Don't misunderstand me

I am glad that people in New Brunswick are discussing the closure of the Morgantaler abortion clinic in Fredericton.  We have been too comfortable for too long, with the Liberals and Conservatives in agreement that women seeking abortions must obtain 'permission' from not one, but two doctors, in order to receive a publicly funded abortion.

I would like to make a few comments on the issue, because I feel that not talking about abortions in New Brunswick is ultimately very harmful.

1. I know women who have had abortions.  So do you. They made this difficult decision because they thought it was best for themselves, and did not want to subject their child-to-be to a life of poverty, uncertainty, dysfunction or misery. It is a choice that weighs on them, and women carry this psychological burden even when they know they made the right choice given their circumstances.

2. None of these women used an abortion as a 'convenient method of birth control'.  Who would want their body being the site of such a power struggle, among their own emotions, and in the eyes of society?

3. We judge women much too harshly, given the hurdles that they have to overcome.  Many men (and other women too) do not treat them with respect, and put them in situations where the only choice is between bad and worse.  When a woman who has been mistreated much of her life becomes pregnant, with no support system, why do we blame her only, when her circumstances have created an endlessly complicated and heartbreaking situation?

4. Why are politicians in charge of the choices women make with their own bodies?  Do men need permission to have vasectomies?

5. I have pro-life friends and I greatly respect their positions.  It is sad that women feel they will not be supported during pregnancy and the post-birth period.  But the sad reality is, many women are alone.  So the choice to abort a pregnancy is one that must remain.

6. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The forest and the trees (once again)

I've spent a fair amount of time dealing with forestry-related issues on this blog.  Forestry is the biggest sector of the economy in NB, and many people in my family have been involved in 'the woods,' as we call it.

The Alward government is getting ready for the election this fall. They have had an extremely difficult economic situation to deal with, no doubt about that.  When all those chickens from past years started coming home - Point Lepreau, NB Power, highway tolls (we're still paying, we just don't pay at the booth) - it sure wasn't pretty.  And with an aging population, poor literacy and health rates and a lack of new entrepreneurs, it's a tough sell to convince people that you're the party that will lead New Brunswickers to jobs, prosperity and health.

That being said, the elephant in the room provincially has been, and likely always will be, the woods. Europeans started coming here for the trees and Crown Land is still our greatest resource.  And like any resource, access is power.

We are currently in the midst of a very intense and long-running debate about who those trees are for and who should benefit from them.

Is it First Nations?  The people who scholars say still have legal title to land they have never ceded?  My feeling is that over the next decade, the Supreme Court of Canada will be asked to rule on this.  The treaties exist but my understanding is they presently are not being respected.

Is it the people of New Brunswick?  A few years ago, the government commissioned a new study about how people use the woods and found that people have a high recreational value for the woods, and that they believe Crown Land should be used for the benefit of communities, not only to create jobs but also to provide habitat for wildlife and a place for people to enjoy nature.  The (Graham) government didn't allow this report to be released, and cancelled the meetings that were supposed to be held so people could engage with this report.

Or is it for forestry companies?  It is so hard not to be cynical about this.  Especially after attending several presentations involving forestry execs who tell us patronizingly that if we don't find a way to change public policy, the big mills will have to shut down.  Like a parent wagging his finger at small children who just will never 'get it.'

They use the 'jobs' as a threat and a weapon, while conveniently ignoring that our forestry industry is one the most highly mechanized in the world, meaning it takes a whole lot of clear-cuts to create even a few jobs. The reality is that maple syrup, value-added products, furniture, wood pellets, all these "niche markets" have a greater potential to create jobs from Crown wood than more clear cuts.

What I would like to know is: how does the government of a province that is deeper in debt every year justify losing money on Crown Land?  The reality is, and several former cabinet ministers have publicly stated this, that our tax dollars are going to PAY companies to cut down the Crown Land, process it in private mills, and keep the profits in private bank accounts, some of which are offshore and not even subject to Canadian taxes.

New Brunswickers are probably not aware that the Irving family is one of the top five landowners in the world.  Meaning they own a bigger share of planet Earth than almost anyone, excepting certain royal families and American corporate kings.

This latest forestry announcement is terrible news for our province.  The jobs and investment being discussed here are going to cost the taxpayers piles of money, and do nothing to advance the values New Brunswickers have articulated, time and time again.  The impact on wildlife, public land and  the public purse will not be pretty. New Brunswickers need to get educated on this subject - no aspect of public policy will have a bigger impact than this.

Toronto, and Montreal

Don't worry, this isn't a hockey post.

I was fortunate to experience the miracle people call "vacation" last week.  It meant some time off - from emails, from obligations and set schedules, from housework and best of all from "the daily grind." They call it a grind for a reason, that feeling that if it doesn't stop soon you'll be ground down into a fine powder, untraceable forevermore.

Melodramatic?  Yes, a bit, but sometimes I can't help myself.  Especially when it's been years since I had a real vacation, with the luxuries listed above. So off we went, my sister and I, piled into the car with a list of friends to visit and nothing else particularly on the agenda.  What a beautiful relief!

First stop, Montreal.  La belle province.  Avec mes belles amies.  How wonderful to share time with intelligent women who are coming up in the world, who are a pulverizing combination of brains, beauty, hard work, wit, and charm . . . . the list goes on.

I am not convinced the world is fully ready for these women - educated and competent, ready to make an important contribution to society but still dealing with a society that thinks blonde doctors can't be in charge, or that you can't sound divine if you don't look perfect. But the world is going to have to deal with it, and while many people spend their time worrying about the effect Miley is having on their daughters, they are missing the myriad of role models right in front of their faces.  It's the glacier effect, slow-moving but inescapable transformation over time.

Montreal seems different to me this year.  We spent our honeymoon there in early fall 2010.  Maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe it's the long winter everyone seems to be cursing, but there seemed to me a black cloud hanging over the city this time.  My initial perception, being a political junkie, is that maybe this whole "Charter of Values" has really hit a sore spot, and people in Montreal are feeling the edge of a political wedge that is being driven into their city and the province as a whole.

On the street, I heard a random man say "I don't want to hear people in English," then switching to French. And although I was only there a short time, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being judged as outsiders, and not quite measuring up. People seemed weary, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why.
The joie de vivre I have experienced so many times before seemed noticeably absent.

This all in contrast to Toronto . . . stay tuned for part two, hopefully this week.

Culture, despair, hope and change

Seems like lately I am reading a lot of (mostly justified) outrage on facebook: the senate, fracking, Rob Ford etc.  It's so easy to despair, with the constant stream of bad news.

Yet I also feel an undercurrent of small positive changes is taking place in how people relate to each other and the planet.  If you are sad about the state of the world, try reading the introduction to this book. It's a great perspective that holds the two in balance.

Yesterday, I listened to an audiobook about how to be more effective at work (hint: no meetings!) and one the things that jumped out at me was the author's statement about culture.  He said:

You can't create a culture.  Culture is formed from repeated behaviour.

He then went on to give the example that if you're taught to share when you're a kid, you grow up with a culture of sharing.  Which made me think: what kind of culture do I live in, and what kinds of cultures do I reinforce every day with my actions?

I was talking to a gentleman last weekend at Music NB about how difficult it has been for Saint John to support a live music venue.  He remarked that he didn't feel anglo culture was as "collegial" as Acadian culture, and I would tend to agree with that.

Part of what Tracy and I are trying to do with our business is to create a cultural space where people can be creative, and where ideas out of the mainstream can take root.  In practice, this is a very difficult task, one I will be puzzling over for a while to come.

One of the biggest questions I am dealing with right now is how to get people to work together, how to make it practical and natural for people to support each other and build a resilient community.  There is loads of potential, and I think these questions are on the minds of many people.  The journey continues.

Is the Internet really a game changer?

I realize the irony of putting this topic out for discussion online, but that's kinda the point of this one.

I've spent three of the past six weekends at various provincial AGM's - for ArtsLink NB, the Union of NB Municipalities, and Music NB weekend. At home, normally I'm on the organizational side of events, so it's been interesting to be a fly-on-the-wall at these meetings.

A few observations:

1. It's increasingly important to speak both English and French or at least have a decent working knowledge of both official languages.  Especially in the cultural sector, because the Acadian community is so organized and we in Anglo NB have much to learn from them.

2. The biggest challenges to our successes in NB - regardless of industry - are geography and communication.  It's extremely difficult to keep people in the loop, even with today's social networks and communication technology, in a province where people are so spread out.

Add to that the fact that most people go about their day-to-day routines trying to block out excess information in our media-saturated environment, and the result is that people who have common economic or organizational interests are frequently isolated from each other.

3. On the other hand, finding information is easier than ever, for people who go looking.  This means that challenging official narratives and information - shale gas being an important case in point - is being done more frequently.

At these events, I am often the only person from rural western New Brunswick. Sometimes I find people from the cities have a tendency to explain things to me that I am already aware of, because I read it online.  I read a lot online, mostly because I am too endlessly fascinated by how the world works to quit.

Sometimes I would like to tell these people that "we have the same Internet in Woodstock."

This leads me to wonder: is the internet really a game changer?  ie. Will having access to lots of information really help people in rural areas and small towns be more self-sufficient, better citizens, and create thriving centers of cultural and economic innovation?

Or is it the old maxim "it's not what you know, it's who you know" still true?

I have to admit, I feel like meeting two or three good new contacts accomplishes a lot more than being alone in a room, reading a screen.

I can see how people want to share information and work together, and the internet does facilitate those kinds of collaborations.  However, I don't think it can ever replace the social ties and weak social capital that come from random encounters with colleagues (I met someone I'd been trying to meet in an elevator at one of the conferences - finally) or being in the same room when a major announcement is made.

Does the internet help us build communities based on common interests?  Or does it just isolate us more?

Problem solvers wanted

We all have problems.  Sometimes, big problems.  And in my short 18 months on the Woodstock Town Council, I have noticed that we hear from people mostly when they have a problem.

Being an elected representative is pretty interesting, but you start to grow a thick skin, because you become a bit of a magnet for angry people.

I can identify with the 'angry person' camp, but now that I have a small role to play in local decision-making, I see how raw anger is really only the first stage in solving a problem.

It's a natural way for people to get motivated to speak up that something is wrong, but being angry on its own does very little to correct the situation and often serves to demoralize the other people involved.

Today I spent about five hours in various meetings related to how to improve Woodstock's downtown.  It was very heartening, despite the challenges that exist.  I find it really heartening to be in an environment where local people can speak frankly about problems that they see, with the goal of moving towards collective action and possible solutions.  If local people don't take responsibility for solving local problems, do we really think that higher levels of government can do a better job?  I have my doubts.

I wish our society had better methods of collective problem solving, and that we could value the process of getting together to improve things for the common good. We should encourage our young people to learn and practice good problem-solving skills.

It's not easy, solving real-life problems.  Most of the time, solutions can't simply be purchased, they have to be tailored to fit the particular local circumstances at hand.  This requires creativity, compromise, putting aside one's biases and learning to listen to other viewpoints.

The five hours I spent today are a fraction of the real time it's going to take to make a significant impact on the issues in downtown Woodstock.  But it's a reminder that change occurs when real people have a shared interest and are willing to set aside their differences and work together on something that matters to them.

Too often we forget that, and take our metaphorical toys and "go home" because we do not feel able to be part of a constructive proccess.  It's tempting to say screw it, but in the end, we all lose.  Anything worth having, is worth speaking up for, and is worth solving a few problems along the way.

Thirty-something and seeking change

Lots on my mind lately, not much time to digest those thoughts...so many tasks at hand.

But lately I am feeling a bit out of touch with the currents of change, which for some strange reason are very important to me.

I would really like to figure out a way to get the next generation of young people involved with cultural change in my community.  I can think of loads of things they might be interested in : starting a community radio station, contributing to the Dooryard Arts Festival music lineup, organizing a Freeschool event, the list goes on....the potential is limitless and I'm sure these energetic twentysomethings will have loads of other great ideas too.

I don't want to get stuck in a rut and always think the same thoughts and talk to the same people...

Losing Our Voices

We teach a lot of people to sing.

Which is to say, we attempt to assist a lot of people who claim to want to sing.

We give advice.  We cajole and reassure.  We demonstrate, and encourage, and smile, and give feedback in an attempt for our students to attain some knowledge about what they are doing (physically) and why they sound the way they do.

It's a very difficult task, for a couple of reasons.

First, the voice is the most personal of instruments.  You can't see it, you can't tune it artificially, and you can't trade it in for a newer, or older, or more expensive, or more 'vintage' voice.  You play the vocal cards you're dealt, friends, and sometimes that can be tough.  If you want to change your voice, you have to do the work.  The long, complicated, frustrating, joyful and oftentimes lonely work.

Second, our society, in my opinion, does not value authentic voices, and by that I mean "voices that are not contrived to sound a particular way that the performer assumes the listener will like".  We all have unique bodies.  Therefore we all have unique voices, because our voices are embodied.    We are afraid to stand apart from the herd, or to sound differently.

We now live in an era where women in popular music sing in a similar range to men - Carrie Underwood - and men rarely sing down in their lower registers - no more Johnny Cash. Sopranos (with the notable exception of Alison Kraus) and basses are a thing of the past.

Third, as a consequence of #1 and #2, people are so hesitant to sing.  They do not trust their bodies, and they do not trust their voices.  They are afraid to be heard, and to take the physical and emotional risks it entails to make a sound and have someone hear it.

It is heartbreaking.

We regularly see parents seeking music instruction for their children.  These people are lovely people whose intentions are heartfelt.  But they won't sing with their own kids, so their children never learn to vocalise in a manner that resembles singing, because the parents are too afraid.

I often wonder if there is a connection between this lack of singing and the larger public ambivalence we see - very few people will speak up when 'the powers that be' overstep their bounds, and people seem incredibly reluctant to add their voices to the public discourse on many issues.

It brings to mind sayings involving singing and birds.  The first is from a novel by Farley Mowat, which I have not read, and yet, somehow I seemed to know.  Apparently this novel is a fictionalized account of the Italian campaign to liberate Italy from facism during WWII:

 "I was staring down a vertiginous tunnel where all was black and bloody and the great wind of ultimate desolation howled and hungered. I was alone....relentlessly alone in a world I never knew....and no birds sang."

Lately I have been waking in the early morning hours, hearing the birds, and falling back asleep again.  Many composers (notably Mozart and Messiaen) were student of birdsong.  The second quote was often found at the bottom of one of my professor's emails during university.  This particular professor was eminently practical, and understood the beauty of choral music: the whole is more than the sum of its parts

  "Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang  best."  Henry VanDyke

More on college

Here's an update - an encouraging look at what happened when the kids mentioned below received a substantial amount of information about colleges, prices and application procedures.

I think I can

Some friends have been asking if my blog is dead... and just when I thought I had nothing more to say, I read this very interesting study.  It says that low-income students who are high achievers don't typically even apply to top US colleges.  

So what? No big surprise there, for a number of reasons:  college is substantially more expensive at these institutions, and students from low-income families are often needed at home to help out, whether financially, or to care for other family members. Or, these students do not even know anyone who has ever attended a selective elite college.

But, surprisingly, the study, which involved every high school student who took the SAT last year, also found that when these students do attend top colleges:

high-achieving, low-income students tend to thrive there, the paper found. Based on the most recent data, 89 percent of such students at selective colleges had graduated or were on pace to do so, compared with only 50 percent of top low-income students at nonselective colleges.

I find this galvanizing, for several reasons. First, because I believe the education system tends to be biased towards people coming from middle class and wealthy families.  I don't believe this is necessarily intentional, but is the result of teachers coming from these backgrounds, and the overall design of the system (curriculum, testing, etc.).  

As John Mighton puts it in his fabulous book "The Myth of Ability," our society has largely accepted the notion that intelligence is an innate gift, not something that comes through good teaching and individual practice.  This bias, along with children from low-income families being less "ready" for school in the early years, we sometimes mistakenly accept the conclusion wealthier families have "smarter" children.

However, when we acknowledge that all children are equally intelligent and that a child's economic class should not be a limiting factor in their education,  we can see the low-income, high achieving students who are encouraged to apply to top universities excel in that environment.  The role of parents, teachers, community mentors and guidance counsellors is clear: encourage these young people to aim high.  They can do it.

Another interesting facet of this study: the vast majority of these students (nearly 70%) are white.

Affirmative action in the the US is currently defined by race, and indeed, this ought to be a component of the criteria.  But in an era where social inequality is rapidly increasing, kids from poor white families are not able to access the same educational (and thus, financial) advantages as their wealthier counterparts.  I am not minimizing the need for affirmative action based on race, but at the same time, the social barriers faced by working class white families are intense, and perhaps it's time for "affirmative action" to be reformulated as a combination of known barriers, race and class included.

If you are interested in this topic, I would also recommend reading Richard Sennett's excellent book "The Hidden Injuries of Class," which takes a great account-based look at working class families, their educational decisions, and why they tend to, as noted in the Times article "stay local" instead of embracing upward mobility and leaving their families behind.

It is refreshing to see a study that takes a look at a very under-studied group of students: high achievers from low-income families.  It reminds us that all humans are capable of achieving a meaningful education, but that the choice to take advantage of that opportunity depends in large part on whether we are encouraged to do so by our peers and by our elders.

Have a merry little downtown Christmas . . . in Woodstock

When Nick and I go on vacation, we usually take long walks, browse in bookstores, buy a treat, get a pint or a glass of vino and take it easy.  Isn't it nice to feel like you're "off the clock" for a while?  My life seems to be on the go all the time, with piano teaching being mostly evenings, and church and associated public duties on weekends.

But occasionally things slow down, and it makes me very grateful.  Since the closing of Fusion Cafe in July, we've been spending more time at home, and missing the chance for random social encounters, not to mention the live music.

So, I've started to feel a bit housebound this past week and last night Nick and I bundled up and hiked down to the new used bookstore downtown.  We were there for about an hour - the selection is good.  We mostly read old stuff and Nick is into psychology and science books.  I got my first novel by Oscar Wilde, some Irving Layton poems and a book by Austin Clarke.

Then we went a little farther up the town hill over to the Freshmarket grocery store and got some blueberry pastries to go with today's breakfast.  The air was crisp, the Christmas lights were twinkly, and it was all very charming.  Came home and curled up with little nip of scotch and read our books.

I'd just like to point out that currently the Woodstock Farm Market is open six days a week, with local food for sale.  And that we have a knitting and art supply store on the corner of Connell and Main, which is right next to a natural food store....not too far from the take-out sushi joint on the other side of the street.

For a little town, we do pretty well.  Next week I plan to get over to the new "Celtic Fox" coffee shop in Kerry O'Toole's gallery.  So, before you spend all your bucks driving downriver or "over across," take an hour to wander around downtown and see what you can find.

All Soul's Eve

My grandmother died at home.  She had been diagnosed with terminal cancer in early summer that year, and was gone shortly after Labour Day.  The wait went on long enough for people in the village to come and pay their respects before she passed, and there was no wake afterwards.  Her ten children all came home and took shifts caring for her, under the direction of one of my aunts, who is a retired nurse.

It was a difficult time, of course, but in the end it was a blessing for her to die at home surrounded by family. My grandfather, her husband, had passed away two years earlier - collapsed in the garden that spring. No hospital, very little suffering.  Although I miss them both dearly, I am very glad that they lived long full lives and didn't spend weeks and months in institutions, waiting for the end.

My sister and I are musicians, and coming from a small community, we are occasionally called to play funerals.  Normally they are in churches or funeral homes, but we did play one funeral at a house.  At first, it was a scary prospect, to be in such close proximity to a corpse.  But as memories were shared it made more sense to celebrate the life of this man surrounded by the things and people that would have surrounded him in life.

This article makes a lot of good points - death is now concealed from us almost entirely.  When my sister taught in China, she told me they have a holiday where all the people go and clean the graves of their relatives and light a candle/make a small offering.  Without sounding too nutty, I think it's a healthy (and helpful in a certain way) to maintain a sense of relationship with your people who have passed on.  Many cultures, such as the Inuit, various Buddhist sects, and some African cultures, practice this tradition.

Occasionally, I have dreams about my grandfather.  For some reason, it's rarely my grandmother or other relatives who are gone now.  A couple of weeks ago I saw him in a dream.  He was carrying around my grandmother on his hip, like a baby.  They gave me a hug.  They're good.

It was reassuring.

The season of Thanksgiving

I love this time of year.  I love the slightly cool but not cold temperatures, I love the feeling of getting ready to snuggle in for the winter, and most of all, I love the food.  There is so much deliciousness to be had right now.

Believe it or not, I am spending a lot of time getting ready for Christmas lately.  It makes me groan too, but with so many Christmas music-related tasks in the works, if I don't start now, I'm too late!  And it astounds me how long the "Christmas season" has become in the past ten years.

I wish we could have a season of "Thanksgiving," and that people would start making their thankfulness lists early, share them with friends, and feast together.  I don't care about presents or decorations but it sure would be great if the radios in every shop played songs about how we should be thankful, for about 40 consecutive days.  Maybe some of that positivity would sink in.

Happy season of Thanksgiving! I'm starting my celebrations now :)

Assange, radicalism and democracy

Here's a question that plagues me from time to time: what good are our 'democratic rights' if nobody uses them?  Is free speech actually worth anything if everyone is too afraid to speak up?  Here's an interesting response from Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, in a Rolling Stone interview:

When people talk about your childhood, the two main words used to describe you are "nomadic" and "hacker." You first got into trouble when you were 17 for hacking into Pentagon networks, as well as several Australian sites. It seems in some ways that you've been engaged in a lifelong campaign against authority.

Julian Assange: I haven't had a lifelong campaign against authority.  Legitimate authority is important.  All human systems require authority, but authority must be granted as a result of the informed consent of the governed.  Presently, the consent, if there is any, is not informed, and therefore it's not legitimate.  To communicate knowledge, we must protect people's privacy - and so I have been, for 20 years, developing systems and policy and ideals to protect people's rights to communicate privately without government interference, without government surveillance.  The right to communicate without government surveillance is important, because surveillance is another form of censorship.  When people are frightened that what they are saying may be overheard by a power that has the ability to lock people up, then they adjust what they're saying.  They start to self-censor.

------------------------------------------ It's amazing to me that a concept like "consent of the governed" now seems so quaint as to be utterly ignorable, should a government choose to ignore it.  I think Assange is right when he says self-censorship is a form of control.

The icebox cometh

Went to visit some friends yesterday - they had just taken their 40+ chickens to be slaughtered.  Feast day is Monday.  Got a call from my farmer a few minutes ago.  We are due for 100 lbs. of pork (1/2 of a pig), 6 chickens and a turkey sometime around the Labour Day weekend.

Food seems to be a common topic of conversation at gatherings these days - how long chickens take to grow, how much they eat, how much meat do you actually need to get through the winter?

We also got a 1/4 side of beef from Nick's family farm a couple of weeks ago, so we're almost set.  We'll have some 'special' cuts to set aside - our first locally grown turkey (Thanksgiving), a brine-smoked ham (Christmas or Easter), and those lovely roast chickens for family dinners when the snow has returned.

Here's what we will get from our half of a pig - give or take a bit depending on the actual weight at slaughtering:

7-8 packages (1lb. each) deliciously smoked bacon (the best I've ever eaten, no joke)
3-4 shoulder roasts (approx. 3lbs each)
2-3 hind end roasts
1 ham (from the hind end, with small bone)
1 loin roast
10 pkgs. pork chops (from the loin, 2 per pkg.)
1 pkg. long pork ribs (party food!)
sausage - from the leftovers.

I've asked the butcher to leave a bit more fat on this time - this seals in the flavours while it cooks and will give me some nice lard to work with for the occasional biscuits or pies.  It's so nice to hear from the people who grow your food, and be able to ask the butcher to leave in the bones and more fat, so that the food will taste delicious and be more nourishing.  I know winter is long but with a store like this I think I can make it through.

I might add that the wholesale price we pay for hamburger is nearly half of what they charge at the corporate grocery store.  And I know there's no pink slime in this beef.  Happy eating!

A "poor" choice of words

Great article in today's New York Times about poverty.  Apparently the US now has more poor people than it did in President Johnson's days (and one in 5 Canadian children is being raised in poverty).

And yet, somehow, nobody will say the word "poor" in public.  Occasionally, people will exclaim "I'm too poor for that," but they're usually not too serious.  And nobody ever, ever, utters the words "poor people" during an election campaign.

Even Jack Layton, champion of the little guy, was always talking about "working families" or "ordinary Canadians."  Which is too bad, because you know what makes some Canadians ordinary?  The fact that they are poor - they don't make enough money to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, clothing and education.

But Barack Obama won't say "poor," and neither will any other politician.  It's a real shame poverty has fallen off the political agenda, given the fact that children are all equal at birth, it's society that makes them unequal.

My sister, Tracy, wrote a great song called "High Class, Low Class," about people who don't get any respect for the work they do.  One of the lines is "You might be on the bottom, and they say that money talks."

Our friends have a twoyear old daughter.  Her older sister was listening to Tracy's cd around the house.  The two year old looked up at her mother and asked "why Mommy? why some people on bottom."  Imagine trying to answer that question.

Time changes all things

Time marches on, and when you aren't paying attention, you turn look up suddenly to find the scenery has changed.  Lately I don't have much patience for speculation or verbiage, so I've been contemplating letting this blog go.  But I'll give it a couple more posts and maybe a redesign and see how that goes.


Today is my first day off in 41 days.  It's been an exhausting, wonderful and productive summer, at the end of a difficult, emotional year (for personal reasons that I am not getting into).  When I have time to reflect on my life, I can't believe the things I've accomplished, on my own, and with friends.  

Consequently, it doesn't give me much patience for people who whine and complain.  It is possible to make change.  It is possible to achieve your dreams.  It is possible to live out the vision you have in mind.  But it will never be easy, nor should it be.  Sacrifice sets us apart.

A man I grew up with, whose opinions I truly respect, told me once that patience was "the willingness to suffer" while you wait for your desired result.  I think when I was younger, I was not very willing.  I was very impatient, and to some degrees I still am.  Although, now that I'm older, I see that good things do come to those who wait - as long as they work while they wait!

I have a real hunger lately for ideas, deep conversation, meaningful collaborations, and incremental progress.  Time is so precious, and it moves so quickly.  And yet, we can do so much to reach our fullness as human beings if we wade into that river, slow it down and let things take shape.

It's hard to say what this fall will bring.  So many things on the list.  But I know we are capable of meeting the challenges, with deep breaths, laughter, tears and a lot of help from our loved ones.

One piece at a time

This week I've been back to work on the house at 702 Main Street.  Originally, this was the house RiVA was fixing up to be a community arts centre.  A couple of years ago the Board decided not proceed with this project - it is a gigantic mountain to climb, no doubt about it.  Since then, our "Centre for Culture and Creativity" business has reached an agreement with the owners to fix up the house with the plan of eventually relocating our teaching there (along with a rental office, public art gallery and an apartment).  It's still a gigantic mountain to climb.

This week I have been arriving early in the morning to continue with the demolition and cleaning.  We had a pretty extensive meeting at Town Hall yesterday and got some detailled information about what it's going to take for us to get to the next step - approval of our development plan and getting a building permit.

We are undertaking this project because we have a vision for the house and the important role it can play in our community.  Right now there is no dedicated space in Woodstock for people to experience visual art, live music and to access educational programs and artistic resources.

I have always been interested in making change - not for the sake of change, but so that our communities better meet the needs of our citizens, and so that everybody who would like to make a contribution is enabled to do so.  Today as I was trucking up and down the stairs, I realized exactly how difficult that is going to be - with a plethora of rules we are faced with.  I am not complaining - I am determined that this project will prevail.  It may take far longer than I care to think about, and it may require some serious sacrifices on my part, but I think it's tremendously important for our community to have a place for people to develop themselves artistically and to experience a caring community.

Women of note

When I go to gigs or music events, I do a count of women on the stand.  I can't help it, I am curious to see how many of my fellow female musicians are singing or playing in public.  As this article about women writers shows, we are vastly outnumbered by men in the public eye.  

 

The numbers for women seeking political office are similar - at least in NB and Canada.  In Rwanda, female parliamentarians are more than 50%, and some of the Nordic democracies have reached gender parity).  But I digress....

We attended the East Coast Music Week this weekend.  While the men are still outnumbering the women, I did see a number of female musicians on the up-and-up.  Check them out: Breagh McKinnon (Cape Breton), the Hay Babies, Zwerg (female bassist, yes!), and not to be overlooked, Carmen Townsend.  

These are only a few females among many, of course, but it is encouraging to see the ladies out there rockin' and croonin' and groovin'.  Our Dooryard applicants are over 50% female so that's pretty cool as well.  

The rural imagination

Everyone knows the 21st century will be an urban century.  People have been leaving farms and countryside in a steady stream since the Industrial Revolution began.  Nobody seems to have any real vision for what it means to be rural - especially not government policy-makers.  It makes me wonder if that's because the people who make policy come from sub-urban and urban backgrounds . . .but,  the idea that people can live a fulfilling live in the country (or a very small town where most people are on a first-name / kinship basis) seems to be at odds with today's society.

I grew up in the country.  I still miss it - I miss the smell of the air, the rhythm of the seasons, the woodsmoke (the wood heat!!), cold brooks, big stars, earthy gardens and silence so thick you can drink it in.  And I used to bike 2 kms on fall and spring mornings to get to Debec Elementary School, where my extended and immediate family have attended since it began in the 1960's.

Soon DES is closing, and with it another chapter of rural life - along with the passenger trains, the barn raisings, the end of horsepower and the blacksmith, and locally-raised food.  I know the 21st century will be a liberating one in many ways - notably for women and the LGBT community worldwide - but I also wish little Debec Elementary had a place in that century.  I owe it a lot.