A CANADIAN STORY

Fifty seven years ago last week a tall, dark haired Englishman with a ginger mustache stepped off a DC-6 in Vancouver from Chicago via Seattle. He hailed a cab outside an airport building that was vaguely art deco, and was taken downtown to his new place of residence. The Barclay Manor was a boarding house then and still exists in some form today. On the way he crossed over the new Oak Street Bridge where the colorful bunting was still flying after its official opening a few days earlier. “What a wonderful people these Canadian’s are,” he thought to himself, “to roll out all this color just to welcome me.”  It was typical of his English humour, he was also quite tired.

His journey started a few days earlier on the northwest coast of England, where the stormy winter winds howl down off the Irish Sea and would steal your soul if you weren’t dressed and prepared for it. He had left behind his wife and newborn son, though they would follow in the September, to come to Canada with big hopes for a prosperous and comfortable life.

The journey to the West Coast of Canada was mostly made in the blind, and not just a little of that was blind faith. After all, the stories of your in-laws who had a few years earlier been out here only once for a short period, and the cheerful propaganda of the Government immigration brochures and films depicting life and opportunities, can only give so much assurance that what you assume from the facts presented are the truths of what you will actually find.

He and his wife had grown up in a seaside resort town, the kind of place where everybody in town is trying to separate the tourist from their money. The “season” was short and the winter was long. It wasn’t easy to put anything over on either him or his wife. When you grow up in a “Carny” town you learn the language of mis-direction, propaganda, and you didn’t need a degree from a business school to understand how the money cycle worked. Neither he nor his wife worked in the trade of the town. He had an aptitude for circuits and logic and electrons, she made candy and was a hairdresser.

The economic and political circumstances didn’t favour the kind of life they really wanted, so they became part of the European “brain drain” and joined the exodus to the various far shores of the old Empire.

They thought carefully about where they could go. America was only briefly on the table, though with his skills and experience he would most certainly have been snapped up by one of the major electronics firms. They had a newborn son and the military draft was still in place. National Service in the RAF had been two years of his life teaching him radar operations and maintenance, and came with an all-expenses paid trip to Malaya during a Communist uprising sometimes called “The Malayan Emergency”. He was proud of his time in Service, but they would both prefer to raise their children in a place that wasn’t prone to military adventurism.

So after all the consideration it came down to Canada, but where in Canada? It had to be by the water. Growing up by the sea neither of them could see a life without it being close by. And they decided that mountains would be nice. So they settled on Vancouver and they made their successful applications.

They drew up a plan. He would go out first and find work and then send for them. If he couldn’t find work in Vancouver, he would go North and find work in the mines, for they were always hiring those willing to work hard. In the end he found work quickly at the regional offices of the Dutch company Philip’s Electronics as a maintenance technician. The offices near the corner of Grandview and Boundary Roads, was where he was a year later when everyone in the office heard the metal scream as the Second Narrows Bridge collapsed, dumping seventy nine construction workers into the waters of Burrard Inlet and killing eighteen. It was one of those moments in history that everyone in the city shared. They would freely tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard the banshee screech of failing metal.

The small family moved through a series of rental basements and houses as they saved for a house of their own. They were a modestly prosperous working class family of their time. He was gaining attention and respect for his quality of work and work ethic.

In 1960 he was hired as a transmitter maintenance technician for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His new workplace would be a building resembling a park ranger station/chateau that sat alongside a rough and only partially paved road, three quarters up the side of Mt. Seymour. Beside the building was a huge transmission tower that was visible with the naked eye from most anywhere in town. They also welcomed a second son. And they bought a small house in North Vancouver to reduce the commute, and to save money on bridge tolls. North Vancouver was affordable to working class folks. Times change.

In 1961, the third son came along keeping her busy with diapers and feedings. It was the way things were done. It was neither questioned, nor thought different. Those kinds of changes in the social structure of Canada were still a way off. She taught them to read, and draw, and indulge the imagination. She taught them their address and phone number, and to never talk to strangers or open the door to anyone. Bad World 101 for 1960’s kids. And there was always love from the whole family. The children never doubted, it was never said, but it was always felt.

In the early 60’s family started to come over. Drawn by both concern, and love, the immigration boom of the time was helped along by her parents, and his mother. Then her sister and a friend, who would become a most loved Aunt, came through on their way to check out Australia but never left Vancouver. They too got jobs, and prospered in a working class way. But in Canada working class meant something totally different than where they had come from. They discovered the working class didn’t have the same social barriers. If you were competent, able, and willing you had chances for advancement and increased opportunities both economic and social. On the edge of the wilderness there isn’t room for rigid stratification. When there’s work to get done everybody knows how to drive the truck and where it needs to go, and why.

Vancouver had a different feel to them all. There is a freedom of thought, action, and revealed intent here than there was back “home”. The lives they were building, modest success upon modest success, was building to the realization that this was now home, and the place from whence they came and the friends and loved one’s still there, would always live gratefully in their hearts, but their hearts were rooted here. They all became Canadian Citizens as soon as they had the opportunity.

They refused to live in any of the city’s “enclaves”. Other immigrants had chosen to live in close proximity to other similar immigrants. They formed Vancouver’s “neighbourhoods”. The young family chose to spread their social wings in more diverse communities. In 1967 they moved to a new street, in a new neighbourhood on the side of Mt Seymour. It was so new the street was dirt, there were neither curbs nor sidewalks, but the power lines were underground and the water and sewer lines were new. The curbs would come later. When they moved they had no idea what a cultural milieu it would be, or that the greater area was more diverse than they had imagined.  Germans, Swedes, South Africans, Englishmen, most of the United Nations, and even some folks from Saskatchewan, all mingled pretty freely without any real tensions of their cultural pasts. Mostly they shared a quiet and peaceful place and future, and they did it without any real or conscious thought of doing otherwise.

It didn’t mean holiday observances might not have been different from house to house, that added to the children’s experiences of differences and diversities, nor did it stop the children from playing hockey in the street. Their children were the greatest gift they had been given, and this place they had chosen to live was giving the children an even greater gift, tolerance and respect.

Life goes on. The people in this story have mostly passed on. Only the woman who became “a most loved Aunt” remains. The children all stay in touch and live close enough to each other that getting together for Sunday breakfast is still the family tradition. One passed down from the parents that always wanted to share not just their wealth of experience, but also teaching by example, that you may not agree but you should always be civil and respectful.

This is just one Canadian Story. Today is the 147^th Birthday celebrating what is the most unique real time social experiment in human history. My parents and family chose to be a part of it. They became modestly successful in their chosen professions. In 1969 my mother returned to the workforce as a sales clerk at Woodward’s department store in Park Royal. At the time it was more out of a need to pay for the braces that my brothers needed than any great political or social statement. She continued to work long after the braces she paid for put the orthodontist’s kids through college.

My mother’s work helped my parent’s provide greater opportunities for us. She paid for our week long coach tour though Europe, The Benelux Countries, five countries in seven days. I’ve spoken of it before. Following that trip I returned to school and the grade 8 study of the Renaissance. Thanks to my parents, and my mother’s job to be specific, I actually had an idea of what the heck it all meant and where it happened.

I could go on at length with this but I won’t. I think you get the idea. Tonight when the sun begins to set on this day of national celebration and the parties and fireworks kick off, as birthday 147 becomes history, I will have a beer, bake a potato, grill a steak and serve it up with a big green salad. And I will spend some time thinking of the immigrant experiences of my family.

While ours was unique to us, the detail specific to us, it has been my experience through life that the reasons why they, and all the folks from the other nations came, and the gratitude they had for being accepted is a mostly Universal feeling for those who chose to come and prosper here. And among those who continue to do so.

In the end it didn’t matter where they came from, only that they lived here. Their legacy as immigrants rests with my brothers and I who are modestly prosperous, healthy, and happy. It’s what every parent wants for their children no matter where they come from. It’s the only thing that any society really wants for itself. In Canada it actually gets to happen, but quietly and peacefully.

Last Blog - For A While...

I was in Fort Lauderdale to catch a plane home. For now my time in the Tropics was done. I was going to miss the sun and the sea, Tropics Radio and the stars, and an extra couple of hours of daylight. I arrived two days before my flight to search out the home of a literary hero. The man himself is most likely dead, well if he wasn’t fictional I mean. The author of the stories, John D. MacDonald, died back in 1987, a scant five years after I discovered his life’s work.

Slip F-18 at the Bahia Mar Hotel and Marina was the fictional home of Travis McGee from the first book published in 1964, to the last one published in 1985. In all a total of 21 literary adventures, and each one an influence on my life. Aboard his 52 foot “barge type houseboat” he set out to solve mysteries, right wrongs, and live the kind of life not many of us can anymore. A self-proclaimed “salvage consultant” who took things back from those who took it from you, and kept fifty percent of its appraised value as his fee. When you have nowhere else to turn, it’s a good deal. He was thoughtful, intelligent, quick, and given to extended periods of self-examination and searches for some context to the flaws of humanity. He taught me a lot about the thought process that has helped keep me sane, and at times slightly insane. I also learned that doing the right thing was often the hardest thing, and rarely the convenient thing.

I chose to stay at the hotel, a Hilton property. This puts me at ground zero in my hunt for a dedication plaque that was placed here by the Friends of Libraries USA. This was the first place they declared one of their Literary Landmarks. The day after my arrival I find the plaque in the Dockmaster’s Office after a morning of searching the complex. It’s a moment for me that has been coming since I read my first Travis McGee book as a much younger man.

Young men need dreams and aspirations in the same equal measure they need good mentors and effective education. I’ve been both fortunate and lucky there have been both in my life. Some of the mentors and what they taught me was very real and larger than life; some were quiet and lived in both reality and literature. I carry all of them and their lessons in heart and memory, thus they live on in the abundant theatre that is my imagination.

My travels have been guided to places that sounded interesting, and sometimes the journeys both physical and intellectual were sparked by the work of writers, actors, and musicians. The idea of the great cross country adventure to Key West was first dreamed up in the months following my high school graduation when I first heard Jimmy Buffett’s music. But the realities of life (money, jobs, people) can delay dreams and aspirations. When I did take that trip it was because it was the best time to take it.

Being in places like Key West and New Orleans held a different fascination than the literary references. My Key West experience showed me that the fiction of the Key West “lifestyle” was vastly at odds with the reality of living there. New Orleans opened my eyes to a Bourbon Street the locals stayed away from, the equivalent of what I found in Hawaii with Waikiki. To me the working locals were far more interesting than the tourist locations themselves. Not that any of those hard working people should ever be put on display. Not a very touristy attitude either but as you may have guessed from some of my writing, I’m not really much of a tourist.

Which is not to say I haven’t played tourist. My family once took a European coach tour during which we visited five countries in seven days. While we took a lot of memorable pictures on that trip, the 1969 movie “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” is the quintessential depiction of our European adventure, and I suspect the coach tour adventures of many others. That experience, and several others like it, soured me on travel in my 20’s and 30’s. In typical closed minded fashion that was the only experience I had known, I didn’t like it and therefore I wasn’t going to do it again. Until I discovered another way that encouraged me, an introvert, that it was alright to travel quietly alone, to see what I wanted, when I wanted.

Some of that encouragement came from my literary heroes who helped define to me that being on your own was not the same as being alone. As I worked more diligently on my own writing I found I needed to travel, to find new ways to describe and experience feelings, colors, tastes, smells, and people. It also helped to better define myself and my life.

So here I was in Fort Lauderdale hunting one of those heroes. I found the Marina was smaller, and faced an entirely different direction than I had thought. The hotel was not a massive concrete monstrosity but rather a quiet peaceful construct, and that Slip F-18 no longer existed. A few years back the marina was rebuilt to allow larger boats to have access. You can actually read into that large yachts and small ships. However, the marina is so popular in the literary world that the dedication plaque was moved into the Dockmaster’s office.

I spent a few minutes talking with Terry, who was behind the counter, and asked a few questions about whether people still come by to see the plaque, and if she had read the books herself. She kindly took the time to tell me that the plaque was very popular and that many people sought it out like I had, and that she had read some of the Travis McGee books but wasn’t familiar with any of John D. MacDonald’s other work. I mentioned that some of his short stories, including an earlier rough version of Travis McGee could be found in short story collections titled The Good Old Stuff, and More Good Old Stuff.

I left knowing that I wasn’t alone in having Travis McGee as a hero, and that people will always respond to strong characters and solid storytelling. And that is probably why I responded so strongly to Susan Cain’s assertion in her book “Quiet” that we now live in a Culture of Personality and not a Culture of Character.

After finding the plaque I wandered across the hotel’s overhead walkway to the public beach. I wanted to wander and ponder. The dark threatening sky and the high winds of the day before had calmed into a mild breeze and hot sun, which for me translated into thinking weather. I took my time walking the mostly empty beach. Its two days before American Thanksgiving, not a high traffic season for the Tropics. I’m not especially known for my coordination so sometimes I have to be careful about wandering and pondering at the same time. Some people walk into traffic because they’re focussed on their phone, for me it’s a cogent or tangential thought while playing the “what if’s” of intellectual musings.

In this case I got safely away from traffic and found a small beach bar, World Famous by its own admission, and with its own resident artist who worked in wax crayon. The Florida Ale was $4.50 a glass and it was cold. I watched the artist sketch the tourists while I pondered my beer, and the strengths and weaknesses of characters in both real life and various literary worlds. That’s the thing about good character; if you value its strength then you appreciate when you find it in others. But first you must be exposed to those who have it, and who amply demonstrate it, before you can understand and value why it’s so important.

I once worked for someone who said they didn’t read books, just magazines. This individual knew nothing of history and wasn’t interested anyway. I got the impression they felt that having an arrogant short thought persona was somehow more useful than having actual personal and intellectual integrity. In short order staff was alienated and grew fearful, in some cases hostile, and in others distrustful. The lack of demonstrated good character destroyed years of teamwork and positive relationship building. Sadly, this personality method is increasingly being demonstrated in organizations where a culture of arrogant autocracy thinly masquerades as barely effective corporate and public leadership. In short, a demonstration of the clash between the Culture of Personality and the Culture of Character.

Good character and bad character is essential to both literary and real world definitions of good and evil. Without the literary heroes who demonstrate it in the theatre of the mind, and the real world characters who we actually see live it, we would lose our sense of what we truly value in ourselves and what we truly despise in our other worlds. And the truly strange thing about people of good character is that while sometimes we can’t define what it is, we know it when we see it and we know it when we don’t. That doesn’t mean we should take a fatalistic approach and not speak up when bad character is apparent. We should be engaging with those of bad character the same way we engage in discussions about how to effectively deal with schoolyard bullying. Sadly, we’re not making much headway there.

I came to Fort Lauderdale to catch a plane. I’m leaving after having dined on a delicious steak, sipped the “Perfect Martini”, taken a long walk on a wonderful beach, indulged a cold beer while watching a beach bar artist create and inspire, all the while taking the opportunity to indulge in some wandering and pondering on issues important to me, and finding the home of a literary hero of good character. Not a bad way to spend my last 48 hours here in the Tropics!

 

 

For the next few months I’m taking a break from blogging. I have some other gardens that are blooming in my life and I need to tend to them. Thanks to you all for taking time out of your busy lives to read my meandering musings. And special thanks to those who took the time to write me back to say you enjoyed the journeys.

Mahalo, and Aloha Nui Loa.

WARNING - CONTAINS IMAGES OFFENSIVE TO FRENCH CHEFS

I’m conflicted. Not in a negative sense, but I’m conflicting because I’m trying to understand both sides of an issue. I have long felt that to really look at both sides is to be able to find a common solution, compromise, or the holy grail of consensus. It’s why you won’t find me always supporting business versus labour, or one political party over another. I prefer solutions that are not filtered by ideology, greed, or authoritarian intellectualism.

My parents went well out of their way to treat my brothers and I very fairly, with the result being that we generally get along well, and each of us tries to respect and understand the other. We also have a tendency to approach the world in a fair, practical, and mostly impartial manor. I always found it easier to find practical solutions when I wasn’t blinded by the “fluff” of position based reasoning. I have to admit however, that with life not actually being “fair” it has raised some interesting ethical issues.

But back to today’s reason for inviting you here. It’s about dinner, or lunch, or breakfast. In my travels I have shared with you many a delightful meal in fabulous and not so fabulous places. On occasion I have even supplied pictures. Turns out not all chefs are fond of you taking pictures of their food. Somewhere along the way someone decided to give such photography a derogatory name, “Food Porn”. I find the term highly offensive. I have shared many a shot of very attractive ribs, though I have had little to offer in the way of leg of lamb and chicken thigh. Really, “food porn”?  I don’t think so!

I share dining experiences from the road because they’re a huge part of the travel adventure, and my basic survival. A Prime Rib in Idaho, a shrimp Po Boy and exquisite beignets in New Orleans, fresh Stone Crab chowder, Lobster Mac & Cheese, Ribs from Corky’s in Memphis and Big Kenny’s in Key Largo, the Waimea Wings from Buffett’s at The Beachcomber, Cumin Crusted Mahi Tacos at Senor Frijole's, even the “full English” breakfast at the Brewer’s Fayre, all of which were standouts. The “sausage patties” at Arnold’s Classic Diner in Rapid City were a standout example of how eating on the road can be a different kind of adventure, especially when faced with an undiscovered Goodyear product.

I try to write about good food. I take pictures of good food. I also write about family and good family experiences. That doesn’t mean my “visual aids” should carry an offensive label. Food and travel were the conflicting thoughts as I read the article. As a teenager my parents took us a lot of places. In our teen years they took us to Europe twice (each time for a month), took a two week escorted bus tour through California and Nevada, and to Hawaii a couple of times. Once with most of the neighbourhood along at the same time. I also had the opportunity to spend seven weeks in Montreal after my father got a 16 year old me a job working for the Olympic Broadcaster in 1976. That’s how I learned about Mr. Sub, St. Hubert Chicken, and how to microwave a baked potato!

So I ate a lot of different food in a lot of different places. A cold cherry soup in Germany, and a fried spam sandwich billed as a hamburger on the Isle Of Man are always good for a shared laugh with my brothers. Even today, long after my parents have passed on, we try and get together at local restaurants for breakfast on Sunday mornings. It carrys on a long family tradition of Sunday breakfasts together.

And we do laugh because the food gave us positive common experiences. When we were quite small our parents would take us to Seattle where we would visit the new Space Needle, the Pacific Science Center, and the amusement park next to them both. We had to dress up for lunch (changing in the back of the car) because we went to a place that served the best plate of restaurant spaghetti I ever had. My mother would always be very concerned because we had on our dress white shirts and in typical kid fashion we would wind up with small specks of tomato sauce on them. Never mind that we got directions to the place from a motorcycle cop who looked suspiciously like Gertrude from the local kid’s TV show, J.P. Patches. Sadly I have never been able to find it again, but all restaurant spaghetti is measured against those memories.

Childhood travel memories were built around meal times on the road, but also life lessons on the value of road time together. By now my brothers are wondering why I haven’t brought up the camping trips where mom had to cook on the camp stove. It’s because those mealtimes weren’t always pleasant, and gave us a whole different type of road trip meal memories. Poor mom had to work three times as hard to feed us, and we weren’t quite old enough to understand what all that meant for her. I’m glad for the memories and the lessons learned, but I’m not too sad for the lack of pictures. Suffice to say that after that road trip the whole family cheerfully abandoned the great outdoors in a pop up tent trailer for hotels and restaurants. It’s one of the reasons our little tribe has survived together as long as it has. It was a conscious decision to try and keep ourselves happy on the road.

 

But back to the conflicting thoughts. The article I was reading, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10641913/French-chefs-hit-back-at-food-porn-photos-in-their-restaurants.html, puts forth that French chefs are upset that by the time the customer has finished “staging” the plate on the table to take a picture, the food is cold. In my experience “staging” has been no more than making sure the beer bottle label faces the camera, or the wine glass doesn’t seem to be sprouting out of the napkins. 

The chefs also complain of flashes going off distracting other diners. I’ll buy into that one, because it really is annoying. At Shula’s On The Beach in Fort Lauderdale I accidentally flashed on my plate while taking a picture of “The Perfect Martini”, my $43 Filet steak and the $8 baked potato. I felt badly because the place was dark and the couples at the other tables were having what I supposed were romantic evenings, and it only flashed once. But I wasn’t paying those prices without some kind of souvenir besides the quiet memory of an exquisitely beautiful piece of meat, and a wonderful dining experience where the staff made me, a solitary diner, feel very welcome.

Then there are the times I wish I had taken food pictures. Like the time myself and a friend/colleague were on assignment in Athens during the 2004 Olympics. We were working for different organizations but we managed to find time in our very busy schedules for lunch at a Taverna in the Plaka. We were in the shadow of the Acropolis, right outside the gates of the Agora. We sat outside on a hot August afternoon under a Greek blue sky, and ate souvlaki while we chatted about our common interests inside and outside of work. Mealtimes on the working road can be rushed affairs but we took our time, fending off vendors selling bootleg CD’s and other trinkets. I wish I had taken pictures to remind me in the years to come what a great time I was having.

Or the numerous times on the road when I wish I had taken pictures of working meals. The fabulous team I worked long hours with on a tragic and deadly landslide outside of Kaslo is one. The only hotel we could find, The Ainsworth Hot Springs Resort, was twenty miles from town. There weren’t a lot of options. We had to rush to get back before the restaurant closed at 8 (one night I nearly collided with a cow on the road that had slipped its gate), and the wonderful hotel staff who stayed late to feed us when we squeaked in at five minutes after. 

Then there was the time in Vernon when after a very long and stressful day covering a forest fire evacuation a single colleague stayed behind to help me pack my work truck, making us both late for a group dinner. We managed to mostly make it in time for dinner, and she deviously treated me to my meal. All of those meals were made special by both circumstance and company.

Food and meal times whether travelling or around town are moments I choose to share and remember. I often find food is enhanced by the company and surroundings, the intangible emotional component. I have found solace in a good meal alone, and friendship and companionship with great people in great places both for fun, and sometimes in the presence of great tragedy. It’s tribal and primitive in its ability to keep humans enjoying other humans doing human things, and sometimes helps to bring forth context, meaning and comfort. 

As any real food person will tell you, it’s the effort of love that you put into the process of creating and serving that helps to determine the final, total experience of cooking. A woman I know whose passion is cooking says she likes nothing more than to cook for family and friends, whether it’s a sandwich in the kitchen or a full sit down dinner for ten. 

If we choose to take pictures to remind us of our togetherness or to celebrate dining excellence then stop complaining, it’s not “porn”! Though I’m sure the guy standing on the chair to get the shot of the whole table might need a lesson in table manners and basic etiquette. And watch out for the flash!

Conflict resolved.

The Road to Whimsy and Serendipity, With Help From The Power of Introverts

Over the past few weeks I’ve been helping a good friend with her mid-life crisis. Though she’s nowhere close to middle age, and even if she were it would be on the lower side. How do we get to these perceived crisis points? On a very strong personal scale I empathize with her. I spent a lot of years in the same place she is. Wallowing in those deep pools of doubt and self-challenge, trying to find the road we need to walk in order to get to where we need to go, or want to be. The much sought after adventurous road that is really about whimsy, serendipity, and wonder. 

I managed to find my road, but not until I exhausted myself with long nights of journal writing on failure, self-loathing, and doubt. And the occasional night staring into the darkness and city lights with only Miles Davis, Etta James, and Charley Parker keeping me company while I pondered why I appeared to be lost in my life. To paraphrase an old Orson Welles commercial, “We will stop no whine before it’s time!” 

The opening salvo of what whimsy can be came to me while reading a foreign correspondent’s autobiography. He said that when he was stuck for a story he would “head down the road, turn left, and then turn left again, and that would be where the story was”. Over time I started to think about what that could imply in a day to day life? 

So I adopted the idea for my travel world, and it worked. In New Orleans I walked up Bourbon to Canal, turned left and then left again, and onto the wonders of Royal Street. I hadn’t done much research for that trip, so I had no idea Royal Street existed. It worked for me in Oregon, on Mt Hebo. I stopped to take a picture of a State Park sign to show someone I’d been in the same place she had the week before. On a whim I turned left up the park road, and left again on the mountain road and came out on top of a brilliant plateau that gave me stunning views, and an unintentional but welcome reminder of my late father. I couldn’t invoke whimsy in my “work a day” world because my time and assignments weren’t my own.

I became a fan of whimsy, and soon enough along came serendipity. That wonderful and occasionally frustrating happenstance where what was initially a problem becomes the inertial catalyst for new and wondrous discoveries. The kind of problems that derailed dates, work solutions, slow Sunday’s in bed with the New York Times, airline reservations, cooking dinner, job applications, hotel bookings, dates, and I think you’re getting the idea. Yes, the dating thing was mentioned twice. In each of these cases my original reaction was wide ranging from outright anger, blood curdling frustration, and soul crushing disbelief. I had yet to accept that the Universe had other plans for the “immediate me”, and I had also yet to learn that overall I wasn’t in total control of the driver’s seat.

All of these things are part of my friend’s crisis. I feel quite badly, and I do mean incredibly badly, that I can’t help her through this other than being supportive of whatever choices she makes. She has to have her own dark nights, hair pulling frustrations, and to live through those negative experiences that eventually open our eyes to the realization that we spend more time on our perceived adversities than we do on our strengths and inner peace.

At this same time I am reading a book by Susan Cain called “Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking”. Turns out it’s really quite normal to want to explore thoughts and ideas in solitude. In the book she demonstrates how badly we treat those who do not participate well in group activities, and how truly dangerous it can be to force people into extroversion. As she explains in the book the Culture of Personality has eclipsed the Culture of Character. The resulting stampede to include everyone in all activities all the time is robbing us of the talents of those who prefer individual thought. One of the great things she says in the book is, ”… if you’re in the backyard sitting under a tree while everyone else is clinking glasses on the patio, you’re more likely to have an apple fall on your head.” Apparently Sir Isaac Newton was an introvert. 

So is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Turns out the first Apple computers were not designed by a committee, but by an introvert sitting alone in a separated workspace with walls and doors. Take that you New Groupthink “open space concept” championing real estate sales wonks! Turns out those “open space concepts” have scientific evidence to back up how they actually lower productivity and negatively affect collaborative efforts, and have been doing since the 1960’s.

In my recent travels and my new work-a-day world I spend a lot of time alone. Mostly I prefer it. As anyone who knows me will tell you, I spend a lot of time alone. Long periods, or sometimes not so long periods, of spending time with people tire me out and make me cranky. It’s not that I don’t like people, I love spending time with most people, but I also need a lot of time to myself. Turns out it’s partly genetic, partly environmental, and partly preference. Or as Ms. Cain discovers in an interview with eminent developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan when he exclaims, “Every behaviour has more than one cause.”

When I travel I try to keep my mind open, seeing new things, hearing new sounds, tasting new foods, breathing new air (though sometimes the smell of wide open “country” can smell an awful lot like the inside of a closed up barn), and generally exposing myself to ideas, places and adventures that challenge and expose me to a whole bunch of “new”.

In July of 2012 I spent a solitary weekend in Seattle. On a soft Sunday morning I was waiting for the Chihuly Garden and Glass Exhibit to open at the Seattle Centre. Had someone been there with me I could not have fully seen and heard the following:

I pick up a sweetened Venti Passion Iced Tea from the Starbucks in the courtyard outside the Seattle Center Armoury. It’s warming up just nicely for an early July morning and I want to stay hydrated while I wait for the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit to open. I’m looking forward to experiencing glass art. I’ve only seen one Chihuly piece in real life, the one that became a public art amenity outside a high rise apartment building at home.

I sit on a metal bench that wraps itself around a maple tree standing next to an expansive lawn that stretches all the way over to the Pacific Science Center. In the middle distance there’s the homeless guy I saw yesterday, but today he’s not adjusting his private bits in front of children. Today he’s on the grass, sleeping in the sun.

I sit and sip though the straw, feeling really good with the summer air on my face and skin, all while breathing deeply the oxygen richness of the Pacific Coast. The contrasting shades of green on the trees and the well-kept lawn frame an idyllic context of quiet and comfort. One of my favourite live/life things is to stop, listen, and see. It is an indulgent passion for me, one that celebrates my love for detail and my curiosity of people and the multitude ways they present themselves to the world.

Moms are wrangling kids and dads are pushing strollers, all with smiles and looks of mild confusion. They are outside their well-known and familiar, but still comfortable with minds actively engaged on so many disparate challenges at the same time, so as to seem in a low level state of mental disarray.

An older couple sit on a bench behind and across the asphalt path from me. Sitting quietly together and separately, wearing summer weight clothes, reading the Sunday paper. The obvious comfort and trust they get from each other, even in their mutual silence is a palpable thing, heartwarming and inspiring. The chef guy on his break from a nearby café using his wooden drumsticks on anything he can find – not so much.

A Cessna floatplane does a low flyby with the logo of a local TV program, Evening Magazine on its side while a nearby carillon plays an unfamiliar tune. The guy from Dante’s Dog Cart lies down on his back, on the hot asphalt, to frame a group shot for a tourist family with the Space Needle looming behind them. The family is from Atlanta. They’re all laughing and grateful for the hot dog guy’s sacrifice on such a warm day.

A foursome speaking German come up the path from the parking lot, one man with a Seattle Center tourist map in his hand, one with his smartphone held out in front of him. Both point in significantly different directions paying no attention to each other, but both are singularly convinced that the King Tut exhibit is “that way”. They’re both wrong, and the two women of the group just grin at each other behind the men’s back.

Were I not a person given over to reflection of both self and circumstance, I would have missed all of this. Had someone been with me there would have been a distracting element of involvement and obligation. I would have missed these five minutes spent in the light and sounds of everyday people in motion. Instead of snapshots taken over a five minute window, I saw the whole movie playing out as one complete story of context and substance.

I was personally irrelevant to the whole scene, but I was the sole witness and therefore the storyteller. I could not have become that storyteller without those many nights of journal writing, pondering, and self-examination. An extrovert would never have been able to understand my process or the path that led me to see the whole of the experience. I suspect that an extrovert would be frightened of any time spent on introspection. I personally doubt they would have seen much of anything I just described.

I no longer spend late nights with my journals, they’re in storage. Only occasionally do I spend a night staring at the city lights drinking gin with soda, and when I do it’s to figure out a plot hiccup, dialogue problem, or a personal issue that needs pondering. I still listen to Miles Davis, Etta James, and Charley Parker, and like all the music in my life it continues to inspire me. I spend a lot of virtual time with my friend even though she lives quite far away. Technology allows me to metaphorically hold her hand on those dark nights when she needs one, and to send her a virtual hug when she needs one of those, or sometimes when I need to kick her butt into getting some sunshine in her life.

And where does the whimsy and serendipity come into this? What if I hadn’t bought that journalist’s autobiography that I found on the remainder pile? Without his words I would never have been introduced to the idea that a good story is sometimes “down the road, turn left, and left again”, thus encouraging me to take a different look at travel and storytelling. What if I hadn’t seen a TED Talk video with Susan Cain, on an internet link sent to me out of the blue by a friend? Then having that same video inspire me to read her book about the power of introversion? What if, while on a road trip in Oregon, I hadn’t indulged whimsy to take a ride to someplace unknown? I would have missed the serendipity of a stunning mountain vista where I shared a private moment with good memories of my late father. All of these proving to me that whimsy and serendipity exist in my life, and where I hope they will firmly remain.

Finally, introverts like Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak and all their introverted colleagues, who indulged their own kind of “what if?” whimsy, and created technologies that made worldwide communication easy and cheap. With their creations, and me on my own continuing journey, my friend’s dark nights aren’t quite as dark. She still has to see them through because that’s what we as humans need to do, before we find a reason that we don’t have to. But at least she knows she’s not alone on her road to discovering whimsy, and serendipity. After all it was serendipity and whimsy that let our paths cross in the first place, but that’s another story altogether.

“Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain is published by Broadway books, a division of Random House, and is widely available in bookstores, online, and as an e-book in various formats.

Please note that Ms. Cain does not advocate that introverts are “better” than extroverts, only that introversion should be considered the equal of extroversion. I recommend the book to everyone.

The TED Talk video is here:  http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html