I’ll be the first to admit that I have a few quirks. Well ok, I’ll be the second … shortly after my wife. I have the ability, some would even say the preference, for thinking outside of the box, or never even acknowledging there ever was a box to be in. While that is probably true in most cases, there are others where I can irrationally hold on to routines. Some would say quirks … I would argue that they provide balance.
It has been well documented in my family and close circles that if I change a schedule or routine it is entirely acceptable. However, if my routine or schedule is changed by others, there can be a great disturbance in the force. At times I can recover, others not so much. Sometimes it ends with me apologizing for being an irrational ass. Either way it can take a great deal of time and processing. One of my current “routines” that gives me balance is the commute in to my office downtown.
There are a few options one would have if commuting on the bus from my home to my office. You could take a bus from the stop a block away from our building, do a quick transfer to another on the other end of our neighborhood, and end up just over a block from my office. It is perfectly acceptable and some might say preferable … I do use this option on occasion. My preferred method though eliminates the transfer and I stay on the same bus until I reach the downtown core … some refer to it as “the blade”. It is a section not unfamiliar with many urban centers, where a good deal of bus traffic and transfers take place … as well as a good deal of dealing and generally acting out of behaviors associated with addiction and mental illness. In a word, crazy. I could write a book based entirely around what I have witnessed in that 2 block stretch of suffering and poverty.
So on my bus commute days, usually 3 each week, I get off there and choose to walk about 10 blocks through the downtown core towards my office on the north end of downtown. I do this for exercise. I do this to relax. I do this to breathe. I do this to see. I see desolation. I see restoration. I see hope. I see loss. My wife and I , before pandemic days lived downtown for several years. These streets were our home and quite familiar to us. Many days I feel the loss deeply as I realize that nearly everything we loved about living here is gone. I don’t know about your city, but ours seems to have suffered more than most during these past 20 months. That is probably because our city leadership handled it worse than most.
My walking journey takes me past this and I emerge in the recently completed new land of Amazon. The only think I can compare it to is that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy steps from the black and white of her farmhouse and into the technicolor world of Munchkinland. The grit, grime and graffiti of what remains of downtown almost instantly transforms into the colorful, sterilized world of high rise office buildings, bike lanes, cafes, gathering spaces, shops and small businesses. Just before entering this strange new world, my routine is a stop on the southern border of the realm in a Starbucks, created just for the inhabitants here, to grab a tall americano and my guiltiest of pleasures … a cheese danish.
Upon leaving Starbucks and venturing into the land of colorful glass, concrete, and astroturf, I toss the pastry bag in the bin and I’m off eating and drinking my way through the promised land. This land was completed during the height of the pandemic and never really saw its potential. The shops and restaurants here are carefully curated for those who live and work here. There is no graffiti, there are no tents, no one sleeping in doors, no one shooting up on the sidewalks. Absent are the social ills and angst of a city ravaged by the effects of the pandemic and poor governance. What a difference a few blocks makes.
A few more blocks and I come to my next stop and the central piece to this crazy scene. It’s the famous banana cart … or it started out as just a cart … but here it has morfed into a retro airstream. The point of this cart is to simply give out bananas, each and every weekday, to anyone who would like one … no conditions and no strings. It began as an experiment of sorts and has endured over the years as a constant fixture. It provides jobs to those who watch over and maintain the cart … sorry airstream … and it provides a healthy snack. I don’t really understand the ideology behind it but I don’t want to either. There are no questions in this realm, just possibilities … as demonstrated by the bananas.
Leaving the bananas behind, the landscape begins to change again with the signs of a place in the midst of transitions … graffiti, fencing, cranes, hard hats are all common on this part of my walk. I cross a main arterial and head into the park … the oldest in the city … where merely a year ago more than 100 tents and souls called this place home and were preparing to endure a winter of rain and cold … with only the assistance of some volunteer groups to help see them through. The wisdom of city leadership feels that the humane thing is to leave everyone to their own devices, demons, and destructive behavior … a sort of “live and let live” gone off the rails. One of my hats is to lead a group responsible for the park. We are tasked with creating a safe and welcoming environment for all who call the city home as well as opportunities for all of those type of happenings that you might imagine when you think of healthy city parks. That used to mean something entirely different to me just a few short years ago.
It is all quiet there now … thanks to the efforts of a volunteer group getting many housed or helped in whatever way they needed help. Although in the language of city government one is not supposed to say “help” any longer. Maybe that is why they are not really helping … insert eye roll. Anyway, with a great deal of effort and investment from the parks department, the natural environment has also been restored. I thoroughly enjoy walking through here again with the holiday lights and the backdrop of leaf blowers.
Across the park and I’m at my building. My task is to create gathering spaces and community. It was such a different task just two Christmases ago. What was once one of the taller buildings in the neighborhood, we now seem like the “Up” house. All around are twenty to forty story towers being finished or being started. It is so odd being here. Like my space, all of this around me was envisioned years ago when people were pouring into the neighborhood and few places to house them. Now there are thousands of units ready or nearly ready to be lived in. All of this space and none of the people. To see this all take place first hand … standing on the outside looking in … I can’t be sure if it is the epitome of optimism or sheer madness. All of the routine I can muster hasn’t enabled me to gain the balance I think I need to see where this is all going. But it is going … somewhere between bananas, the bus and the land of Oz.