Through the Looking Glass: 13. Just An Ordinary Day

Monday, November 26, 2012

13. Just An Ordinary Day

I am fully in support of various causes and events of awareness but the days of the year are quickly being consumed by 'special' days. Failing to stem the tide we risk finding ourselves with a day shortage.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Toonie Tuesday, Superbowl Sunday and Seniors Thursday leave only Wednesday and Saturday unclaimed. Floater days remove a vast number more. Boxing Day, Halloween, Valentines Day, Worldwide Celebration of Weights and Measures Day, Wookie Life Day and others are quickly eliminating ordinary twenty four hour stretches.

Weeks are also falling prey to unilaterally declared causes, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Global Entrepreneur Week, Worldwide Breast-feeding Week are examples. With fewer weeks available conflicts are arising.

The UN-declared World Space Week finds itself at odds with with the Marijuana Users Association which wants to use the same time slot for World Spaced Week. However, Geography Awareness Week organizers however have gone into talks with their counterparts at the Directionally Challenged Week offices. Both groups are hoping for a mutually productive collaboration.

Months are no exception to the onslaught. October was declared 4-H Month, as well as American Cheese Month and Menopause Month. Novembers competition sees Banana Pudding Lovers, Pecan Eaters and Novel Writers all vying to have this same slot as their own. Future conflict can be assured.

I submit that we end this penchant for special days, weeks and months. To have a simple Saturday where there are no concerns other than sitting would be satisfying. A mundane Monday where I do no more than mumble about the morons around me would be marvelous. Weeks without World Alliance groups waving placards and months devoid of declarations of various sorts seems desirable. Act now before the days, weeks and months of your calendar are as gone as your choices.

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Introduction

Having moved at least twenty-five times in fifteen years has opened a world of learning to me. In six decades, an education ranging from the coldness of large cities to the isolation of remote rural locations to the busybody gossip of small towns and the wonder of the prairie and it's ocean of grass have all left their impressions on me.

Recently I relocated to a small city in British Columbia. It touted itself as a historical, cultural, educational and, over-all wonderful, place to live. Once I was past the trees and the rocks, the heights and the hills, the water and the wind, I calmed down and was ready to look at the people I was sharing that space with.

Every location I have ever squatted has had it's share of characters. Players in the cities along with the wide range of tinfoil hat wearers and baggy pants skaters were a given. Pop up strangers at odd hours surprised me with their appearance in the middle of nowhere. Rumours of my serial killer past from neighbours I had never met never swayed me. The wonder of gazing on the effects of wind on the grass ocean interrupted by a landowner enquiring why I was leaning on his fence was oft forgiven.

In this new locale a variety of characters as I had experienced elsewhere was a given. The density and variety of them however gave me more surprise than I would have expected.

I had heard comments about this place being a time warp to the sixties. However I only saw few that , by their appearance, I could say lived through the sixties. What apparitions appeared were younger and more colourful than I remember from that vague decade.

Purple haired strong armed accordionists, heavy head shaved violinists clutching tiny instruments, winter coated scarf wrapped individuals in shorts and oddly calm people with large coffees wandered the streets.

They wandered in and out of new age crystal shops, expressed opinions on local radio, bought nothing but organic food. They played jazz on squeeze boxes, made strings and wood sing in ways not intended, talked to themselves as they tightened their scarves and became more serene with each sip of coffee.

Characters here are more concentrated than in any other locale I have ever lived. It is a point of interest as well as point of concern.

It remains to be seen whether I will be mugged with organic carrots, side swiped by hooligan mountain bikers, be harangued with advice on dressing warmly or kept awake nights by jazzy sounds from an errant squeeze box. Whatever the outcome I am certain I could find it in no other place on earth to explore these particular uncertainties.

Until I am transplanted again, I extend every new-ager and boarder, every subculture economist and spiritualist, every would-be and wanna-be my deep thanks for extending me the opportunity of educating myself one measure more.