So I've decided to give up on Edmonton. I realize that's probably not surprising given the tone of my last few posts. But there it is. I give up. I've met some cool people here. I've found some good projects. I could build a life here and surround myself with awesome people doing awesome things. Awesome people and awesome things I really believe in. But nothing can ever change the fact that this is Edmonton. Nothing can ever change the fact that in order to get to those awesome people and awesome things I'll have to exist in Edmonton, riding the bus with Rednecks, trying desperately not to overhear their mind numbing conversations. Nothing will ever change the fact that this is Edmonton, and I hate it here. And life's too short to live somewhere you hate.
The only thing keeping me here, the only reason I convinced myself it was a good idea to come back, is the tar sands. The guilt and humiliation I felt when I realized that the worst development project on earth was happening where I was from. An American friend in Scotland once told me that she liked to think of herself as from America, as in, not there anymore. That's how I feel about Edmonton, about Alberta. I'm from Alberta, but I don't, can't and won't belong here anymore. And as for the tar sands, maybe I can find a way to fight them from afar. I can't be the kind of activist I want to be here anyway.
The way I look at it, activism can be divided into two camps. There are actions that aim to destroy something negative, activists who fight against the things they don't like in this world. And there are actions that create something positive, activists who devote their energy to creating the world they do want. Don't get me wrong, it's far more complicated than that. Most of the best actions contain elements of both destruction and creation. And that's good, because both are needed. But in general, each action, each activist, each campaign has a focus. In Alberta, there's a lot to fight against. A lot of things I'd like to see destroyed. And there are people out there fighting. But I'm tired of fighting. I'm not even sure I ever really enjoyed it.
Looking back at all of the activism I've done, I see now that it was never the fight that was important to me. Sure, blockading the road into an Icelandic aluminium smelter and stopping a full shift change of workers was a lot of fun. But what was important to me was how we got there. How the entire thing had been planned by consensus. How a group of like-minded and passionate people had assembled from all over Europe to work together. And how we had refused to go ahead with any plan until everyone felt comfortable with it. The most important thing I took away from my time in Iceland was the experience of the temporary community we created. That while the focus of the Saving Iceland campaign was to fight against heavy industry, we were at the same time creating a model for the world we wanted to see, planning our destructive actions using methods and systems we believed in.
Without the simultaneous creation of a life I want to live, I find it difficult to remember what it is I'm fighting for. And it's become obvious to me that I can't create the life I want to live here in Edmonton. Because of the way the city is, because of the way I am, because it's the city I grew up in and will always seem boring to me, because I can only grow vegetables four months out of the year. So I give up. Right now my plan is to run off to Vancouver Island and build myself an earthship. But for the last few months my life plan has been changing almost weekly, so I'm still open to suggestions. I am the “Las Vegas Wedding Chapel of Personal Identity” after all.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Monday, 16 February 2009
"LRT" stands for Lunatics Ride the Train
My daily morning commute to work involves getting on the LRT* downtown, riding it across the river, and getting off at the university. I squeeze my way out of the crowded train doors and am propelled up the escalator camouflaged among the hoards of university students hurrying to their morning classes. Most mornings I spot someone I went to high school with. I remember their faces, but not usually their names, and I never speak to them. We sit across from each other plugged into our respective ipods pretending we're not recognized. I imagine them wondering what happened to me after high school, wondering what it was like to go to university in Scotland if they even knew that that's where I went. I'm always impressed by the fact that they don't seem to have aged a day since we graduated. Still the same kids living at home with their parents, riding the bus to school, clutching the lunch their mother had packed for them that morning. It's probably an unfair assessment. I'm sure that they've all grown up just as I have, and I acknowledge that my perception is more about me feeling good about the decision I made to leave right after high school than it is a reflection of or a judgement about their lives.
One day I was on my way home from work, and as the train approached my stop I decided on a whim not to get off. This was back when I was still culture shocked and trying to re-learn the city. I realized that while I had ridden the train to the university and back nearly every day, I had never gone past the downtown core in the other direction. So I stayed on. I crossed over the tracks (literally and figuratively) and rode the train all the way to the end of the line. I peered out the window at the part of Edmonton where the other half lives. And I watched with fascination as a mother and her son sitting across from me ate their dinner. The mother carefully placed her backpack on her lap, gracefully unzipped the bag, and pulled out their meal. She unwrapped a bottle of water from within a plastic shopping bag – a protective layer which I wouldn't of thought necessary, but which for her seemed only natural. She took out a knife and fork, and cut her son's piece of pizza into bite sized chucks before handing the styrofoam take-out box over to him. She then proceeded to eat her own slice of pizza, holding it by the crust with a napkin to avoid getting grease on her fingers. And when she was done with her pizza, she took out a can of pop. Almost obsessively, she wiped down the can with a clean paper napkin. Still unsatisfied with its cleanliness she reached into a pocket in her bag and pulled out a straw. That's right. She drank root beer out of a pop can with a straw. But this is where things started to get weird. After carefully unwrapping the straw and placing it in the can, she dropped the paper wrapper on the floor. They finished eating, she re-wrapped the water bottle and mindfully placed in right way up in her bag, she wiped down the straw and put it back into it's pocket, she scrutinized her son's face for crumbs and scolded him for getting tomato sauce on his sleeve. And when their stop came they got up and left; leaving the mess of used napkins, the straw wrapper, the pop can, and the styrofoam box behind them.
Shortly after they got off I noticed a woman digging in her purse for her keys as we approached the next stop. Now above ground, she pointed her remote car starter out the window to what I assume was her car in the 'park and ride' lot next to the LRT station. I had forgotten those existed – remote car starters that is. They're a Canadian thing.
I was now at the end of the line, and I waited for the train to go back in the other direction again to take me home. The way back was less eventful, but I did notice a man standing in the doorway wearing a baseball cap that said “Redneck” across the front. When he turned around I noticed that he had the same thing embroidered on the back of his trench coat, and I silently but seriously questioned my decision to move back to this city.
*Edmonton's pathetic excuse for an underground/overground subway a.k.a. “Light Rail Transit”. It only has one line, and off peak it only runs every 15 or so minutes, give or take as much as it likes.
One day I was on my way home from work, and as the train approached my stop I decided on a whim not to get off. This was back when I was still culture shocked and trying to re-learn the city. I realized that while I had ridden the train to the university and back nearly every day, I had never gone past the downtown core in the other direction. So I stayed on. I crossed over the tracks (literally and figuratively) and rode the train all the way to the end of the line. I peered out the window at the part of Edmonton where the other half lives. And I watched with fascination as a mother and her son sitting across from me ate their dinner. The mother carefully placed her backpack on her lap, gracefully unzipped the bag, and pulled out their meal. She unwrapped a bottle of water from within a plastic shopping bag – a protective layer which I wouldn't of thought necessary, but which for her seemed only natural. She took out a knife and fork, and cut her son's piece of pizza into bite sized chucks before handing the styrofoam take-out box over to him. She then proceeded to eat her own slice of pizza, holding it by the crust with a napkin to avoid getting grease on her fingers. And when she was done with her pizza, she took out a can of pop. Almost obsessively, she wiped down the can with a clean paper napkin. Still unsatisfied with its cleanliness she reached into a pocket in her bag and pulled out a straw. That's right. She drank root beer out of a pop can with a straw. But this is where things started to get weird. After carefully unwrapping the straw and placing it in the can, she dropped the paper wrapper on the floor. They finished eating, she re-wrapped the water bottle and mindfully placed in right way up in her bag, she wiped down the straw and put it back into it's pocket, she scrutinized her son's face for crumbs and scolded him for getting tomato sauce on his sleeve. And when their stop came they got up and left; leaving the mess of used napkins, the straw wrapper, the pop can, and the styrofoam box behind them.
Shortly after they got off I noticed a woman digging in her purse for her keys as we approached the next stop. Now above ground, she pointed her remote car starter out the window to what I assume was her car in the 'park and ride' lot next to the LRT station. I had forgotten those existed – remote car starters that is. They're a Canadian thing.
I was now at the end of the line, and I waited for the train to go back in the other direction again to take me home. The way back was less eventful, but I did notice a man standing in the doorway wearing a baseball cap that said “Redneck” across the front. When he turned around I noticed that he had the same thing embroidered on the back of his trench coat, and I silently but seriously questioned my decision to move back to this city.
*Edmonton's pathetic excuse for an underground/overground subway a.k.a. “Light Rail Transit”. It only has one line, and off peak it only runs every 15 or so minutes, give or take as much as it likes.
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Happy Valentine's Day
Almost exactly one year ago I was staying at a squatted social centre, residence and community garden on the outskirts of Barcelona. Can Masdeu, the autonomous self-sufficient commune I alluded to in my last big post, changed the way I see the world. I'm only now, a year later, beginning to understand how deep an impact my time there had on who I am as a person and the way I want to live my life. And I was barely there for a week.
It's a magical place where work means sitting outside in the garden picking carrots to eat for dinner that night. Sitting outside in the sun. Wearing a t-shirt. In the middle of February. A place where the washing machine is powered by a bicycle, and where everyone does the dishes. While I was there I noticed that the community had a group meeting scheduled, the sole purpose of which was to plan the next meeting. But I'd rather live in a world where I get to help plan the meetings, than in this world where I don't know when and where the meetings are, as if I'd be allowed to take part even if I found them.
My experience at Can Masdeu was one of innovative sustainability. A vision of the future I want to see. A concrete example I can now relay to skeptics who label me a crazy hippie with my head in the clouds. But that's only half the story. Only part of why the experience has made such an impact on who I am. The story begins with why I was even there in the first place - a loss of innocence story my high school English teacher Mrs. Douziech would be proud of.
In a fairy tale romance I had followed my Dutch Anarchist lover there. I had met him the week before in a squat in Amsterdam, and he was twelve years my senior. I couldn't make this shit up even if I tried. By all accounts it was the craziest thing I'd ever done. The most impulsive. The most liberating. Probably the stupidest. But it was exactly what I needed to do.
I was reminiscing about all of this at the beginning of this week. Remembering how it had felt to surrender to life, to follow my heart. To experience an intense connection with someone I barely new and to not question it. To not worry about who he was or why it was happening or what it all meant. But to just trust the chemistry and to follow it to wherever it would take me.
While our romance was short lived, and although he plays no significant part in my life anymore other than the odd update email, that relationship will always stand out as one of the most important experiences of my life. For what he taught me about life and about love, and for the places, people, and ideas he introduced me to.
And after all this reminiscing, I got to thinking about the relationship I had been in for the last couple months. It was nice. I was comfortable. He was a good friend. But I had never intended it to become what it did. I never intended to be his girlfriend. There was never anything passionate and exciting about it. I was never swept off my feet. But I enjoyed his company and was happy to have someone to curl up with and to watch Battlestar Galactica with late into the night. Before I met him I had been desperately lonely, pining for the friends and life I had left behind in Scotland. Something about the normative monogamous relationship sucked me in. But that night of reminiscing made me realize that something was missing. That I had been settling for something nice but not wonderful. And I wrote this in my Journal:
"I need more space. I need my sandwich back. There's too much dependence, too many assumptions. I'm bored. I'm feeling stifled. Labeled. Boxed in."
Twenty four hours later he dumped me. So I guess we were both about ready to move on.
The night we broke up I went over to my best friend's house for celebratory gin and tonics, and of course to cry a bit. I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't sad. But it was a nice letting go sadness. I missed him, but it felt right to let him go.
I woke up at five the next morning with a tinge of a hangover and couldn't get back to sleep, so I lay in bed for two hours thinking. What I realized was that what I was most upset about was not about losing this guy, but that now that my distraction was gone, I would have to deal with the fact that I'm actually really unhappy living in Edmonton. I've tried to make it my home, I've tried to put down roots, I've tried to skate on it's surface, and nothing I do makes my existence here pleasurable or meaningful. My relationship with Edmonton is very much like my relationship that just ended. It's comfortable and easy. Edmonton is like a good friend that will always be here for me when I need it, but there's nothing passionate or exciting about it. I want to fall in love with a place. I want a city to sweep me off my feet and show me a way of life I can't turn down.
I have a one way ticket booked to London for the beginning of June. I don't think I'm coming back again.
It's a magical place where work means sitting outside in the garden picking carrots to eat for dinner that night. Sitting outside in the sun. Wearing a t-shirt. In the middle of February. A place where the washing machine is powered by a bicycle, and where everyone does the dishes. While I was there I noticed that the community had a group meeting scheduled, the sole purpose of which was to plan the next meeting. But I'd rather live in a world where I get to help plan the meetings, than in this world where I don't know when and where the meetings are, as if I'd be allowed to take part even if I found them.
My experience at Can Masdeu was one of innovative sustainability. A vision of the future I want to see. A concrete example I can now relay to skeptics who label me a crazy hippie with my head in the clouds. But that's only half the story. Only part of why the experience has made such an impact on who I am. The story begins with why I was even there in the first place - a loss of innocence story my high school English teacher Mrs. Douziech would be proud of.
In a fairy tale romance I had followed my Dutch Anarchist lover there. I had met him the week before in a squat in Amsterdam, and he was twelve years my senior. I couldn't make this shit up even if I tried. By all accounts it was the craziest thing I'd ever done. The most impulsive. The most liberating. Probably the stupidest. But it was exactly what I needed to do.
I was reminiscing about all of this at the beginning of this week. Remembering how it had felt to surrender to life, to follow my heart. To experience an intense connection with someone I barely new and to not question it. To not worry about who he was or why it was happening or what it all meant. But to just trust the chemistry and to follow it to wherever it would take me.
While our romance was short lived, and although he plays no significant part in my life anymore other than the odd update email, that relationship will always stand out as one of the most important experiences of my life. For what he taught me about life and about love, and for the places, people, and ideas he introduced me to.
And after all this reminiscing, I got to thinking about the relationship I had been in for the last couple months. It was nice. I was comfortable. He was a good friend. But I had never intended it to become what it did. I never intended to be his girlfriend. There was never anything passionate and exciting about it. I was never swept off my feet. But I enjoyed his company and was happy to have someone to curl up with and to watch Battlestar Galactica with late into the night. Before I met him I had been desperately lonely, pining for the friends and life I had left behind in Scotland. Something about the normative monogamous relationship sucked me in. But that night of reminiscing made me realize that something was missing. That I had been settling for something nice but not wonderful. And I wrote this in my Journal:
"I need more space. I need my sandwich back. There's too much dependence, too many assumptions. I'm bored. I'm feeling stifled. Labeled. Boxed in."
Twenty four hours later he dumped me. So I guess we were both about ready to move on.
The night we broke up I went over to my best friend's house for celebratory gin and tonics, and of course to cry a bit. I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't sad. But it was a nice letting go sadness. I missed him, but it felt right to let him go.
I woke up at five the next morning with a tinge of a hangover and couldn't get back to sleep, so I lay in bed for two hours thinking. What I realized was that what I was most upset about was not about losing this guy, but that now that my distraction was gone, I would have to deal with the fact that I'm actually really unhappy living in Edmonton. I've tried to make it my home, I've tried to put down roots, I've tried to skate on it's surface, and nothing I do makes my existence here pleasurable or meaningful. My relationship with Edmonton is very much like my relationship that just ended. It's comfortable and easy. Edmonton is like a good friend that will always be here for me when I need it, but there's nothing passionate or exciting about it. I want to fall in love with a place. I want a city to sweep me off my feet and show me a way of life I can't turn down.
I have a one way ticket booked to London for the beginning of June. I don't think I'm coming back again.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Zizek on Roots
"What I like is that the solution is the boat. What is the definition of boat? Is that it doesn't have roots. It's rootless. It floats around. That's the solution. We must really accept how we are rootless. This is for me the meaning of this wonderful metaphor. Boat. Boat is the solution. Boat in the sense of you accept rootless. Free floating. You cannot rely on anything. You know, it's not a return to land. Renewal means you cut your roots."
Slavej Zizek in a documentary on the film "Children of Men".
Slavej Zizek in a documentary on the film "Children of Men".
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