Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Tag: community

The Place We’re In, Up Close and Personal

By

On May 14, 2015

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Learning, Life Stories, Self-improvement, Social issues

sleepy

Initially published as a column in the AM News on Friday May 8, 2015. 

Have you ever seen a bee napping in a clump of flowers? We have, my youngest son and I, as we were walking to the bus stop on our way to school today. Just a very sleepy bee, its will to fly conquered by the brightest morning sun we’ve seen in the last few days.

‘Will you write about it, Mom?’ I promised I will.

You see, we now make our way to school every day from up on the hill to the downtown, and every day comes with its own novelties. We add to it all by reading on the bus. He snuggles close and we step into a world of wonder. Black Beauty, Robinson Crusoe, The Last of the Mohicans and King Arthur and Robin Hood, they join us to and from school every day and give us countless topics to discuss.

Honour, compassion, empathy, meanness, values and principles, the ‘why’ behind so many human actions, and all the questions we still have to find answers for regarding human nature. It’s a wild ride, no pun intended.

I am an outspoken advocate of reading quality books, which leave you richer and better for having read them. I do believe, as Iranian-born, Canadian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo said, that ‘A mediocre book has nothing to offer to its readers, no matter how close we read it.’

Children’s reading choices have diverged tremendously over the years and some does not qualify as quality reading, which is a shame, because children are eager to learn about the world, past and present, and they are have questions, many, which increases their appetite for free thinking. Much needed in today’s changing, trend-dominated world. But that is the topic for another column.

On my way back, I walk, instead of taking the bus. I choose quiet streets over busy ones, and spring makes every step worthwhile. The world is alive and blooming, and I am there to see it. I listen to books most times and then I walk listening to the sounds around. It’s a revealing trek every time with certain addictive features that make me look forward to the next day’s uphill walk, rain or shine or blustering winds, as it was the case two days ago.

But, as they say, the path reveals itself every day anew. Some streets are simply raucous: waves of heavy trucks roll so close and fast on the road, it feels like they’ll peel you right off the sidewalk, and then, the dust… it makes the air hard to breathe, which makes that perfectly blue sky and crisp morning sunshine a great tease. The city feels, at times, and looks like it’s drowning in fumes and noise. We breathe walk and live next to all of that.

It’s a shame that it has become this way, as walking should be a common thing (along with cycling, and commuting by transit when needed). I am partial to that sense of belonging to a place that sprouts from the nod and smile I get (and give) to my fellow town trekkers. Cyclists too, they nod too. Presence, I like that.

When on the bus, we greet, smile to people and say thank you for the ride. The driver always acknowledges that. We share the place for part of the way and that creates the ‘together’ we all need to be safe and have the said sense of belonging.

In my quest for avoiding busy streets, I have come to discover various trails that take me downtown but in a more, well … hobbit-ish way. Snaking among trees and overwhelming lilac bushes, the dirt paths I take add colour to my daily walks. They connect this street to that and create the feeling of a world apart from the one we’re used to by living in the city.

BlueThe other day I came across some larkspur shining blue among tall grasses, and just a few steps up the trail there was a woodpecker proudly wearing a fiery red tuft and pecking at an old birdhouse. I’ve never seen one so close; it makes for a quiet reappraisal of how we could, if we wanted to, have a place that would foster reminders of life and, most importantly, life beyond the city limits.

If more people see, through the eyes of those who venture out first and then through their own, we’d all join in finding ways to make the city a good place to be when you choose to travel on foot, bike or by bus.

A place where such activities are encouraged and shared becomes a safe place or be where the motivation to make it better, for everyone’s sake, not just on an individual basis, grows with each step we take off the beaten path.

I will soon walk downhill through the dry midday sunshine, King Arthur and his valiant knights tucked in my backpack, ready to pick up my son and have him snuggle close so we can read further.

Before we do that though, we will walk hand in hand to the bus stop and maybe, just like yesterday, someone will be there playing a harmonica and carrying an old violin and we will smile and say hello, and later on my son will wonder about the story that person carries along… I will too, and that will expand my horizon even more, to include understanding and the need to see the human to see what human is, yet another perk of walking and taking a bus rather than driving.

Every time we get off the bus and call it a day (transit-wise) I feel richer in the best possible way. Such are the consequences of acquiring more. Knowledge and experiences that is. Even when I’m in a rush, as long as I am on foot, the world appears closer and the colours are more intense. I assume that is part of making it personal.

The Reality of Our Fast Changing World

By

On February 12, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood, Social issues

Note: As of last week, my former Kamloops Daily News ‘The way I See It’ column will be published on The Armchair Mayor News website in the columns section. A new adventure begins! 

Both my sons attend Stuart Wood Elementary. For now. They might not, soon, if the plans to close the school are realized. I wish they will not. The board meeting on February 17 may or may not result in heartache.

Sure the building is old and the yard is rather small. The building is not suited for wheelchair or stroller access either and that is a problem. But shuffling children and removing the school hub from downtown Kamloops is also a problem. A big one.

Children nowadays witness change on a regular basis. Major changes that is. My sons have recently witnessed the dismissal of the Kamloops Daily News, and they see entire neighborhoods change whenever we visit Vancouver.

Old heritage houses with lots of life in them are tore down and new large villas and mansions take their place. Old cedar trees silently guarding back yards have been taken down for three-car garages. The school the boys attended for a couple of years disappeared to make room for a new top-of-the-line building.

Straight angles have never been straighter.

Change is part of life. It always has been. Nowadays though one cannot escape the feeling of change being pushed forth not out of necessity but sometimes for economic reasons, or simply because old is slowly losing its appeal due to its apparent lack of functionality.

In the case of Stuart Wood elementary school, creativity can be employed to retrofit the building to address current concerns. Many old buildings could be preserved at a lower cost than it would cost to tear them down and build new ones.

With them, the sense of community would also be preserved, and the history behind it. If learning is what we want our children to do, then a lesson in the history and importance of preserving the past would be a good one to start with. Roots are important.

In the age of everything moving fast and at a pace that we often have trouble adjusting to, grounding should be a community goal. I cannot think of a better way to express care for one’s home community, whether one is born in it or has been recently transplanted, as our family has.

Neighborhood changes are perhaps a projection of the larger scale ones. Or the other way around. Which makes it fair to say they are the cause and effect of each other, a vicious circle we witness daily.

Our children hear of species on the brink of extinction, they hear of changes in the world environment brought on by global warming, which can be traced to massive changes in how we exploit natural resources and dispose of what is deemed to be less modern.

Parents wonder what the world will look like when today’s children will become adults. How much of today will be lost and at what cost?

In every life endeavor pace is important. So is consideration for what serves a community best. Learning could start with a lesson in continuity and how creativity can salvage old beloved buildings. In a fast-changing world, continuity ensures grounding.

Changes based on necessity have the potential to foster healthy growth. Of people and communities. They also have the potential to teach children lessons that might become key to not worrying what the future holds for their children when they become adults.

It’s only fair to keep that in mind in everything we do.

A Sad Day

By

On January 9, 2014

In Life Stories, Social issues

I am tucked away in a coffee shop on Lansdowne Street with a cup full of coffee and a severe lack of inspiration… It is a sad day.

An earlier hot bath and a short-lived chocolate binge could not bring up the endorphine levels… some days are too glum for that. Some news are too.

The Kamloops Daily News will roll out its last pages on Saturday; it was announced today. Economic crunches and such forced a sudden closure. Sudden is tough. Sudden is good someone said, because at least you know what you’re dealing with, no prolonged agony. Sudden is sudden.

An unexpectedly powerful feeling of emptiness sits inside of me like a big mean shadow.
Sad.

For losing a connection, for something being ripped away from the community I came to belong to and for the unfairness of it all.

The paper was not perfect but it had good people that made it happen, and bubbles of goodwill peppered all over it. It had a heart.

I have come to be connected to the paper as if it were a friend. I did so in a little bit more than a year. Some people have been there for way more. Their sadness surpasses mine by miles.

The owner of the coffee shop comes by. We talk about the paper, the loss of a familiar thing. A sign of the times, he says. True. We talk about the stories that will keep happening, pieces of life that will be lost without the net called Daily News to catch them just like one catches rain water…Fresh.

He says come by and write here, this place will continue to be. I will. A continuation… A good thing.

I trace back the story of my building the short history with the paper. A first interview with my heart pounding – I was after all, just a stranger, recently landed in a city where people seemed to have tight connections, with each other and with the place itself – landed me a job as the new columnist.

I was both excited and apprehensive. I learned a lot, through having my pieces edited, ever so slightly, but what an eye-opening experience every time. I learned to keep being myself but structure thoughts and build nice stories for people to read at a pace that was melodious enough to make them send personal notes my way. Gifts.

I evolved as a columnist through the feedback from readers, some of whom maintain regular correspondence to this day.

I have, as expected, become attached to something that was part of home. The undeniable connection was fuzzy warm and comfortable to have.

I came to love deadlines and the rush of changing a topic swiftly before sending it, simply because I felt like I should deliver something worthy of reading and thinking about.

I loved my dialogue with people, I loved the challenge of a new topic, the funny feeling of starting to know readers’ personalities simply by knowing their screen names.

A couple of times I tilted my head while reading the comments but I have since learned to recognize familiar voices of people I will never meet face to face, but people who read my words and through that became part of my world as they allowed me to be part of theirs.

A trade of thoughts and openness, wrapped up in an unmistakable feeling of belonging to the same place, and seeing the same sunsets drape over the same cinnamon-hued mountains.

I will miss the paper. An unlikely friend I’ve become so attached to…
But I don’t like farewells. I’ve had one too many to deal with.

I will keep my KDN folder as I will all the Saturday editions. I’ll learn just from looking back at how far I’ve come since that day when I walked into the editor’s office, heart pounding and acting very grown-up but wondering afterwards if I spoke too fast or too unclear…

Thank you, KDN.

Why Every Community Needs A Diner

By

On December 1, 2013

In Kamloops

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on November 30, 2013)

The one thing I remember about the diner that night is that it smelled like a home rather than a restaurant. Also, the invitation to sit wherever we wanted and being addressed with “dear.”

When you’re new in a place, “dear” sounds right.

An elderly couple smiled from across the room and nodded welcome — a remnant from the days when looking at someone you didn’t know was not rude but rather a greeting that meant just that, ‘welcome.’

We spent a tired first night in the attached inn and late morning found us in the diner again, for breakfast. In less than 24 hours, the diner had become a familiar place with familiar faces and “dear” was tucked motherly into every other sentence. Breakfast was good and warm.

Life rolled on and we moved into our house a few blocks away from the diner. Nightly walks had us by its red-lit OPEN sign often, and every time I looked inside I was reminded of our first night in Kamloops.

A sign outside the door says ‘Coffee and pie, all day, $2.95’ and you see it every time you walk by.

The first time we tried it we had just dropped off the boys at school. Coffee and pie sounded like an invitation and we said why not.

We sat by the window and got engrossed in talking.

The second time, we took the boys there after school and we each got different pies and a big blob of whipped cream on the side.

Someone sitting at another table waved at us, then walked over to say hi. It was one of the paramedics who helped during my youngest son’s asthma attack. He remembered us, my son’s name and the fact that we all have the same kind of boots.

When he left, saying “see you around,” we said the same because we knew it was true. It happens all the time.

The boys pointed at the black-and-white historic photos on the walls, of cars parked outside the same diner, of the inn, of people smiling. I wondered how many of them were still stopping by for meals and conversations. I wondered if the diner will still be when the boys have grown up.

Somehow I know it will. Many diners have been around for a long time and they have the best social-media platform there is: face to face conversations, people from the next table asking how your day has been and actually waiting for an answer.

But not all diners are like this. I remember one in Fort Langley where the old charm is all there but the young waiters who take your order and give you the correct change never ask about your day or whether you live close by.

Another diner near Kootenay Lake had a cold feel to it, literally and otherwise. People there did not connect the dots between visitors and food and you felt isolated.

So we ate and went on our way. It was a freezing sunny day in March, but the outside felt warmer.

Neighbourhood diners where people smile and say “hope to see you again” are a sign of a healthy community and a reminder of the good old feeling of never being far from a friendly face. Locals come and lean back on chairs as if at home, which is somewhat accurate, and travelers feel welcome.

The ladies who bring you coffee and pie and meals call you “dear” and “honey” and you’re tickled pink every time just because. They address children the way an aunt would, they carry smiles from table to table and they laugh with old customers over this or that with a familiarity that you want to be part of because it feels warm and good.

So I want diners like this to stay. Not because I cannot find coffee and pie or a good meal elsewhere, but because of that warm space that connects people to food, to other people and to the community they all live in, for a night, a few years or a lifetime.

After all, a place is a place. It’s the people that make it special.

Clean Is As Clean Does

By

On October 27, 2013

In Kamloops

On October 17 the cancer agency of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, has declared outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans. It is a monumental decision that is bound to affect the future in a positive way. About time, you’d have to agree.

Outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer and increases the risk of bladder cancer, the report said.

Particulate matter, while a major component of air pollution, was analyzed separately and declared a carcinogenic substance by itself. Nothing new there.
Where is it all coming from? From transportation, stationary power generation, industrial and agricultural emissions, and residential heating and cooking. In other words, we’re surrounded.

I have been decrying the dreadful reality of air pollution for a while now, not losing hope that things can be changed, but realizing that tweaking the minds of fellow humans is a gargantuan task.

As the cold weather approaches, idling cars make their appearance. Not significant, some might say, compared to industrial pollution. But, here’s the thing: everything adds up.

A few years ago I wrote a feature article for a health publication in Calgary on the topic of environmental allergies, asthma and diesel exhaust as a trigger for both. A new study had come out pointing to fine particulate matter such as the one derived from diesel exhaust – the new and improved diesel fuel that is – as a serious threat to human health and a cause for respiratory problems.

Scientists agonize over far-reaching air pollution that travels in all corners of the world. It’s sobering to think that polar bears walk around carrying the shortest stick of all, healthwise. Various pollutants have been found in high concentrations in their bodies; a dirty inside in stark contrast to their snow white coats.

Yet closer to home, the reality – and threat – of air pollution is impossible to ignore.
There’s countless debates over the proposed Ajax mine. Pro and cons arguments are being tossed on all sides, dressed with stinging words and put on the table again. And, to be fair, there are pro and con arguments.

But if the proposed mine becomes reality and increases the levels of air pollution in Kamloops we will all pay the price. The first ones to pay the price will be people with chronic respiratory diseases, those with a genetic predisposition to cancer, and children. The rest of us will follow swiftly.

Too apocalyptic? Not at all. Real, if anything. If A causes B and B causes C, then establishing the connection between A and C is a matter of logic and social responsibility.

Debates aside, I think we’re drawing near – on a global scale – to the point where any new industrial development should only be allowed to happen if it is vital to a community. The decision should be made based on industry and independent panel reviews, and also based on the objectively-assessed needs of the community where the project is about to be developed.

Wants versus needs has been played to death, some would say. And it is bad enough when wants take precedent over needs and affect our emotional well-being, empathy levels and general health (cheap, chemical-laden conventionally produced food.)

But when it’s about a real threat that will materialize in chronic diseases with the grimmest outcome, then we should seriously reconsider priorities.
From idling cars to big industrial projects, we have choices and responsibilities. We owe it to ourselves and our children to exercise them.

Published as a column under the same title in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on October 26, 2013

Why I Go To The Farmer’s Market

By

On July 23, 2013

In Kamloops

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News on July 20, 2013)

20130618_190401It is cloudy today and we’re having a late start. Lazy Saturday mornings happen to everyone. They’d better. Another edition Saturday pancakes and a talk about why judgment makes you doubt yourself, then we leave for the farmer’s market. Sometimes it is all of us, this time just me and my youngest.

We stop at the bank then run to the market, literally. It’s silly fun and the giggles my youngest leaves behind won’t last for long. Time is merciless that way, a good reason to make it happen often, laughing with your children that is…

Music greets us. It makes our feet dance and our faces smile. The air smells sweet and fresh. A good day indeed.

The wood spirits are our first stop. You must’ve seen them, the wooden faces and the castles Kelly carves out of cottonwood bark… He makes imagination fly high, almost a lost art in today’s rushed world where computer games abound and patience is underestimated. “You almost see the face in a piece of wood,” he tells us. I’ve heard people say that before. Art is fascinating.

Every face has a different expression and tells a different story. My youngest has one of these wood masks hanging next to his bed. He wants to learn to make them too. He often carves at home and this kind of exposure inspires him, like it should.

We talk about where to find cottonwood bark, how to age a sculpture, how to carve castles and why some of the ones Kelly sells have jasper eyes. How long does it take to carve that? My little guy is fascinated by the faces, by their long wooden beards, and by how tree bark becomes alive once more…

Market is almost closing… We go and buy eggs, strawberry and rhubarb pie. We buy a whole box of fragrant strawberries and talk about South America with the lady who sells them. We buy greens, a farm-raised chicken and honey. Herbs too.

Guilt-free coffee to from Anita, cookies for the boys and quick browsing of the potted plants; we look at colors and leaf shapes; we talk about ferns and how they’ve been around since dinosaur time. What’s the Earth going to look like in fifty years or so? How about five hundred?

Then it’s back to the wooden spirits. For just a tiny bit, my youngest says. I thought he might ask… It’s the end of the day and the magic wooden faces are carefully put away until next week wrapped in soft towels.

Next door to the wooden spirits is Meagan from Heffley Creek, she’s a soap and natural cosmetics maker. Another kind of beautiful magic that we often overlook in favor of commercially-made long-lingering fragrances. I delight in meeting a like-minded person and the old and oh so played “we speak the same language” is as real as it is needed. And we speak it, with the promise of future conversations.

We meet friends, neighbors and people we know from around town. We create routines that make our Saturday morning sunnier no matter how cloudy the sky. We pick knowledge, freshness and develop gratefulness for the place we’re in. Smiles, stories and wonders abound.

When I needed advice on how to deal with the wasp nest in the backyard fort, someone pointed to the bee guy; he knows, I was told without an ounce of doubt. He did. A conversation about the sad fate of bees ensued. People need to know more, we both agreed. Perhaps we can visit the beehives in Barnhartvale? Sure thing; it makes sense that one of my favorite road cycling routes is also a bee paradise.

I could say go to the market to get fresh food and support local farmers. That’s a big part of it. But there is something else you can get there. You get stories and smiles on any given market day. Everyone needs that, they add some more color and texture to your food. Appreciation in every bite.

The city comes alive here and so do seasons. We learn that in early spring chickens make small eggs, just as they shake the winter chills off. There’s baby lettuce, tender green onion and garlic, small bouquets of fragrant herbs and seedlings in the spring.

Berries and greens abound as summer bursts through the sky mid-June or so. Fall is when we first visited the market here in Kamloops for the first time. It’s a time of abundance and flavours. Every season is. Don’t miss it. I won’t either.

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