Nose Hill Park is the closest thing Calgary has to holy ground in the city. Like Mount Fuji for Tokyo, one can be in the busiest parts of the city, and with a quick glance to the hills be filled with instant serenity. Kept untouched through the years (save for the few bare power lines), it’s one of the largest urban parks in Canada, and holds a mystique that continues to this day.
The wind whistles through the Calgary night. Sitting on a bench sipping tea, one absorbs the majesty of the surroundings. The homeless shuffle by with their carts full of loot, the drunks stagger home, and the indie kids smoke joints while singing Death Cab for Cutie songs. Yes, it’s a night sitting on the bench at Tomkins Park.
Don’t think of Tomkins Park as a bad place to relax: far from it.
Springtime is beaming in the parks of Calgary, and the gentle beauty of the Canadian West is once more radiating from the ground. Seeking fresh air and a retreat from the indoors, I wandered to Lindsay Park and had an excruciatingly pleasant afternoon.
Lindsay Park is just off of Rouleauville Square, next to the Talisman Centre. It has several pathways winding through it, and some bridges with really great views. There’s also a picnic area that has a nice woodsy feel.
With the indoor Devonian Gardens out of service indefinitely, you’ve probably been looking for a good garden to lunch in on the cold, dreary days. The Nexen Building is one d-spot that so far has been filling in the role quite nicely.
There’s plenty of seating available, and a nice little koi pond in the center of the garden. The decor is relaxing, and since the garden is on the corner of the building it doesn’t have the busy feeling that other corporate gardens have.
When the heart grows lonely, desperation can drive you to drinking. I opened another beer and sat at the kitchen table. My roommate Victor was also drinking, and the discussion of my singledom had come up.
“The kind of girl I’d like would probably be pretty bookish. Maybe I should just hang around libraries?” It sounded creepy, but ideas and options had to be entertained before being put down. “How’d you find your girlfriend?
While writing for the Gauntlet, I had a disastrous phone interview with Henry Rollins (of Black Flag and Henry Rollins Band fame). I had been so psyched to interview him that I skipped a class during mid-term season. Lesson learned? Don’t ever talk to your heroes: it will ruin you. I made a list of some other lessons I learned on that catastrophic phone interview:
Test your equipment beforehand The phone was so screwed up that Henry sounded like he was talking through a straw.
I read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, and the book was so good that I want to share some of his creativity tips with you. Mihaly gathered these techniques first-hand from some of the finest minds of our time (14 Nobel prize winners alone), and using them you can shape your mind into a factory of great ideas. Anyone can be creative, and you can start seeing results very quickly (think weeks, not years).
On a sojourn to the Glenmore Reservoir, I was struck by the holiday cheer that seems to have maintained its grip on the Mount Royal area. I took a few pictures on my walk of some particularly well-lit houses and trees.
Snow crunching underneath my feet as my hands flirted with frostbite, it genuinely warmed my heart to see how much effort was put into decorating in this neighbourhood. It’s a nice change from the sterile apartment buildings in the downtown.
This is a short I wrote back in 2004. Having just come back from Maine, dreaming of summer, it seems fresh in my mind once more.
I remember those nights at the corner store. The stars were in the sky, the moon above the trees. I was sitting on the hood of my jeep. A plastic bottle of Moxie, sweating in my hand, fizzed a tempest. People would come and go, just getting a pack of gum, or maybe a slice of pizza.
The years continue to slip by, faster than ever, and with the passing of time comes the lessons learned from everyday life. Taking a lot of notes as 2009 was roaring by, I’ve gathered some nuggets of wisdom to share with you.
Don’t let your life be ruled by fear 2009 whistled in as I was finally getting out of a four year relationship - a relationship that had dragged on three years too long.