Swerve Living.

It’s been a long road but we are finally in building mode.  We hope to have the construction crews on site in a matter of weeks.  Swerve Living is an environmentally friendly condominium complex.  It’s designed for urban living in the downtown of Red Deer.  During this past week we’ve been setting up the sales office and showroom.   Right now we have condos available for sale;  some have sold in the first week.  This Saturday between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. we are hosting an open house at Sunworks.  You are invited to come down and have a close look at the complex, ask your questions, and catch the excitement we feel for this project.

billboard-01 Swerve Living has been in the planning and design stages for about three years.  With the help of officials, both elected and employed, of the City of Red Deer, we’ve been able to design a building that meets the new Alberta Building Code  and embodies high quality environmental standards. This is a  super insulated building which consumes no gas to operate.  It is designed for future solar integration and wind energy.   Our municipal Planning Commission and City Council has supported this project from the beginning.

Swerve Living is a traditional building in many ways. It however keeps in mind the aesthetics of our downtown and integrates well into our changing community as we imagine and plan for new residential living in downtown.

As a long term business resident of the downtown it is quite exciting for me to see the changes happening here.

Executive Place on the corner of Ross and 49th Avenue has nearly reached its maximum height.  They’ve started putting windows up and soon they’ll be solely working on the inside.  Once that project is complete the City will build Cenotaph Park which will create a vibrant cultural space downtown. The park will be directly in front of the building where the construction staging area is now.  Ross Street won’t return to four lanes of traffic; it’s great to see how Ross Street has changed, from a place that the strippers and drug lords hung out to the busiest and most vibrant street in Red Deer.  The merchants on this street have worked tirelessly to create something important for us all.

I believe that as Swerve Living progresses it will further the transformation of the downtown along Gaetz Avenue.  If you haven’t been downtown recently you really must visit us.  There is now a wide range of international restaurants, all independent and all great places to eat  — from Fijian to Thai, from Mexican to Lebanese.  The shopping is the best in the City and the increasing walkability of the downtown makes it a rich cultural experience. It’s a good reminder that our roots in Alberta are deeper than our oil and gas industries: we come from all over the world and we have a rich and diverse heritage.  Downtown is the place to be; it’s not for mall shoppers.  It’s for those that seek to connect with this place we call Red Deer in a much more substantial and rich way.

Reflexivity.

Tea in the Garden with Rachel and AlanI’m sitting at home in my hallway office thinking about life and the changes of the past year, and also of the changes that are about to occur in the next year.  It is truly amazing what can happen if one thinks about one’s life in a long term perspective.  Reflexivity! as my best friend puts it.  By my definition it is the ‘power’ to create one’s own world by thinking about one’s present world.   By asking questions frequently about how I feel and what I think I need or want, I’ve begun to build up a praxis of my life and I think my future possibilities — even if it doesn’t involve slingshotting around the sun to go back in time and try again.

I find it absolutely amazing that most people don’t spend time thinking about their own lives and all that is happening to them, or rather all that is happening in which they play an part, as an actor. Just today, I was speaking with a smart colleague about this and it occurred to me that most people don’t think about their lives… or don’t think about what they are thinking about.  Strangely, the later is one definition of being sentient.

Earlier in this blog I proposed a few questions to think about daily.  As I have done this reflecting myself, the questions have changed for me. The act, or performance, of asking yourself these questions, (or any reflective question, I imagine), has the potential to help you align your dreams and your purpose in life.  I may be being too nebulous and intellectual here;  so instead I issue you a challenge.  Try this for three weeks…. as my mother said, for 21 days: the number of days it takes to create a habit…. take five minutes every morning and answer these questions in a journal (electronic or otherwise) or on a piece of paper that you can tape to the mirror.   See what happens with your thinking.  Think about how you would like to change the questions.  Think about your answers.  Think about what you know and don’t think you know.  Reflect on your life and your part in the world. You’ll think as part of your daily journey.  Most of all, enjoy yourself and be kind to yourself, as you travail.

Here are the questions, as I have written them.  Feel free to alter them as time goes by. As you ‘unpack’ the language in these questions (like the difference between need or want) you’ll see multiple ways of thinking. Don’t worry about the questions too much, just consider your answer.  Sometimes it is the first thing that comes to your soul.  There is no correct or absolute way to reflect… there is only to begin and continue — for yourself and no one else really.  I believe we should all remember that we are all solitary travellers on the earth.  It often reminds me of a film that I saw while I lived in Alabama titled. “A Company of Strangers.”     That’s another story.

What is the most important thing I need (or want) to be for myself today?

What is the most important thing that I need (or want) to do for myself today?

What is the most important thing for me to do for others today?

What is it that I most need from others today?

What are the most pressing items that need doing in the businesses today?

How curious do I feel?

Do these activities take me toward or away from my future vision?

I invite you, as I have done all along, to post comments and thoughts to this blog.  Share what you are learning for yourself and others who read and reflect.

Stuart Ross reading at Sunworks.

I’m so pleased to let you know that we are having an reading at Sunworks on June 25, 2009, at 7:oo p.m. Here is a little information. I think it is going to be a great time and I encourage all of you that can come to join us for wine and cheese and a great evening.

FREEHAND BOOKS LAUNCHES STUART ROSS’S NEW COLLECTION OF FICTION IN RED DEER

Freehand Books will be celebrating the Red Deer launch of Stuart Ross’s critically acclaimed new collection of fiction, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, on Thursday, June 25 at 7:00 p.m. at Sunworks (4924 Ross St). Stuart Ross will read from Buying Cigarettes for the Dog, and wine and cheese will be served. This is a free event and open to the public.

Buying Cigarettes for the Dog is the first book of fiction since 1997 from the consummately underground Ross, and this diverse collection has caught the attention of reviewers across the country. Patricia Robertson, writing in the Toronto Star, says “It’s as if Jane Austen and Franz Kafka collaborated on a short story collection while Albert Einstein acted as editor,” and Vue Weekly calls Ross “a challenging but unerringly entertaining writer.” Released less than two months ago, Buying Cigarettes for the Dog is already going into its second printing.

Stuart Ross is the co-founder of the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, Poetry Editor at Mansfield Press, and the Fiction & Poetry Editor at This Magazine. He has published two collaborative novels, a collection of stories, six poetry collections, and a collection of personal essays, and is the editor of the anthology Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian Poets Under the Influence. Ross has taught writing workshops across Canada, as well as in the U.S. and Chile. He lives in Southern Ontario.

For more information phone Paul at 403-341-3352.  I’m looking forward to seeing many of you there and enjoying this great writing together.

first fridays

So this gallery hop has been growing over the past several months. Tomorrow, that’s Friday May 1, three openings happen at once. I hope that you’ll put on your snowshoes and trudge down for a glass of  wine and a good look. The Harris-Warke gallery has an interesting show with ceramics, which I totally love. The Velvet Olive has the photographs of a self-proclaimed “new artist in town” who explores the human body as a canvas. The Gallery IS in its new location on Alexander Way beside McBain Camera and features a series of portraits and constructs. Definitely worth a look.

Alleyscape Studio is open and it’s always worth it to drop in and see Paul Boutlbee and his work. That’s located opposite the Sunworks bookstore entrance near the Velvet Olive.

In the old Gallery IS location the francophone society is gearing up to participate in first Fridays as well, so that is something that you can look forward to.

Sunworks of course is open late that night and is always worth a good browse. The bookstore is in full swing featuring lots of new titles. The rest of the store is packed with great finds, with more ever on its way. What a great way to support our local economy and our local artists. In gloomy and uncertain times art really has a way to improve life.

view this and hope

Here is a little something that I wanted to call your attention to. Global Oneness Project
I’m not writing much about it, instead you can explore this on your own. I continue to believe that we are all connected in some way, if not only through the physical earth that we share.  These stories and thoughts are powerful and help to remind us of our fellow travellers. Although we alone can know our inside worlds, we are surrounded by people with similar challenges and experiences, joys and worries.

about the global oneness project

The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. Since 2006, we’ve been traveling the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world.

Our living library of films is available for free from our website, through select broadcast outlets, and on DVD. Through events and educational materials we offer opportunities for people to deepen their experience with the different facets of oneness we are exploring.

We hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

The Global Oneness Project is a special project of Kalliopeia Foundation, a private grant-making foundation in northern California committed to honoring the unity at the heart of life’s rich diversity.

Watch the trailer.

a dark time

There are times in my life when it seems like I don’t have a clue about anything.  When nothing seems to make sense.  I’m in the middle of one of those times when I am reminded of the uncertainty of everything.  I get up a little bit early today.  It is raining again.  The flat I am staying in is a block off the Mediterranean Sea in the small resort town of Sitges. Most of the night I’ve listened to the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore, which although slightly distant now were very close as I walked  from the town’s centre last night.  From this corner near the church where I now sit,  have breakfast and think, I walked along the shore, the sand giving way under my boots. These thoughts of confusion began last night during this walk. The meaning of life, as clichéd as that sounds, omnipresent in my mind.  I question everything that I have done and what I am.  I question why I should do anything in the future.  I feel blank.  What is the importance of trying, of constant learning, of love?  I walk to the end of the rocky pier about half way back, the town’s lights far enough behind me so that I cast no shadow in the dark ocean.  I stare into the blackness of the sea alone on the edge of the world  and wonder what it might offer me, if there might be a message about my life.  Nothing is clear, there are no outlines, no shapes, only the constant sound of the water shifting against the rock.  Perhaps this represents my life. I feel contempt for myself and my efforts.

My sleep is restless, my thoughts no more clear when I wake.  I begin to be reminded why it is so easy for people to cling to structure and tradition.  Why people don’t travel far from home.  Why people worship an all powerful and knowing being, follow religion, visit the same cafe every morning, why obsessive compulsiveness or addictions form. So many ways we are in life seem to be a response to the great uncertainty of life, to create for ourselves meaning, or to mask and hide from the possibility that there is none at all.

I have a wonderful breakfast, of eggs, toast, tomato, and ham.  The rain falls harder.  It’s time for me to return to the flat and pack for the trip to Barcelona.  The only thing that I am certain of this morning is that there is me.  I’m alone in the world with other people who are alone in this world.   During my solo journey it is nice, even welcome, when another offers to help make sense of my experience.  It becomes less confusing and painful in the darker times and more joyous and clear in the bright times.  To hold my hand and to say that they see a similar thing is very comforting and helpful.  Perhaps this is my meaning, perhaps it is meaning we all share – to help those other solitary travelers be more comfortable in their journeys with the hope that they will offer us the same.

To do this work of travelling together we must learn to hear one another’s voices and develop connections among ourselves.  In this effort we must also learn to hear our own voices.  I believe we are strengthened by learning that we express ourselves in many ways, with many different voices, and as we do this we create connections with one another.

thoughts about built space

I’m sitting in the Barbican, in the flat of Tim and Alan. It is Sunday morning.  We are packed and ready to go to Spain.  They’ve taken this opportunity to go to their local Anglican church, which seems to me to be older than God himself.  It’s a beautiful building that was for the most part destroyed during the last war.  The buildings in London are quite amazing; there is a real sense of preservation.  Besides the church, here in the Barbican there are old bits of roman walls.  It’s fascinating to a prairie boy, where the oldest buildings I saw growing up were barely 100 years.  Yesterday we visited a church that was built in 1132.  It’s easy to read the plaque but the comprehension of a building that is nearly 900 years old and still being used is beyond my grasp.  I have absolutely no understanding of what life was like then or even the events that might have been occurring as that building was being constructed.

Yesterday afternoon Terry and I did a little shopping near Oxford Circus.  I was completely enthralled by the amount of people out in shopping. It rained off and on but it didn’t matter.  It’s great to be in a place that is so busy and active.  We managed to find our way back to the Barbican on the bus system in time to meet Alan and Tim at the Barbican Gallery.  We went to see an exhibition on Le Cobusier’s work.  I found it all quite interesting.  He certainly was a visionary and had very provocative thinking.  His theoretically proposal to rebuild Paris with a series of skyscrapers, although interesting to see, seemed to miss the idea of how people move and interact as groups.  He seemed to really push the envelope at the time in terms of personal ergonomics.  I’m not sure that word was even in the modern lexicon then.  His individual spaces were full of light and function.  I love that they seem so ‘modern’ and minimalist; taking simple forms and blowing them up to gigantic proportions.  It’s no wonder they feel comforting and understandable.

He seemed strongly influenced by the cubist movement at the time, many of his paintings and drawings have a strong Picasso-like quality.  I however found myself being very critical them.  From this exhibition it seems like he never really learned how to draw.

I need to and want to study a little more of his thinking.  I’m specifically interested to see if he/how he considered the interactions of groups of people in a space.  He buildings although so beautiful and functional on the inside seem completely devoid of character on the outside.  I’m drawn to form that more closely ties into the landscape and represents a balance with nature, and human nature. Watching people on the streets yesterday move among one another in the business foot traffic I’ve seen in years, reminded me of how we like to be around one another.  People organized themselves in propose, creating loose structure and an organic flow to movement.  I wonder how these might be better accommodated within built structure.

So off we go to one of the older cities in the world. I’ll be watching how things were build, rearranged, recreated, destroyed, and repurposed.  Humanity over time must have a similar effect on this environment as a flowing river does over a landscape.  Structures must adapt to make way how we most intimately and casually interact with our surroundings.

equinox

A girl in a city
A girl in a city

Today is a turning point in the year.  Equinox is one of my favourite days. The days now officially have more light than darkness. It’s a great time to get organized and prepare for the summer. It’s a time for new beginnings as we think about spring soon coming, but it is also a time to reflect on our past.  This week, winter has been putting in a last ditch effort to cling to the landscape.  Even as I write this the snow blows and piles up on the streets and houses.  Still it’s nearly zero and those that did shovel their sidewalks know that the earth is warm enough to melt the snow falling during the day.  In many ways it is quite pretty.  A nice blanket of clean white makes the city quiet on a Sunday afternoon.

Equinox is a great time to consider a little decluttering and organizing.  I hear my grandmother’s voice, ‘a place for everything and everything in it’s place’. Terry and I have plans to sort and tidy up the closets, hide the winter clothes, and get the shorts and sandals out for the warm weather that is just around the corner.  Clothes that I’ve outgrown will soon find new homes.  I’m excited now, I want to put down my coffee and this blog and go sort closets.  Okay, I’m a little weird too.  Our de-cluttering angel, Heather, would be proud.  And yes, there is such a person and she is a great help.

Our plan is that the warm weather will be here when we come back from our spring break in Europe.  I used to tell everyone I know never to let me go to Europe for I feared I would not come back.  Instead we are now visiting often.  All of this cleaning and organizing is quite important to us as we plan a house renovation this summer.  The plans are with the architect and each iteration brings as a little closer to the ideal space that we would love for our lifestyle of openness, entertaining, and gardening.  Lots of light and a more minimalist approach to design.  I’m most excited because I’m getting rid of the 6’5″ doorways that I constantly have to duck under.  Soon the house will have only eight foot openings and sliding walls.  Not that I’m that tall – for heaven’s sakes 6’6″ is quite enough – flood pants and a pointed head.  Poor me.

So as I considered this week, I’ve started on my goals for the season.  One of the big things for me is to finish off a number of projects.  It seems a big thing every year but perhaps this year I’ll actually get many of them finished. I’ve used the three questions I referred to in my last entry as a basis for planning this week and it is interesting to see what has happened.  I am feeling much more balanced with my life… large and in charge as one friend says.  I have been able to do some things that I’ve put off for months if not years.

My biggest accomplishment this week was going to Calgary on Wednesday and meeting with the printers to have limited edition prints made of two of my paintings.  I’ve shown here two of the paintings that I’ve chosen and there is a third that I’m considering. Now for a shameless plug.  If you would like a print of either of these please let me know, by either emailing me at pharris@sunworks.ab.ca , or by signing up for the blog newsletter.  I’ll be sure to contact you as soon as they are off the press, which will be in about three weeks.

For Nicole
For Nicole

On Wednesday the most important thing for me to do for myself was to go to Calgary have a little space to think and read, as well as to organize getting these prints in the works.  It was so great to have time.  The weather, unlike today, was cooperative.  Winter was losing.  The sun was bright and shining and I was able to walk around Mount Royal with only a t-shirt.  I eventually settled at Steeps on 17th Avenue for a wonderful pot of Lapsang Suchong.  That reminded me of my favourite high school teacher, Sheena.  She was my art teacher and it seemed so appropriate that I would have just come from the printers.  Terry hates this kind of tea, it reminds him of tar.  I spent a while reading the book ‘Wikinomics’ that takes a close look at social networking, mass collaboration and the economy.  I become increasingly convinced that I need to be more involved in this industry.

I stopped at my favourite bar on the way out of town for a couple of pints of beer.  It was really nice to treat myself and gave me added energy for the work that I needed to do the rest of the week.  I’ve been working on a number of small technological issues, from recovering from hacking, to finishing website work for clients.  I’ve been teaching myself new content management systems and it is becoming important to my business to really understand how these work and how I can integrate them with the web design work I do.

The one thing that I have most wanted to work on this week is writing.  I’ve learned that I truly need space for creativity to flourish.  What is interesting to me as I reflect on the amount of work that I have do with clients, and some of the important deadlines, is that it leaves very little time for writing.  Somehow I’m going to need to find space, even if it’s only a few hours a week, to really focus on writing.  Many of the interruptions that happened this week are of the one time variety, to do with domain transfers, email setup, etc.  I’m staring to feel some confidence around handling these now.

On Friday morning I had the wonderful opportunity to be filmed for a video being made on Community Development.  Even though I wasn’t in quite the right space for this video I found it interesting to hear myself speaking.  The experience was good because it reminded me that some of the material that I need for the book can be accessed through this type of interview process.  I’ve asked to for a copy of the complete interview when it’s available.  When Alan and I really get cooking on this book, it will be helpful to remember this interview process as a way to flush out the ideas and thinking.

So what I have learned this week?  It’s been so full of small things that it almost seems like the big accomplishments are hiding.  It’s a reminder to count the small accomplishments.  It’s my observation that many of us discount the small tasks we do, then at the end of the week we question if we have actually done anything.  This week has been full of little things what will all help create a better space for future work.  Since it is equinox this week, and it’s too cold to dance naked around a camp fire, let’s all try to remember what we’ve done with the past six months since the last equinox.  The major accomplishments will all be there, but try not to forget the simple things that are just about living one’s life.  In this 21st century world many travellers tend to think that the important things are those things that we can point to and say… ‘see, that’s what I’ve done with my time’.  I encourage you to think about the other ways you’ve spent your time, from reading to cooking, from hanging with friends to walking in the park, from dreaming about the future to remembering our own heritage… and then there is cycling, singing, painting, listening to music, laughing with friends… drinking great wine.

44 degrees later

It’s Sunday night once again.  I thought I wouldn’t make it through this week with the cold weather, but then as surely as it was -36 on Wednesday it was 44 degrees warmer a day later.  This is Alberta and the weather is especially exciting this time of year.  Another week or two and we won’t know whether to wear shorts or big winter jackets without opening the door and standing on the step for a few seconds.

I’ve spent a good part of this week establishing a website, this one in fact.  I can feel it starting to grow and I’m sure it will get its own legs soon.  I’m interested and curious where it is going to take me.  Tonight I’ve begun to send out the link to friends.  I’m done for the most part with the intense fiddling of the past week and will turn my attention to content.

My colleague, Alan Taylor and I spent many hours in Montreal talking about community, community change, and the factors that enable change.  I feel a lot of our discussion and thoughts still rattling around in my head begging to appear on paper.  It wouldn’t surprise me at all to see my notebook opened on my desk tomorrow ready for me to engage with.  It’s time to begin the steady writing of this book.

So with the disasters and challenges of the past week over, which included flooding tenant spaces and hackers in my website, I’ll get down to writing this week.  Terry and I set up a home work station this weekend.  It will be so nice to have a proper place to sit and work.

As I think about it I was able to accomplish a lot in one week.  I usually do accomplish a lot, but often I forget this until I sit down to remind myself of what I have done.  Sunworks is looking great and the sales have been fairly steady.  We are just  managing to keep up with the bills from the new  incoming spring stock, which is great for this time of year. We have so much space to fill now, with the second floor. Terry and I have booked a quick trip to Spain for a week break right after he finishes at Olds College this year.  We are joining our great friends Alan and Tim in London, going to the BBC Symphony and to see Ronnie Burkett, Theatre of Marionettes.  It’s the closing performance of Billy Twinkle, Requiem for a Golden Boy.  We absolutely love his work and it will be so great to share.  Then it is off to Spain, to Sitges for four days and Barcelona for three, where we are staying in the historic part of town.  Which sounds like a joke when I say it.  All of Barcelona seems historic to an Albertan.

It was the first week back to the gym since my Montreal trip.  It was harder than I thought it would be but it feels great to be back.  I can feel gains already, or at least feel the droop stopping.  So with all of mucky stuff out of the way last week, I’m going to try hard to hold a space open for myself to write.

At the beginning of this week I wrote and posted on my mirror:

What is the most important thing I need to do for myself today?
What is the most important thing that I need to do for others today?
How curious do I feel?

I’ve read them many times this week, and they are useful in framing the day.  Last week I wrote about space.  The first of these questions reminds me that I must before all else make sure that I have space for myself to just be… evolve perhaps.  It’s helped me think of what activities are self nourishing.  This week that question gave me time to read, to sort out my desk completely, to set up a home office, to get back to the gym, to have some art framed, think about love, and simple things like laundry.

The second question was interesting and I’m curious to see where it will take me in the future.  It can be read in two ways.  What do ‘I need’ to do for others?  Also, what do I… ‘NEED to do for others’ today?  I think it is a good reminder that we have needs as they relate to others.  For example, we need to help our friends feel good about their work, but at the same time others may have needs of us, such as I need you to do X; fix the printer, respond to an email, pick up some groceries, or scoop the cat box.  There seems an interesting balance between what others need of us, and what we need to do for others.  I took much more joy this week in writing a thank you card for a friend who said kind words when I needed them, than I did doing a task that she needed to me to.  Both are important and have different effects.  I would be interested in hearing others’ thoughts on these ideas of needs.

The third question, came from a course I took nearly a year ago.  Alan and I spent five days together at Schumacher College, where Meg Wheatley was the guest instructor.  There is a complete other story about the whole Schumacher experience. For now back to the question, how curious are you today?  She posed this question at the beginning of the course and I found it most intriguing.  It invites me to look at everything from a ‘why?’ perspective.  As my life unfolds, and in some weeks unravels, right before my eyes, carrying curiosity allows me to stand beside myself – to play second witness – and watch and question what is going on behind the scenes.  It compels me to look closely at my own reactions and that of others.  It helps me to be in the moment and yet not be trapped by the moment.  It seems like a beautiful way to maintain a constant state of reflection about myself and about the world around me.

So, I invite to you try these questions out this week.  Post them on your mirror. Notice what is different, what is the same, and how you change.  I would love to hear your thoughts, please feel free to post comments.