As a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s post, and as well, a basket full of other interesting health bits, check out Connie Howard’s piece in Vue Weekly.
Technorati Tags: Vue Weekly, Connie Howard
Rage and Road Mercy
This morning as I walked, I was witness to an instance of road rage. A man in a van, honking. Smashing the heel of his hand into his steering wheel. Pounding his fists on the dash. Yelling.
The air inside the van was finally too full to contain the tinder-dry rage and he opened his window to let it out. And out it came.
Everything–all of it venomous–all directed at one lady in a small blue car who misjudged the traffic light change and the line of vehicles ahead of her and wound up in the middle of the intersection preventing the van from pulling out.
The lady, wisely, stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the tantrum. Much the way, I’m guessing, she would refuse to acknowledge the tantrums of her preadolescent. But an adult male having a tantrum is a frightful thing.
I walked between the van and the car with some misgiving. The green stream carried on and finally tapered off a red light interval later. The intersection cleared and the van pulled away and left me wondering what this added and took away from his day.
What it is that sets us off?
Last evening over supper my son Mark told us about a construction site supervisor who perpetually speaks with a raised voice. It’s like he’s in a perpetual argument. Anger subsiding only in sleep. And perhaps not even then.
We are an angry bunch. This is an angry generation. We seethe. We hate spasmodically. We have scorn seizures. We curse within and we murmur audibly and beneath our breath.
We mouth breath in short gulps, the oxygen only reaching the top of our lungs, and the bile stays in our blood.
We conceal most of it, but occasionally–for some more often–it catches us in an instant and we find ourselves in the grip of an incendiary fit. The place for healthy venting having been lost.
Our desires twist us around their fingers. Our communal experiences are shallow. Violence is contagious, air-born, even recreational.
We have few models to counter all this. Certainly, for example, none in parliament. Question period produces enraged doubles. Everyone mirroring and mimicking each other–the object of debate being the debate. Any real dialogue is swallowed up and the issues long forgotten. We need to find our models beyond our "leaders."
![P1030359 [1024x768]](https://growmercy.org/wp-content/uploads/p1030359-1024x768.jpg)
We need refuge from our fear. We need a fortress from our miserly desires. Better, we need a mercy-light, and we need a love-light, held for us by someone with no axe to grind and nothing to prove.
We need to receive our lives back through a renewing of our desires…a reordering of desire through the eyes of someone without envy or rivalry. We need to open ourselves to someone with lots of time to wait at intersections.
Technorati Tags: Road Rage, Anger, Violence, Parliament, Question period, Father James, Beauty, Peace
Suite Subterranean Blues
…Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine / I’m on the pavement thinking about the government…
The first time I moved to Edmonton I lived in a basement suite. 1978, if you’re asking. Another life, another time.
Anyway, I had no idea our tenancy in that little sunless domain could have been illegal.
Apparently, 90% of Edmonton’s basement suite owners have no idea either; or if they do, they’ve have decided the rules surrounding their subterranean suites are silly.
But easing up on below-ground suites makes obvious sense and should be one more piece to our housing shortage solution. At least a few of the city’s "working poor," currently living in our shelters, would jump at the chance to rent a basement suite.
So if you’re listening dear City Council…grow mercy.
If you’re interested, here’s what this morning’s Edmonton Journal had to say:
City planners want to ease rules on basement suites…Cheap housing needed quickly
SUSAN RUTTANsruttan@thejournal.canwest.com
If the city wants to aggressively promote secondary suites it should encourage them in new houses, not just older ones, a new report states.
The report from the city’s planning department says roughing-in the wiring and plumbing for a secondary suite in a new house would cost about $3,000. Building a basement suite in an existing house can cost up to $25,000.
However, the narrow lots of some newer neighbourhoods may make the addition of secondary suites – and the parking the tenant will need – a bigger challenge there than in older neighbourhoods with big lots, the report says.
City councillors are holding a public hearing Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. on loosening city rules to promote more secondary suites. Basement suites – most secondary suites are in the basement – are seen as a quick way to provide cheap housing, which is in short supply in Edmonton.
In some cities, such as Calgary, promoting more basement suites has caused controversy. The Wednesday hearing may show what Edmontonians think about the idea, but so far, only a few people have booked time to speak.
Edmonton allows secondary suites only if the house is next to an apartment block or row housing, or is in an industrial or commercial area.
It’s the tight restrictions that council is considering changing. The report recommends the city set up a team to manage inquiries, develop programs and enforce new rules for secondary suites.
Getting approval for a secondary suite under existing rules has been tough, the report states. Of 30 applications made in recent years, only seven were approved. Most are opposed by neighbours.
There are thousands of secondary suites in the city, 90 per cent of them illegal.
The average price of a single family home in Edmonton has risen to $426,000 in May. Average price of a condominium in May was $266,000.
Apartment rents also are rising and the vacancy rate is 1.1 per cent.
Okay, regarding the Bob Dylan references:
A special Grow Mercy prize goes to the first person who can tell me what album the song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" first appeared on.
Rule: You can ask one friend but you can’t Google. (Except Jeff H. and Gary F., no asking at all.)
Technorati Tags: Homelessness, Working poor, Basement Suites, Edmonton City Cousil, Edmonton Journal, Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
Everyone needs a Poem
I’ve been adopted by a poem. By a line in a poem. And by a small entry on the flyleaf of the book where my poem lives.
Tuesday last, I’m lying on a grassy bank in Crescent park, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, rereading Wendy Morton’s Shadowcatcher. I pause at the flyleaf and find my direction, my dedication.
All books have flyleaves. Andrea told me that the flyleaf is one of the greatest of inventions. It hadn’t occurred to me but she’s right. Flyleaves give you a place to pause, to gather yourself for just a moment. They give you time to let your eyes adjust to the light, to sip wine before the meal. Otherwise a book begins too abruptly leaving you no personal space.
But the flyleaf is also the perfect place for a short hand written note, a thought, a personal dedication. I have this in Shadowcatcher. It says, to Stephen, "who waltzes in and out of what matters."
That afternoon, when I read my poem, and dreamt again of waltzing in and out of what matters, the fountain in the crescent watercourse turned bright blue.
You say I’m dreaming. And I say, "Of course, but it also happened just as I say."
And while the blue was spouting bright a swan swam by, and a couple walked by, arms linked, looking into the baby carriage they were pushing, and some kids were throwing bits of bread on the water."
Everyone needs a poem." For Wendy Morton, who commits random acts of poetry, this is close to a mantra.
I think, as well, everyone needs to see their name applied to the front of a book. A dedication, a declaration that you are here, and it matters.
Everyone needs a poem. Here’s mine:
Conversation above the Lake
"Will you sit here?" you ask me.
This is where you spend your afternoons,
watching the lake, the ospreys,
the double-crested cormorants,
in this room of silence and echo.
On the mantle, a ceramic dancer
bends in silhouette.
Your daughter, the dancer,
laughs in another room.
The voice of her sister,
who dreams of horses,
drifts in the air.
Our words move in time
to their voices,
as we waltz in and out of what matters:
what breaks the heart,
what heals it.
Everyone needs a poem.
And so when I came to the last poem in "Shadowcatcher," I left the grassy bank and waltzed down to a park bench, deciding to read it to the first person who happened by. It was a lady, white hair, seventy-five years old I guess.
I get her attention by asking her if anyone has ever read her a poem. She said, "Not once, never." I ask her if I could read her a poem. She smiles slow, and says, "Sure, yes, why not."
I read her "The Path." It’s a poem of ordinary memories of the land, of home, of old countries, of connections.
As I read I’m aware of my own odd excitement. When I finish I look up; she’s been smiling. I tell her I’ve just committed a random act of poetry. She smiles broadly and says, "Thank you," and continues on down the path.
Technorati Tags: Wendy Morton, Andrea House, Swans, Random Acts of Poetry, Shadowcatcher, Beauty, Peace