creative forces

Blog # 65…January 2017

Well here we are, moving further away from the millennium - people born that year old enough to drive and have a generation named after them.

I’m not in that generation but somehow feel that we’re all in this together.  Many forces divide us - haves/have nots, old/young, black/white /brown/yellow, nationalities or religions pitted against each other, opposing ideas about how to live; competition rather than consensus all are the order of the day in some quarters anyway.  At ground level, in families, difficult situations which could be made more comfortable if people were able to reach out to comfort each other - the mature and intelligent thing to do. We can only write our own scripts, but that’s what’s important anyway.

And yet, there are so many inescapable life forces that unite us, the inevitability of birth and death touches us all. A number of artists who died this year gave us the gift of a gracious goodbye…Leonard Cohen spoke of “running late… the bar closing”. David Bowie sang with courage from his death bed. Gord Downie continues to muster his strength to bring native issues to our attention as well as showing us how to leave life with grace. The Edmonton Arts council is appointing its first Artist in Residence for cemeteries, with a warm and inviting studio space to welcome people while they mourn loved ones.

In its many forms, art makes us feel less alone.  For me, two of the most powerful words in our language are “Me too”.  How my heart warms when someone says that after I express how I’m feeling. Art in its various forms also helps articulate our feelings, writers give  us the words to express ourselves, make us more comfortable with the issues because we have a handle on how to engage in conversation  with people who share our  feelings…or don’t.

A very important book by Canadian physician Danielle Martin has just appeared – Better Now:  Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for all Canadians. She feels it’s important not to be defensive; our system is good but needs fixing and we shouldn’t be content with the status quo.  Very useful to arm yourself with this information for the next time you encounter a Yank (or anyone else) yelling about the wait times or how our system is a commie plot.

And at the risk of seeming tangential, I want to finish with a shout out to the Cubans and the Americans who share uncertain futures in the New Year.   So, “Y soy Fidel” to those brave and proud Cubans and to our next door neighbours … “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.”