We have had a strange summer on the coast. People have complained that it hasn’t really felt like summer at all weather wise, and while it has been cooler, it has not been overly unpleasant. Mostly what is striking has been the quality of the air, which has never seemed to get warm enough to hold heat in the evenings. As we sleep outside in the summer time, this is not at all a problem, and the sleeping weather has been divine.
But it has been a strange summer for me on other scores as well. I have been working more than usual this summer, although not traveling, and while I appreciate the chance do some great work, I have missed my routine of long warm days at the beach, diving into a book, snorkeling in the coves and weed beds of Bowen Island and watching the berries ripen.
So this week we are on holiday, spending a few days at Harrison Hot Springs Resort with family for a birthday which is a lovely throwback in many ways (some of which require you to endure the resort’s traditions of diminishing quality – the Jones Boys and Red Rose Tea come immediately to mind) and from here we will head up to Princeton for BCs only real folk festival, the Princeton Traditional Music Festival.. Come there if you are nearby this weekend. It’s free and a phenomenal experience of traditional music in its proper setting – sung and shared by people. There is only an arbitrary line between performer and audience, and it’s wicked fun to erase it from time to time.
So it’s nice to have some time off. Apologies if you have been trying to reach me.
A nice quote from the website of an organization I am working with these days:
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
— Lin Yutang, Chinese author, inventor, and translator who was once detained at Ellis Island
“Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.”
— Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet
Long week here in Calgary and happy to be finally homeward bound. Starting with a quick flight over the mountains to Vancouver, train downtown, cab to Horseshoe Bay, followed by a ferry ride to Bowen and a quick ride home.
Nineteen years ago today I set off on a short walk on a beautiful Ottawa spring morning traveling about eight blocks from our apartment on Frank Street to my office on Cooper Street. For me it was the first day of work at the National Association of Friendship Centres and the first real salaried job I had since leaving university in August 1991. I remember the walk well, remember the warm morning, and the feeling that I was lucky to have landed a job with a great organization, especially after a winter of living on meager UI benefits. I knew then that, thanks to the determination of my friend Marc Maracle to hire me, my life’s work would unfold from this place.
And so it has. Working for the NAFC gave my crucial skills in beginning to practice facilitation, in beginning to see the true challenges of community work and in working for Aboriginal communities as an oshkebewis, an Anishnaabemowin word that means “helper of a medicine person.”. I identify strongly with that term as I often have the sense that my work is all about working with the medicine of community, finding ways to restore wellness and energy especially in places riven with conflict, fear and desperation.
I owe a huge debt of thanks to Marc for finding a way to hire me on that spring day and to my first boss Terry Doxtator and our board and staff. What I got from them was a solid grounding in skills and a generous and supportive place to practice. I consider myself a Friendship Centre success story, one of the many people across Canada who cut their teeth in the Friendship Centre movement and who have taken their skills and experience into the wider world. Everywhere I have travelled I talk about how important Friendship Centres are to the indigenous communities of Canada and I’m proud to embody that value.
So a big Nia:wen to Marc, wherever you are out there. One day you’ll find this post and receive once again the gratitude that I owe you for kicking me into the world with such fun, support, challenge and faith.