Three Things from Edmonton podcast - Episode 84: cutlery, habitat, lost and found

Once a week I try to remember three things that made me feel happy or grateful, record them and then put them back out there on their own.

Three Things, episode 84: 

                      
1. Cutlery 

The anniversary gift for 30 years is pearl. For 35, it’s coral. For 33 years together, Shelagh and I stayed with the ocean theme and treated ourselves to a seafood dinner at Sabor on 103 Street downtown. Mussels, clams, halibut, Arctic char and lobster risotto—it was a very good meal. As often happens when we’re dining out, Shelagh shares stories about growing up in the west end.  Food is evocative. For some people, one meal is connected to another and another before that. Shelagh is one of those people. There are many cupboards in her mother's bungalow. She remembers food like she remembers what she was wearing in her elementary school photos.

And for the same reason. 

Home-made stuff lasts.

Even home-made sounds that come and go last. From years gone by, Shelagh recalled fondly the sound of forks and spoons ting-tinging off each other that came through the neighbours’ kitchen window as she was walking home and the Timeuses were inside, still together, over dinner. What were those sounds? What did they signify? At one level, nothing much, really. They were not intended, not scored. They were simply the occasional sharp clinks of cutlery, kinds of accidentals. 

But the sounds were deeper, too. Maybe not at the time, but let the decades vanish, let death claim some of people holding the cutlery at that table, let the bourbon vapours from my anniversary cocktail drift across the soundscape Shelagh composed, and those flashes of sound, that delicate percussion line beneath a family meal, are precisely what the sweet memory of a friendly house next door sounds like. 

 

Which is why I lingered in the restaurant as we left, listening to the people and their silver instruments.

2. Habitat 

I used to work with a guy named Guy who had a good way of putting things. An engineer, he understood how cities were cemented and paved together. Unlike some others, Guy was fond of how Edmonton streets were laid out. The grid provided alternative routes, he would say. If there was a delay at this intersection, drivers could head over a couple of blocks and keep going, he would say. Grid happens, he would say. Grid happens, I would say, I’ll take that on a T-shirt, black, extra large. The epithet has stayed with me. It came back to mind last week when I decided to stop pedalling home up 91 Avenue and from now on take the more peaceful 92 A Avenue, a couple of  blocks north.  Fewer cars, slower cars, more tree cover, a safer and more enjoyable route. Grid happened.

For approximately ever, I would, if the word habitat came up, summon a scene from nature. A Grizzly taking a trout out of a stream in the Rockies, for instance. A habitat was where plants and animals lived, and, if you were the Rainbow, well, where you perished. The first time I saw empty shelves at the IGA during the pandemic, I widened my understanding of habitat to include urban animals like me, whose survival depended on something called supply chain management. This altered the way I saw myself in the city, the I who shops for food in the city and especially the I who rides a bicycle in the city. I saw that I moved in a bigger system and that my bicycling decisions—when to travel, how hard to labour to stay in motion, where to stop for ice cream, how to best avoid my metaphorical, four-wheeled predators, how to stay dry, how to stay clear of exhaust—all these decisions were decisions I would make as an animal-bicycle hybrid trying to stay healthy and safe in the urban habitat. That’s how I now understand my decision last week to take the more tranquil 92A Avenue, avoiding the speeding shortcutters on 91st angling for a red light on 149 Street that would, like a dam, let them stream home. 

3. Lost and found 

When an object goes missing, like, in this case, the charge cord for my electric razor, my reaction goes like this: scour the house, empty my bike bags, open the suitcases, consider asking Shelagh if she knows where it went, consider how I give agency to a razor cord by imagining it could have gone anywhere by itself, check the garage, get exasperated, check the car, wonder why the universe of objects is against me, regain some poise, and then finally ask Shelagh where it might be, remembering to not leave any suggestion that she is to any degree responsible, steering clear of wording like, do you remember when you packed my razor for our last trip, any idea where it ended up?  As soon as I asked, there it was. Next to the bowl of tomatoes in the dining room, the razor cord, exactly where I’d looked at least twice. 

If given the choice, I would take a universe that lets a person like me read clues and solve riddles, not one that steals my stuff and returns it when I am not looking, but, at least, I found my razor cord and escaped with the dignity that comes from knowing the gods consider me worthy of toying with. 

Thanks for being out there, friends. See you next time