When Things Go Right

Lindsay has a strong personality and distant relatives are always asking about her. So I posted the above video to YouTube last winter and titled it "Lindsay at Play". When I checked back, later that afternoon, it had had over a thousand hits! I was astonished.

Then I noticed its listing among "related videos" and discovered it was smack in the middle of ten videos about Lindsay Lohan. Not wanting our sweet dog in such company, my wife made me take it down. I recently reposted it with the subtitle, "How Lindsay Gets Burrs In Her Ears" and it gets no where near the attention.

I'm walking alone today, Lindsay accompanying me only in my thoughts. We are having family over for dinner tonight. However, my oldest daughter's son is allergic to dogs. His eyes swell, turn red and water painfully. So whenever they're coming over we have to board out Lindsay for the day and do a dramatic cleaning of the house. Both are difficult to do on week days when our employers actually expect us to turn up for work.

Fortunately for us, Nigel is only a couple of blocks away, is a former dog trainer for the Canadian Institute for the Blind, and loves to have Lindsay visit. He calls her "Monster" and Lindsay goes into paroxysms of delight when she sees him. So Lindsay will stay with him, out of the way for the evening.

I've been asked a couple of times about Lindsay's breed. Like Barack Obama she's a mutt. An English Springer Spaniel/English Setter mix. She is mostly Spaniel, but we don't give her the Spaniel cut and chose not to get her tail bobbed. As a result she has a beautiful tail, that, along with her ears, is a magnificent burr collector in the Fall.

We taught Lindsay to sit and lay-down and roll over; but most of what she knows she taught herself. She listens to us intently and it's astonishing the things she's picked up. When she was being irritable one evening, my wife got annoyed and told her, "Oh, Lindsay go to sleep!" And she did. We laughed, thinking it was just a coincidence; but no, Lindsay knew just what she was doing. And its become a handy little command to have in our tool kit.

Speaking of teaching dogs to "sit". When Lindsay was younger she was part of a dog walking group called Puppy Club. About twenty of us would gather with our dogs and take them for a run through the Rouge Valley on a Saturday morning. One woman was having problems with her dog and loudly and angrily ordered it to sit. Everyone of the twenty dogs promptly planted their bum on the pathway setting off a veritable earthquake of obedience. You probably felt the earth move where you live. Ubiquitous little command, that "Sit".

Anyway, thoughts of Lindsay as I finish my lonely walk. Lots more more to do before the family arrives. The weather forecast is for our first snow storm of the season tonight. Both our daughters live outside Toronto and won't drive if the weather is bad.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to the day.

When Things Go Wrong

It all went wrong. The entire day. Everything.

I'm taking Lindsay for a run this morning to unwind. My muscles ache but I push through the pain. Lindsay scampers on ahead, then comes running back to see what's keeping me.

Both Linda and I have 89 year old mothers living in the same retirement home. However, Linda's mother has been in serious decline over the past 6 months. Whether from stroke or dementia, its hard to know. But she's become very forgetful, and very slow, and very angry. Difficult for the staff to deal with. Difficult for us to deal with.

I trudge on through the snow. One step in front of the other.

A decision was made last month to move Linda's mom to the second floor, the extended care floor. We've put her name into a another facility, but it will be 4 or 5 months until a spot becomes available. Depending on how quickly people die off at the new facility or on their waiting list. Its a tough business, this caring for seniors.

We were to be notified when the move was to take place, so we could prepare her mother for the change. No sense preparing her too soon, she would only forget and get confused. And frightened. And angry.

Yesterday, Linda and I were looking forward to having coffee with Giorgio Di Cicco, the Poet Laureate of Toronto. I talked about that in my previous post. Linda loves poetry and was really excited. But an hour before the coffee, Linda got a phone call from the retirement home to say they had already moved her mother to the second floor and when were we coming to move the remainder of her furniture down to her new room?

"What!" I could hear Linda saying on the phone, "This was supposed to be organized. This was supposed to be a process. You were supposed to warn us!"

Well, it turned out, a room had come available and staff were free that day, so they had gone ahead with the move. Expediency trumps process every time. It was a half hour before we were to meet with Giorgio. Suddenly the day had gone from joyful to a nightmare.

I won't bore you with all the details. Linda went immediately to see her mother. I kept the appointment with Giorgio, but my head and my heart were with Linda. Linda had arrived to find her mother sitting on her bed in an otherwise empty room, wracked with both confusion and outrage. Two hours later, with Giorgio back off to the hundred acre "Hermitage", where he lives North of Toronto, Linda calmed her mother down while her brother and I moved the remainder of her mother's furniture down to the second floor.

It was rushed. It was exhausting. It was stressful. We had words with the staff; but of course, the woman who had made the decision to proceed with the move had already gone home. And won't be in today (Sunday) or Monday. She knows how to time somethings.

Usually a walk with Lindsay is magic, easing away both physical and emotional strain. But, somehow,there is no magic in our walk today.

Exploring A Creative Mind over coffee

Not all that long ago, in better weather than the cold rains of today, I was having coffee with Pier Giorgio Di Cicco at our new Starbucks in West Hill.

I see you're not impressed. His is not a household name in America, not here in Canada either and not even here in Toronto where he lives.

But I'm impressed. Di Cicco is the Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto. But it's not his poetry that interests me today, its his work as a philosopher of creative communities. Here is one of his quotes:

“There's no escaping the virtual project of the planet; keeping in mind that information technology enriches, extends our domain, generates wealth and makes life easier if not profound, we also recognize that it robs us of the indigenous, the flavored, the local. And that is the challenge of the contemporary city; the question of how to be international and at the same time unique.”

Di Cicco’s philosophy has found popularity in forums ranging from The Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, The Creative Cities Project of the Ontario and Toronto governments, to Waterfront Toronto to international conferences on urban sustainability. In 2005 he was appointed official "Curator" for the City of Toronto’s Humanitas project, a global showcase where Toronto will host its heritage, vision and strategy for global citizenship.

“The creative city is taken to mean different things. It means to prosper and to assert one’s heritage in a climate of adventure. It means innovation to those who would marry commerce and imagination. It means a welcoming city with places in which to relax, with people free to invent and encounter, through the arts, in public spaces and through architecture. But architecting a city is first about constructing the space between people, the metaphysical space, the way they feel about each other and for each other.”

Di Cicco's work has earned him numerous awards, including five Canada Council Awards, six Ontario Arts Council Awards and the City of Toronto Arts Award. He was recently appointed the Emilio Goggio Visiting Professor in Italian-Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto.

“For until we have architected the civic space between each other, we will inevitably put up bad buildings, confused infrastructure and obscure the project of city spirit.”

Di Cicco had come here to the West Hill area of Toronto to talk to us about the creation of a creative community and I had taken him for a tour to see our small section of the City for himself.

He is a man of ideas and vision who prefers things a little messy.

We need more of those.

In Praise Of Silence

On Sundays I take Lindsay for a special run through the Rouge Valley. Like people who are "bears in the morning" without their coffee, Lindsay is unbearable without a long run to tire her out. Otherwise her friendly nature and Spaniel energy are just overwhelming.

We pass a line of joggers running tirelessly along the trail, each and every one with an ipod filling the silence in their head.

Lindsay runs with them a way, until she realizes I'm not following. Then she turns and races back toward me, tail wagging like a metronome.

I don't own an ipod. I seldom turn the radio on in my car. When my wife isn't home, I never turn on the CD player. When I listen to music, I like to attend to it, fully.

Even here in the Rouge Valley, you can hear the city rumbling in the distance. But there is one pathway, off the beaten trail, that winds further down toward the river. At the bottom there is a silence so profound, you can hear yourself think.

Lindsay and I always take this path and sometimes I'll sit for a while on a fallen log and just be aware. At times we're joined by the wind, or chipmunks or a raccoon and even once had deer bound by us. Sometimes, if you just take the time to be still, the world comes to you.

SENSATIONS

About five yards ahead of us, the rabbit hasn't moved. It sits in profile, tall ears erect, its dark left eye watching Lindsay's every move, its nose twitching rapidly.

And then its gone. One single bound into the tall grasses by the side of the pathway and its as if the rabbit had never been. At my feet, Lindsay has finished her investigation of an interesting scent, her tail is back to wagging with excitement, and she looks up at me to ask why I'm standing still. She prances down the pathway a few feet and then looks back as if to say, "Come on, lets get going!"

So I start walking and Lindsay bounds on ahead, past the spot where the rabbit had been sitting. Catching the recent scent in passing, she backtracks, nose to the ground and is off on the trail. But the rabbit is now long gone.

I walk on, thinking about our senses. Lindsay has missed the rabbit right in front of her because she was turned into the sense of smell not sight. I'd been reading, a few days ago, that scientists had discovered that our brains tune out unnecessary sensation, to prevent distraction from our primary sense of sight. Put on clothes in the morning and we can feel the fabric against our skin. However rough or comfortable, however sensual our clothing feels, within minutes of dressing, our brains tune out that awareness.

For a moment I focus on the weight of the coat on my back, the slight itch of my scarf, the tightness of the hat on my head, the feel of the leather gloves on my hand, the constriction of my feet in my boots, the coldness of the air against my face.

But when I begin to listen to the distant grumbling of the city in the background, the crash of the waves at the bottom of the bluffs, the clicking of the branches in the tall trees, the squish of my feet on the muddy pathway, I realize my brain has already tuned out the feel of my clothing.

I struggle to both feel and listen at the same time. I can do it, kind of. But not well.

I'm a very visual and auditory person. My wife has a much greater awareness of aromas and tactile sensation. She will track me down in Sears to have me come over to feel an interesting fabric on a dress that has delighted her.

I remember our dinner at the restaurant last night, the air alive with wonderful aromas. The delicious warm taste of the food, the coolness of the wine glass. Linda momentarily reaching across the table to squeeze my hand as she tells a funny story about her day at work.

Then Lindsay comes crashing her way through the brush and tall grasses, returning from the rabbit hunt. She pushes her way back onto the path, twigs stuck in her tail and long ears. She shakes herself vigorously, loosening a few of the twigs, the rest she just ignores.

Interesting.

An Evening With A Poet

Celestial events marked the beginning and the ending of the meeting, like auguries from a Celtic past.

A sundog, that torn fragment of a rainbow, dug its technicolor blade into the earth on a 45 degree angle to the setting sun. A rare winter phenomenon never witnessed by me before.

It was March of this year and we were on our way to hear Pier Giorgio Di Cicco's talk on Creative Communities. I had worked hard to host this event here in the West Hill section of Toronto. Invitations had been sent to every school, church, political and community organization in the area. But we were fighting the walking wounded staggering home weary from a days work and a long commute back home to the suburbs. And, of course, girls night on American Idol. Given such adversaries, would anyone come?

Millie, at Sister's Restaurant, had donated her party room for the evening. The proviso was that we would have to set up the chairs ourselves. So we arrived early to our task, only to find the room already set up with only a few minor changes needed.

People trickled in and time raced toward the 7 pm start of the meeting. Had the sundog been an augury of success or failure, or just some random meteorological event? In the end, 25 people turned out in a room set for over 60. No teachers and only one church sent two people. A disappointment.

Pier Giorgio arrived, tired emotionally and physically from officiating at the burial of a friend. Although the Poet Laureate of Toronto, Giorgio was once a Brother in the Order of St. Augustine and is now a Roman Catholic Priest. The City Planner of Toronto had died suddenly and Giorgio had been asked to preside over his funeral. He had come to our meeting directly from that, dressed in his black suit and roman collar, the normal flamboyant clothing of the poet laid aside for his somber duties.

He went from table to table, engaging each individual in conversation. Who are you, why are you here (when so many others stayed in the comfort of their home), what do you want for your community?

He went to the lectern and waited patiently for my introduction. And then he began to speak. Hesitantly at first, struggling to find his way into his message. But then finding the heart of what he wanted to say, his voice gained strength, lifting the audience out of the drabness of suburban life into the promise of a vital community, where people spoke to each other, where artists found each other and contributed to the public space, where political will encouraged innovation and risk over safety, where messiness was tolerated and fears laid aside.

Here is the essence of his message: "Let's say an artist creates a piece of public sculpture, a red boot. You will find there are two reaction to this red boot--"Oh look, someone created a red boot and set it here on the sidewalk. Why would they do that? What a fun thing for someone to do!--or "Look at that stupid red boot, someone's going to stub their toe on that. We better get in touch with our City Councilor and have that removed."

You can have vitality or safety, human interaction or safety, growth or safety, a healthy community or safety. But you can't have both. Creativity is a messy and risky human endeavor but joyful and hopeful for all of that.

The meeting went on for two hours, with Giorgio having another two hour drive back to his home north of the City.

As we left the meeting, a lunar eclipse was nearing the 3/4 mark. We stood in the cold winter night, warmed by the meeting and the vibrant exchange of ideas that followed and watched the moon turn red. Like the statue of an old boot sitting on a sidewalk, just waiting for someone to stub their toe.

On A Leash

There are no thoughts of artistry this morning. There is no free time to take Lindsay for a run along the bluffs. I have an early morning meeting at my downtown office to learn a new software package, so I'm taking Lindsay for a brisk and brief run through the neighbourhood.

My pockets are full of bags for poop n scoop. I'll need them.

At the bluffs she ranges far ahead, criss-crossing the terrain, her rambling taking her three times my straight-line distance. She is a blur of motion.

On the leash, she is forever coming to a complete halt, arrested by irresistible smells, needing to mark her territory. I'm the one in motion. Pulling her forward against her will. She gives me a look that asks, whose walk is this anyway? But I have a train to catch and it runs on a schedule I have to keep.

Along the bluffs my thoughts range free. Here my thoughts are of work related issues, phone calls to make, e-mails to answer, clients to visit, problems to solve.

The wind has a bite to it this morning and a bitter taste, but the day will warm. The trees are almost barren of leaves and the world has a dull and deserted feel.

It isn't inspiring.

This isn't fun, this is a duty.

But that's life.