Three Things from Edmonton - Episode 47: tail lights, first aid, let it bean

                            


Happy end of the week, friends! This is where, once a week, I try to notice three things from my life that made me feel happy or grateful. So the outrage algorithm gets a day off.


1. Tail lights

From Auntie Shelagh I have new, battery-operated winter gloves with three temperature settings indicated by tiny LED bars that glow red-orange. Those little dashes of light are specks of memory, too. I recall the hours that one night driving through the Rockies, aiming for Vancouver and a first job away from home, with two consolations for company: A cassette tape of Jennifer Warnes singing Leonard Cohen songs, and two tail lights ahead on the only other vehicle on the road. My little motorized auditorium, a red Nissan Micra, rolled through the dark, as I sang with all my might, my eyes trained on those holes burned through the curtain of black that had fallen on the whole world. They were like exit signs in a theatre. I kept my speed and kept my distance—and I wasn’t so alone. Then a curve in the road ahead took the tail lights from view—and I was. While the lights were gone, it was just me and Joan of Arc.


I stood in the kitchen one night last week and stared at the red indicator lights on the dishwasher as it swished and rumbled. I remembered the tail lights. And remembered them again when, pedalling, I glanced down at my new winter gloves in a stand of trees by Victoria Park. I never did get close enough to that car or truck with the tail lights to think about passing it and taking on my dark night solo. It was good enough to be where I was. And to be grateful for those ahead who keep their lights on and send their lights back who pulled me along.



2. First Aid

“Because you never want to make it worse?” was my lame answer when Lindsay our First Aid instructor went around the room last week and asked the class for some of the reasons some people might hesitate to help an injured person. If all you really know is that shifting someone might make a back or neck or spinal cord injury worse, leaving the person paralyzed for life, yeah, for sure, why be the first to step up? That question stayed with me for the rest of the day as we went over the countless ways things can go wrong. Sprains, cuts, asthma attacks, broken bones. We roll over, roll under, wipe out, fall off, dislocate, react, see things that aren’t there, crash, trip, get burned, get impaled, bleed. We overdose. Our breathing stops. Our hearts stop. Teeth break, eyes come out of sockets. And we vomit. We need a lot of help. I learned a lot, and, slowly, I realized something. Deciding not to get involved out of the fear of not getting it right is real, staying in your lane is prudent, it’s legitimate, it’s safe, it preserves one’s self, it can even be a way of life, but it can also be a fancy cloak around staying uninformed. When I dress up not getting involved that way, and stay content not to learn, that’s not progress as much as a kind of paralysis. It’s better to learn. Better to light a candle than nurse the darkness.


An image frozen in time is me lying face first in the snow next to my twisted bicycle up from the Walterdale Bridge. My GoPro handlebar mount had sheared off. The camera was half buried, still rolling. The tiny red light indicator pulsed. I had dislocated my shoulder and broken a bone. My friend Darren the physician was there and while it was good to see a familiar face, and get guided down the hill to safety and get patched up, what really helped was his explanation of my injury. What really aided me was his knowledge.


3. Let it bean

As he was getting back to New Jersey from Manhattan, Sean called his sister Shelagh to check in. Sean is a musician of some note, and, like us, can visit the Disney+ walled theme park of streaming content, and, so, we talked about the Beatles documentary.
“They are performers,” Sean said. “They are great musicians, but, more importantly, they are performers.”
There’s a difference, apparently. When the recording light goes on, when it’s show time, performers do what they do.
“Then it’s, ‘let’s record one,’ and then all of a sudden they’re on,” he said. “That’s not easy. And that’s not common.”


Sean explained how he refines musical ideas into their final shape—like a coffee filter (an analogy worth poring over). He riffed on improv and wondered what really qualifies as a mistake for a creative person. He explained why the lyrics “Tucson, Arizona” stuck in the song Get Back and why “Northern Arizona” didn’t quite cut it. We talked about McCartney’s reported inability to read or write music.
Like Mrs. Timeus. She lived next door and helped take care of the young Sean and Shelagh growing up in Lynnwood. Mrs. Timeus never wrote down the recipe for her brown soup. She just knew what worked. Those days are gone, but the soup can be restored. It’s become a bit of a mission.
Shelagh told Sean: “I’ve done so many variations of bean soup, but I found one yesterday that looked pretty good. I’m gonna puree it. I cooked it yesterday. And it’s pretty basic. And I’m gonna puree it and taste it, and we might be getting closer. So, if this one works, I’ll send you the notes.”
"Very good," Sean said.
I’ll send you the notes, indeed. When the red element light goes on on the stove at our place, Auntie Shelagh is the artist in residence.



Have a good end of the week, friends. In whatever soup you might find yourself.


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