gulf Islands has created an image of itself that it sells to outsiders. It is an image of being somewhat laid back, relaxed, perhaps almost hippy like (this laid back relaxed atmosphere extends to having a nude beach). The tourist love it - perhaps because it is not really an act at all. Hornby struck me as a place that was pretty laid back.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #7
I went to Hornby Island for a few days. There are two things about the trip that seem to stand out for me. One is that it is a very pretty island with lots of beaches, extraordinary views and nice people. Secondarily Hornby is incredibly hard to get to and from if you don't have money and a vehicle.
Friends from Hornby had invited me to visit them a number of times. As much as I wanted to visit, getting there always seemed to be too much of a hassle. However as they were in Vancouver on Sunday and heading back through Nanaimo, it seemed to be too good of an opportunity to be missed.
I ended up spending a couple of hours at the ferry terminal at Nanaimo. It is, quite frankly, not that interesting of a place to spend a few hours in or around - except for the people. The terminal was quiet for an hour and then as it came close to when the ferry was docking/leaving things got a bit more exciting. It was specifically interesting to watch people running towards the ticket terminal with seconds to spare. It was even more interesting to watch their faces as they found out that BC Ferries' policy of people needing to be there ten minutes before boarding time was being enforced. Some of the people who had missed that cut off time by well over ten minutes were so angry. They would tell anyone within earshot how unfair it was that they were not allowed to board. I wondered to myself if these were the same people who complained when the ferry was running late.
In spite of the entertainment provide by these unjustifiably angry want-to-be passengers, I was glad when my hosts-to-be texted me saying they were just about to disembark and where was I waiting (any comment as to my inability to text quickly or accurately would be woefully inaccurate no matter how many words I used to describe my fumbling).
Buckly Bay is about 90 minutes north of Nanaimo. It is a small harbour whose only function is to provide a brief home for the ferry that goes to Denman Island. While that ferry uses diesel oil to power its way across the narrow channel, by next year there will be a ferry that is winched across using a thick cable. From the little I have read about the proposed ferry, the users of the present system wish that some other community were used for the experiment.
During the short 15-20 minute ride across the channel, all of the locals get out of their cars and continued the conversations that started while waiting for the ferry to load. Then they get back into their vehicles, disembark - drive across Denman Island which takes ten or fifteen minutes, get on another ferry for an equally brief ride and then disembark again. The whole trip takes just another an hour. I suspect they spend at least a third of that time driving or loading and unloading. If one doesn't know anyone, or is not brazen enough to ask for a ride, one could easily be stuck on Denman Island for an extended period of time. As far as I could see, there was little to do see or do on Denman Island. It is just a flat little island that is stuck between Hornby and Vancouver Islands. Of course there could be more to it, but I did not see it.
Friends from Hornby had invited me to visit them a number of times. As much as I wanted to visit, getting there always seemed to be too much of a hassle. However as they were in Vancouver on Sunday and heading back through Nanaimo, it seemed to be too good of an opportunity to be missed.
I ended up spending a couple of hours at the ferry terminal at Nanaimo. It is, quite frankly, not that interesting of a place to spend a few hours in or around - except for the people. The terminal was quiet for an hour and then as it came close to when the ferry was docking/leaving things got a bit more exciting. It was specifically interesting to watch people running towards the ticket terminal with seconds to spare. It was even more interesting to watch their faces as they found out that BC Ferries' policy of people needing to be there ten minutes before boarding time was being enforced. Some of the people who had missed that cut off time by well over ten minutes were so angry. They would tell anyone within earshot how unfair it was that they were not allowed to board. I wondered to myself if these were the same people who complained when the ferry was running late.
In spite of the entertainment provide by these unjustifiably angry want-to-be passengers, I was glad when my hosts-to-be texted me saying they were just about to disembark and where was I waiting (any comment as to my inability to text quickly or accurately would be woefully inaccurate no matter how many words I used to describe my fumbling).
Buckly Bay is about 90 minutes north of Nanaimo. It is a small harbour whose only function is to provide a brief home for the ferry that goes to Denman Island. While that ferry uses diesel oil to power its way across the narrow channel, by next year there will be a ferry that is winched across using a thick cable. From the little I have read about the proposed ferry, the users of the present system wish that some other community were used for the experiment.
During the short 15-20 minute ride across the channel, all of the locals get out of their cars and continued the conversations that started while waiting for the ferry to load. Then they get back into their vehicles, disembark - drive across Denman Island which takes ten or fifteen minutes, get on another ferry for an equally brief ride and then disembark again. The whole trip takes just another an hour. I suspect they spend at least a third of that time driving or loading and unloading. If one doesn't know anyone, or is not brazen enough to ask for a ride, one could easily be stuck on Denman Island for an extended period of time. As far as I could see, there was little to do see or do on Denman Island. It is just a flat little island that is stuck between Hornby and Vancouver Islands. Of course there could be more to it, but I did not see it.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
On the Road Agan 2015 Interim #6
I have for years whenever I left the house worn two necklaces. One necklace has been very visible. At least once a semester one of my more courageous students would ask where I got the stone from and surprisingly, store clerks frequently comment on it. Whenever I have time I am glad to share the story of where the stone came from and why, I somewhat compulsively, wear it all of the time ( the short story is that the stone comes from the B.C. beach where I found my son - he wasn't lost, I just didn't know where he was; the long story involves two separate trips across the country, a man named Reg and some angels).
The other necklace has been far less visible. In fact, I suspect that most of the people who know me, never knew that I had a small red necklace fairly high around my neck, well under my beard. I got the small, irregularly shaped meteorite at the International Rainbow Gathering at Maniwaki, Quebec in 2004 from a elder of the Quebec Family. His long dreads were gray, his skin dark and his English was limited. Every day for the twelve or so days I was there he and I met somewhere on the trails and shared a few words about the weather, the food or the numbers of eagles that had been seen flying overhead. Somehow this temporary connection became very important to me. Certainly on more than one occasion, when it was getting towards dusk and we had not met, I went and looked for him. Just before I left to return back to Ontario, he gave me two stones, meteorites from a field in Mexico. One of the stones is just smaller than a tennis ball. It sits amongst my other treasures on my grandmother's wicker trunk. The other stone was much smaller. When he gave it to me, he told me to always wear it around my neck.
The stone is very irregular in shape. It took numerous tries for me to find a way to tie my macrame knots so that I would not lose the stone. As the strings became worn from the constant rubbing against my neck, I have re-made the necklace three times in the past 11 years.
This past weekend that necklace fell off of my neck while I was at a Pow Wow. I don't have a clue where it happened. I didn't even bother to go back to look for it. The grass was too long, there were lots of people there and I had wandered around the grounds for over two hours. It is not the first time that it has become undone (or more likely it was never done up properly in the first place) but every other time I have felt it become lose or heard it fall. In the past few week this coming undone has happened more than a few times. It is almost as if it was telling me it was times to let go.
I keep on telling myself that the person found it, liked it and that they will wear it for while before it gets passed on to someone else. I keep on reminding myself that eleven years is a long time to own a stone, and that it was well past time that I gave up at least one of my compulsions or obsessions. I know in my mind that no one ever really owns a stone - that they are lent to us for awhile before they must be returned to where they came from or at least passed on to someone else. But I miss wearing it. I miss knowing that it is there, around my neck, hidden from the world like some ancient good luck charm only visible to the Gods.
Perhaps most of all, I am afraid that losing the stone means that I will forget about that magical Gathering and my somewhat tenuous connection to the elder with the grey dreads .
The other necklace has been far less visible. In fact, I suspect that most of the people who know me, never knew that I had a small red necklace fairly high around my neck, well under my beard. I got the small, irregularly shaped meteorite at the International Rainbow Gathering at Maniwaki, Quebec in 2004 from a elder of the Quebec Family. His long dreads were gray, his skin dark and his English was limited. Every day for the twelve or so days I was there he and I met somewhere on the trails and shared a few words about the weather, the food or the numbers of eagles that had been seen flying overhead. Somehow this temporary connection became very important to me. Certainly on more than one occasion, when it was getting towards dusk and we had not met, I went and looked for him. Just before I left to return back to Ontario, he gave me two stones, meteorites from a field in Mexico. One of the stones is just smaller than a tennis ball. It sits amongst my other treasures on my grandmother's wicker trunk. The other stone was much smaller. When he gave it to me, he told me to always wear it around my neck.
The stone is very irregular in shape. It took numerous tries for me to find a way to tie my macrame knots so that I would not lose the stone. As the strings became worn from the constant rubbing against my neck, I have re-made the necklace three times in the past 11 years.
This past weekend that necklace fell off of my neck while I was at a Pow Wow. I don't have a clue where it happened. I didn't even bother to go back to look for it. The grass was too long, there were lots of people there and I had wandered around the grounds for over two hours. It is not the first time that it has become undone (or more likely it was never done up properly in the first place) but every other time I have felt it become lose or heard it fall. In the past few week this coming undone has happened more than a few times. It is almost as if it was telling me it was times to let go.
I keep on telling myself that the person found it, liked it and that they will wear it for while before it gets passed on to someone else. I keep on reminding myself that eleven years is a long time to own a stone, and that it was well past time that I gave up at least one of my compulsions or obsessions. I know in my mind that no one ever really owns a stone - that they are lent to us for awhile before they must be returned to where they came from or at least passed on to someone else. But I miss wearing it. I miss knowing that it is there, around my neck, hidden from the world like some ancient good luck charm only visible to the Gods.
Perhaps most of all, I am afraid that losing the stone means that I will forget about that magical Gathering and my somewhat tenuous connection to the elder with the grey dreads .
Saturday, August 8, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #5
I like city buses. Well, that is not quite true. The seats are not all that comfortable, buses can be noisy, they take forever to get to where I want to go, my movements are confined by the bus's schedule and route and I have absolutely no control over anything that happens on the bus. In fact using the public transportation system is not always fun. But I do like the idea of public transit. I like the idea of everyone paying a bit of money to get to where we need to go. I like the idea that in terms of the environment, city bus travel is a great way of travelling distances that are too far to walk. And I like that while on a bus there is a sense that I belong to a greater community than usual. For me the negatives of city bus travel are far out weighed by the positives.
My six year old grandson had never been on a bus. I suppose that in this day and age that is not all that surprising or all that unusual. My son, other than the school bus, never rode a bus until he left home to go to college in the city. I am pretty sure that my daughter-in-law who was also raised in a rural area has never ridden a city bus. For trips around the town it is so much more convenient to get into one of their two (admittedly old and falling apart) vehicles than to plan their brief trip around a bus schedule that at best is inconvenient.
I decided that it was time that my grandson saw what bus travel was like. He might always live in a city or town and like so many others, decide that he does need/can not afford a car or like me, to be lazy enough to enjoy someone else driving him around. He had always lived with the convenience of a car it would, I thought, be fun for him to ride a bus.
It is not often that I get the chance to see a brand new experience through the eyes of a young boy. While I do engage in new activities, those activities are almost always extensions of a previous experience. All of the new skills that I have developed in the past 10 years in weaving, hitchhiking, wood carving or teaching are the result of 60 plus years of living. None of those activities was, in itself, a completely new experience.
For my grandson, riding on a bus was a completely different experience - one that was unique from any previous adventure. Everything was new - from having to get ready to a specific schedule, (and then having to wait for the bus}, where to sit, or what to look at. There were countless questions to be asked such as why were there black straps hanging from bars or if there were no seat belts, wasn't it dangerous or my favourite - did the bus stop at Tim Hortons? All of those questions ( and so many more) were completely outside his realm of knowledge.
I think that adults forget how complicated the world is. We have long ago lost the sense that there really are brand new things to learn, things that are so unique, that we need to develop a completely new set of skills just to function. Our entire educational system is based on the concept of building blocks, of learning new skills that are based on previously learned skills. It is good to be reminded that sometimes we just need to trust that we will learn and adapt even when what we are diving into is outside of anything that we have learnt. I am not saying that taking one's first bus ride is a particularly remarkable experience or that because of it my grandson's world is forever changed in a profound way. But it was a learning experience and perhaps most importantly for all learning experiences...... it was fun. In fact it was so much fun that we went for another even longer bus trip the next day.
My six year old grandson had never been on a bus. I suppose that in this day and age that is not all that surprising or all that unusual. My son, other than the school bus, never rode a bus until he left home to go to college in the city. I am pretty sure that my daughter-in-law who was also raised in a rural area has never ridden a city bus. For trips around the town it is so much more convenient to get into one of their two (admittedly old and falling apart) vehicles than to plan their brief trip around a bus schedule that at best is inconvenient.
I decided that it was time that my grandson saw what bus travel was like. He might always live in a city or town and like so many others, decide that he does need/can not afford a car or like me, to be lazy enough to enjoy someone else driving him around. He had always lived with the convenience of a car it would, I thought, be fun for him to ride a bus.
It is not often that I get the chance to see a brand new experience through the eyes of a young boy. While I do engage in new activities, those activities are almost always extensions of a previous experience. All of the new skills that I have developed in the past 10 years in weaving, hitchhiking, wood carving or teaching are the result of 60 plus years of living. None of those activities was, in itself, a completely new experience.
For my grandson, riding on a bus was a completely different experience - one that was unique from any previous adventure. Everything was new - from having to get ready to a specific schedule, (and then having to wait for the bus}, where to sit, or what to look at. There were countless questions to be asked such as why were there black straps hanging from bars or if there were no seat belts, wasn't it dangerous or my favourite - did the bus stop at Tim Hortons? All of those questions ( and so many more) were completely outside his realm of knowledge.
I think that adults forget how complicated the world is. We have long ago lost the sense that there really are brand new things to learn, things that are so unique, that we need to develop a completely new set of skills just to function. Our entire educational system is based on the concept of building blocks, of learning new skills that are based on previously learned skills. It is good to be reminded that sometimes we just need to trust that we will learn and adapt even when what we are diving into is outside of anything that we have learnt. I am not saying that taking one's first bus ride is a particularly remarkable experience or that because of it my grandson's world is forever changed in a profound way. But it was a learning experience and perhaps most importantly for all learning experiences...... it was fun. In fact it was so much fun that we went for another even longer bus trip the next day.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #4
I have, in the past, made a few comments as to the ever increasing difficulty in hitchhiking on Salt Spring Island. I have hypothesized that as people move to the island because of its charm, culture and sense of community, these newcomers have chosen not to engage in one of the activities that made SSI so unique. It has been frustrating in the last 10-12 years to see more and more SUVs with only one person in it, pass me by.
I may have been wrong abut my assumptions.
I have spent 9-10 days on Salt Spring this summer and the travel back and forth between Vesuvius , Ganges and Fulford has been great. I don't think that I have waited more than five minutes for a ride all summer. I think there are a number of reasons for this sudden change in hitchhiking luck. One is that there is now a superb bus system on Salt Spring. While it would be nice if the buses ran more frequently, it is a highly reliable and affordable system. I think that many of the people who use to hitch, now have the option to take the bus, thereby reducing the number of people with their thumbs out. However, I suspect there are many like me who stick their thumbs out at a bus stop while waiting for the bus to come. I think I got on the bus just as often as I got a ride from a stranger.
Secondly, while I kept no record, I suspect that at least some of my most frustrating hitchhiking experiences on the island happened on the weekend or during peak times. It is highly possible that many of the people passing me by were in fact tourist, not locals. I had much better luck this year hitching throughout the week, and hitching when it was likely that people were going to where I wanted to go. This year I stopped worrying about the ferry traffic, in fact I made it a point to not hitchhike when it was likely that cars coming off or going on the the ferry would be racing by.
But there is a possible third reason. I look different than I use to. My beard is far more grey than it use to be. Perhaps I have gone from a dishevelled, bearded, road weary traveller to someone who might look as dishevelled and as road weary as ever, but who now looks old and therefore worthy of rescuing. I would, of course, like to pretend that I am more attractive or at least more interesting looking than I use to be. But that, even to me, would be stretching the imagination.
Regardless of the reasons why, I must apologize to the drivers of Salt Spring for maligning their willingness to pick me up. The fault may have been all mine.
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