Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Kamloops Page 42 of 45

The Value of Humble

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On January 20, 2014

In Kamloops, Life Stories, Motherhood

The car broke down over the weekend. It could be a small thing or a big one, as it often with cars. It could be solved in a day or the car could be a write-off. Yes, one of those. A humbling event that points to dependence, a sorry attribute of the intrepid human spirit one could argue.

No car meant we had to postpone the Harper Mountain ski outing planned for Sunday and it also means walking everywhere with a bike ride here and there, ice-permitting. The patches of hardened ice can be unforgiving to the blissfully, occasionally unaware or hurried human.

We walked to school this morning. A perfect opportunity for the four of us to talk, debate, laugh, point out to this and that and see the morning. It makes cheeks red and cold and it warms the heart. Why not then?

Midday is still sharp cold and I ride my new bike to town. My face is frozen and the feeling of car-less freedom is absolutely exhilarating. Soon I will pick up the boys.

On the way back the boys have stories, questions. We stop to look at leafs trapped in ice, some hiding under their perfectly shaped ice-images and ‘How could that be mom?’… Do you know? Isn’t it nice that there’s still why questions that leave you humbled and wondering…

We talk about Thomas Edison. The boys point to the unbelievable value of his discoveries, the light bulb most of all… ‘What if he had not invented it, mom?’ Indeed. What if. I point out to something that I often decry the slow and sure death of: patience, persistence over things that matter and we believe in even when they are mere ideas.

I point to relentless as one awe-inspiring quality of the human spirit. The boys are trapped in words and ideas, they are as fascinating to talk to as the leaves they point out as wonders along the way.

In the early evening, karate training sends us ten blocks away from home. It is snappy cold but Sasha hops on his scooter. We go slow enough to manage uneven sidewalk and occasional patches of ice. And we talk. Times becomes that much more precious.

After I drop him off I walk to the store, stock up on the bare necessities and walk up on 3rd Street. There are people here and there, fragments of laughter, conversations, cars driving too fast in the dark, taking turns that make me jump backwards… And then time stops again when the organ from within the Sacred Heart Cathedral envelops the cold in ‘Ode of Joy.’

How privileged to witness that. How easy to miss from a car where music might play – even the same tunes would not be the same – or conversations are tossed relentlessly. How important to witness this at least once.

I turn around at the top of the hill just before I enter a warm coffee shop. The North Shore sparkles. Silent. Close by, luminous darts of cars driving fast down on Victoria Street point to fast, another facet of Kamloops.

I listen and remember. My old hometown at night, as I saw it so many times from up on the hill where my parents home was. It was very similar to here, now. Surrounding hills, trains ushering their way through snow and sunshine alike, a river running through the middle of it and bridges as walkable cinches connecting one side to the other.

The sense of belonging creeped in and it felt good and warm, just like the coffee shop I was about to step in and the warmth of the heart I hold near mine waiting for me there.

A long day ends with both boys saying ‘It’s been a good day.’ We smile to each other. We did well. The car is not fixed yet. It turns out it’s not just a little thing. It will take a while. Everything happens for a reason. I know that already.

Why Every Community Needs A Diner

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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.

Which Grinch Is Stealing Christmas?

By

On November 27, 2013

In Kamloops

(Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of the Kamloops Daily News under the same title on November 23, 2013)

It was always only on Nov. 15 that we would listen to carols, when some started observing the Christmas Fast. The first snow would come around that time, too, as if some well-timed snow lever was pressed at the right time.

At the beginning of December, trees were bought and tucked away on porches or in the backyard until Christmas Eve; there were wishes circulated from children to parents, but most of all, there was a lot of sledding and snow tumbling until cheeks were red and cold at the end of each day. Snow fun reigned supreme and that was that.

A few days before Christmas, we baked vanilla-scented goodies, and on Christmas Eve we pulled out the old cardboard box filled with decorations to adorn the tree.

I still have a couple of those decorations, as my sister and I split them when the old house was sold. I have since built a tree-decorations box of my own. Every single decoration has a story.

Some the boys made at school or in art classes, some we made together at home, and some were gifted by close friends. The latest acquisitions, glass-made and hand painted by someone in Colombia, were bought from the thrift store ran by the RIH Auxiliary volunteers.

As Christmas approaches, flyers get plump with ads telling of decorations and lights and gifts and kitchenware to cook and bake in, and thermal gravy boats that will keep your gravy at a good yummy temperature, and, if you want, you can scratch the golden dust-covered area at the bottom of the page to see if you won a discount. Nothing? Try again next week, you never know.

And if you want outdoor lights, but are tired of climbing ladders and untangling lights, a patented holographic laser light projector will create the illusion of lights without the effort.

But the effort is what makes it all special. We tell our children that when we work for something, we value the accomplishment even more. Things that happen with no effort are easily forgotten.

Sure, putting up lights may get frustrating when tangles get in the way. Baking takes time and effort. Cutting the turkey with a regular carving knife versus the battery-activated one takes effort, too; as for the cold gravy, I don’t think it’s a deal breaker; you simply warm it up.

Holidays are what they are because people kept at it, efforts or tangles notwithstanding. The spirit of Christmas is not brightened by someone’s ingenious way of marketing a product.

If anything, ‘tis the season to be giving, and that applies to all that we do. More than ever, we need to remind ourselves that ‘no effort’ means ‘no joy.’ I’d rather have the boys learn about tangled wires and burnt cookies than not have the memory of anything that made my many Christmas seasons memorable.

‘Tis the season to be giving is more than a slogan. The recent typhoon in the Philippines is a cruel reminder of how we cannot ignore the reality of climate change, some of which is caused by the many trucks rolling into our cities bringing more and more goods meant to make our lives easier and better and more sparkling at Christmas at the expense of those we don’t see, and whose world we positively wreck as we wreck ours — one new seasonal item at a time.

Before you buy another new seasonal-themed product, be it an inflatable ready-decorated doghouse with an inflatable dog glued to it, or an inflatable, illuminated Santa you don’t really need, or another battery-activated thing that will create the illusion of snowflakes (yes, it exists) think about the one thing that matters: Keeping it real.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, snowflakes are snowflakes and they are not meant to be holograms.

Better yet, set that money aside for the Christmas Cheer Fund and make someone’s holidays brighter. Yours will brighten in response.

By the way, the hottest colour of the season is berry pink, one of the flyers says. Followed by “Ornaments and lights are available for you in hundreds of options.”

To which I dare say this: the Grinch is no longer green but berry pink and he’s stealing Christmas.

The Aftermath: Keeping Halloween Fun For Kids

By

On November 5, 2013

In Kamloops

Picture this: a dummy resembling a person fallen to the ground is placed in front of a garage door to look as if the head has been crushed by the door — blood on the door and suggestive puddles on the pavement included. It looks as real as you can imagine. Anything more would be the real thing.

A neighbour calls 911 and a discussion ensues.

It happened in more than one place. Comments abounded. The majority were a reverberation of, “Come on, it’s Halloween!” and praised the creativity of the displays. A matter of opinion.

Others argued that we shouldn’t allow for something that creates fear or unease.

One such commenter was told to look the other way if she couldn’t take it, while another who suggested we should return to what Halloween used to be (goblins, ghosts, black cats) was deemed a witch and told, “What did they do with witches back then? Burn, witches, burn!”

Feeling uncomfortable yet? Intolerance of a different opinions punctuated with implied violence is never a good thing.

Halloween is one spooky day, everyone agrees, but suggested violence — to the extreme, in this case — can stir negative emotions that are not conducive to good fun. Most commenters suggested that children would be the first ones to find the display funny because they know what Halloween is about.

I disagree. Creepy and horrifying is not funny. Normalizing violence is not acceptable. Halloween or not, some boundaries should not be crossed.

Our 92-year-old neighbour reminisces about Halloweens that were not about zombies and severed crawling hands. “Halloween is for kids,” she said. Jack-o-lanterns and decorations, trick-or-treat if they wished, but horror was never part of it.

Children nowadays are exposed to myriad stimuli that may or may not be appropriate for their level of understanding. They seem to know more, but knowing is not the same as understanding.

Children’s brains need time to grow and rushing serves no one. They need time to learn to make the distinction between fake and real.

Present-day Halloween décor is different from what it used to be. Children, young and old, get a big dose of gore, dismembered bodies and zombie action, on top of the old-fashioned ghosts and skeletons, which seem tame by comparison. Save for the last items, I am not sure children can take the above-mentioned in the expected stride. Some will, some won’t.

One way to honour human nature is to not desensitize children to violence. In my youngest son’s class, some kids still believe in the tooth fairy, while they also talk about watching clips from movies like Chucky and Candyman.

If violence happens out of the Halloween context, children are referred to counsellors for help. Parents have a hard time explaining it. Violent images in the news can shock children. We know that.

Movies have parental guidance warnings for a reason. Not only is the plot geared toward a mature audience, but the horror elements and sexual references are clearly not to be seen, let alone understood, by children and tweens.

I watched 20 minutes of a scary movie once. I was already an adult, yet it made me cringe.

I grew up with very little television. We played outside and read. But here’s an interesting thing: many of my favourite books included sword fighting (Alexandre Dumas) and gunfights (Karl May’s books describing the Wild West). I was never uneasy or scared. The violence wasn’t gratuitous, though.

I am trying to raise my boys the same way. We have always been outside a lot, around our yard, town and on road trips. We read books depicting times past and present and the heroes within — real or fantasy. Ditto for movies.

They never feared “monsters” under their beds — until this year, that is. My youngest now struggles when night approaches.

He was told about a bad guy who comes and kills you in your sleep. Some kids at school talked about it. The name is Candyman. Just the product of someone’s imagination, we told him. He knows, but fear has stuck for now. Having our home broken into recently doesn’t help.

As a result, he is ambivalent about Halloween. Excited about the dressing up part, troubled about the anticipated scary, possibly gory, décor and costumes he might see that day and the stories associated with them.

It shouldn’t be this way; it should be fun — kiddie-appropriate jack-o-lantern, goblin and ghost fun. After all, like our 92-year-old neighbour said, “Halloween has always been fun for kids.”

We should keep it that way.

Originally published as a column in the Kamloops Daily News on Saturday, November 2, 2013. 

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

Things To Keep

By

On October 12, 2013

In Kamloops

PeacefulIf you follow Westsyde Road all the way to the McLure ferry — the shortest ferry ride around — keep driving until you hit Highway 5. Drive toward Barriere and just before you enter town, turn right onto Agate Bay Road.

You will find yourself among beautiful, peaceful hills with trees touched by the breath of autumn. Every now and then there’s a farmhouse with a trail of smoke climbing into the overcast and you might be tempted to feel envious of their perfect surroundings.

We did. It was Saturday morning and the world seemed slow paced.

We spotted herds of deer that stopped, turned their heads and stared at us as we drove by. We stopped the car rather abruptly a few times because of some ruffled purple flowers that had to be photographed. Or clouds.

Black cows and calves peppered the fields draping the sides of the road. Everything was calm and quiet and green.

The road ended into a fork that hugged Adams Lake and said Chase on the right side. We turned left and started driving on a slick dirt road all the way to our chosen camping spot: Gordon Bay rec site.

It rained on and off, but we set up the tent and took the canoe for a paddle. We docked on islands and shores that had nothing but driftwood and rocks. We discovered a beaver’s dam and paddled around, looking at mysterious entry tunnels and imagining the busy pitter-patter of feet walking through muck and carrying branches every which way in a never-ending effort to improve the half-submerged home.

The boys have learned to paddle by themselves this fall, so they paddled along the shores and into a small bay. They had secret missions to accomplish and seafarers dialogues to carry out while we got the fire going. We ate, roasted marshmallows — “can we have one more?” is the refrain that comes with us on every camping trip — and then we went for a night paddle.

Try it. Water plants seem asleep as they sway with the gentle canoe wake. If all headlamps are turned off, you will find yourself suspended between the glossy, dark, perfect lake surface and a sky ballooned with ghost-white clouds.

We woke up late and lazy. I went to photograph dew on old summer grass, slugs eating mushrooms and rocks hugged by the gentlest lapping waves.

The sun burst out an hour later and all four of us paddled to the other side of the lake to a sunny rocky shore where we found a baby garter snake, no bigger than a pencil and cuddly if you cupped your hands over one another just so.

Rolled upA slice of sweetness, to hold the snake, I mean, a first encounter of this kind. We took turns and whispered as to not spook the black and yellow sliver that seemed to carry some emotions with it.

We drove back the next day, stopping by Roderick Hague-Brown Provincial Park to see the salmon run, a celebration of life and its immutable laws.

It had been a good two days.

We got home by seven.

It was the dead quiet that almost gave it away; our house had an eerie feeling to it. It was cold inside, as if windows had been left open the entire day.

“Why did you leave the back door open?” the boys asked as we stepped in. We had not. But the door was wide open. Shudder.

Our trip had all the good things a camping trip should have: lake to paddle on, islands to paddle to, baby snakes to wonder at and hold if you’re so inclined, rocks to collect.

The only thing that did not belong to the trip was finding our home broken into and our computers gone — with them, work and memories.

The people who broke in looked at our photos on the walls; they wrecked the collage with my sons’ baby footprints and their smiling faces, probably thinking it was the gate toward some secret treasure-laden safe.

We had a hard time settling in; eating; going to bed. Our home was hurt and we were hurt with it.

The boys kept asking if the people are still inside or coming back and we kept reassuring them. Memories of the camping trip almost melted away in sadness. How could anyone do this?

It took a whole lot of will power to do the cleanup the next day, as if someone had severed us from our own home. But we did it so we could all have our warm place back.

Then we looked at the trip photos knowing that there are things no one can ever take away.

Originally published as a column in the Kamloops Daily News on October 12, 2013

 

Night Out In Kamloops

By

On September 30, 2013

In Kamloops

It was last Wednesday evening that I honored an invitation to go about town with a bunch of strangers and eat at four different restaurants for a first time of a culinary and social event called Dishcrawl. I did not know what to expect as everything had been kept a secret until that evening.

Sometimes all you need to do is sit back and relax, but how to? It’s becoming a lost art in our hurried times. Often chased by gadgets into physical isolation, people often find online socializing easier.

It is not unusual for people to go hang out at an eating place because they know for a fact if any of their friends are there. There’s an app for that.

But there was none of that during the Dishcrawl event I attended. I sat down with people I didn’t know at 7 o’clock in place I had not scheduled ahead of time and knew that by the end of the night we will have learned at least the basics about each other.

We ate pizza at Papa Tee’s, sweet potato noodles and other Korean-inspired bits at the Cornerstone Sushi, tacos downtown at Quilas and a raspberry sauce-doused torte at Romann’s Swiss Pastries. Food is food is food you could say and that may be true, but this was more.

All places are family owned and operated. Every one of them came with a smiling host explaining the food in simple, user-friendly terms. Curiosity and the novelty of it added new flavors.

My table-mates and I talked life, careers and whether Kamloops is anyone’s birthplace. Less important in the end, it turned out, since we all call Kamloops home no matter how far from it we were born. There’s consent about the beauty of the hills and mountains spreading forever, and the wonder of our somewhat small but lively city.

I discovered that night that even when you hang out with strangers – and they are only strangers until one breaks the ice really – mentioning a name will have someone at the table say “Oh, I know that person!”

It is a small world, but how small could you go in the end? It turned out that a Labrador native is no stranger to a handful of Kamloops native. Or someone could tap you on the shoulder and say they know you and you realize that you know them. Conversation ensues and you feel the comfortable homey warmth of a place like Kamloops.

I may or may not see my table-mates any time soon, but what I know is that saving seats or seeing an arm raised signaling the seat that someone saved for you connects you to people you’ve never met before. An intimacy of some sort that will not go away. Memories of a time when you did know what to expect.

I wondered what made people sign up for the event. Perhaps curiosity or something to do on an ordinary Wednesday night, or both. At least one person moved to Kamloops two weeks ago.

At some point I am asked about advice for a newcomer to Kamloops. Someone just acknowledged my “no longer new in town” status! A rite of passage for sure. I take pride in telling of the many places I have visited with my family since we moved here a year ago, skiing across frozen lakes and hiking on crumbly cinnamon-hued hills included. It comes down to three words: Just do it!

In a time where we schedule our next breath with apps and such, a surprise evening may throw the proverbial stick in the wheels. There’s no app for that. It better not be.

Four places to go, countless conversations to be had, snippets of life to be swapped over a glass of wine, laughter and a brisk walk back to the car when the evening is over.

There’s something to be learned every time you take the word “usually” out of a schedule. For Dishcrawl, you shake hands, smile, introduce yourself and let the evening unfold while tasting good food prepared by local chefs you meet and greet as you walk in. “Thank you,” and then you’re off to your next adventure.

Originally published as a column in the Saturday edition of Kamloops Daily News on Saturday, September 27, 2013

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