Welcome

Rebecca is Founder and Head Coach of Bestseller Bootcamp located within the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto. She lives downtown Hamilton and is active with the South Stipeley Neighbourhood Association and the South Sherman Hub. As a result of this recent immersion into a vibrant residential neighbourhood, a thriving professional community and her daily trek around the golden horseshoe, Rebecca is exploring new ideas like cooperation and collaboration. Rebecca has a lot of first-hand experience being herself but is new to the whole community thing. Unless you count family.
This blog is dedicated to all the hard-working community-builders; though you be unsung, your music will resonate for generations.

Hungry Heart

Being hungry would be a lot less painful if it wasn’t a secret.

Homeless and Hungry came up on Homeless Man Speaks. Apparently there are still people who think that we don’t have poor or hungry people here in Canada.

For a while when I was 10-11 we lived in Guelph, in the student housing at the university. There were seven of us kids by then. First there was no money. And then there was no food. I went to 3 schools during that time, the last of which was College Ave and it was a short walk from home to school. You can only show up without a lunch so many times before nobody believes the forgetful bit so I started going home for “lunch”.

First it was the good food that disappeared. Then the easy food. The all the stuff at the back of the cupboard. At 11 it wasn’t really about hungry belly, it was somehow about justice. But having so many younger brothers and sisters, I could see plainly that sometimes it is about hungry belly.

I remember coming home one day, probably from the creek where I played with Merrie J, and finding my mother socially catatonic, the baby screaming, the youngest talker going “but why? why isn’t there any food?”

I remember coming home one day and seeing two of them fighting over the last piece of bread in a bag and I thought – “We had BREAD!?” Isn’t there some sort of unspoken rule in times of crisis that you divide it up evenly? or ration it? or share it?

We eventually got evicted so that tells you how long our rent must have been overdue. And for how long the cupboards were bare. I remember trying to cash a cheque from an uncle. I was the banker in those days. Maybe we all were. I stood bawling at the counter, sent back three times to get CASH from the clerk who wanted to hold the cheque. “But it says GUARANTEED CERTIFIED!” She grilled me on what I was going to do with the money and when she understood that I was buying groceries gave me half of it.

I also remember going to Leaside High School in Toronto for grade eleven and twelve. Somehow the geography curriculum which I loved was hijacked in those days by a course about current events in which we learned that there are no poor people in Canada. I hated that class. How do you participate in something so stupid? And what’s the point?

Now at fourty-almost-two I can say that the only thing I truly suffer from is my own imagination, and that being hungry or broke is sometimes the consequence of the choices that I am making, like running my own business(es) instead of leveraging my letters for a stable (?) corporate job. But is that true when you’re a kid?

I wish I could find a way to say it loud and clear, once and for all; yes, there are hungry people even in Canada. Heaven help the people who think there aren’t. In my experience, you get an idea like that into your head and you learn the hard way that you’re wrong.

I’m not an expert on poverty or child hunger – it took me thirty years to get where I am now from the doorway of the townhouse full of wilted children draped over furniture like an Edvard Munch nightmare. Where I am now financially would make most people blush and send the mother-in-law into an apoplectic fit, but where I am now is in a place where my stability is not based on money, it’s based on a foundation of relationships that I can count on.

Like one neighbour, Julie, holding the fort at the cafe so I can run to the bank, and another, Deb, coming in to cafe-sit so I can do the shopping. Just this morning a brand new customer came into the cafe and within two minutes of talking he took it upon himself to password our WiFi. Thanks Alex! Welcome to the Heart of the Hammer! Where do these people come from?

Maybe you and I can’t feed everybody. Maybe the best what we can do is to not judge. But the least we can do is not silence the hungry voices by denying they exist.

Naked Fear

So I have a lot of wacky ideas, and I go “whew”pretty often when I realize that people can’t tell that I have these wacky ideas. Some of these wacky ideas might be called Worst Fears which I don’t realize are wacky at all until they’re over, or done with, or gone.

So it’s pretty alarming when the repertoire of worst fears start to happen one after another. One of them, lets call it the banking-related fear, played out like a bad stage play in slow motion. The kind of play you can’t get up and walk out of cause you know all the performers, but you can’t bear to sit through it and you wonder how on earth you ended up here in the first place.

Next there was the, “cop happens to run your plates on the 401″ fear. You see her driving behind you. You pass a car to put someone else in the line of fire. She passes the car too and follows you. Then the cherry lights go on. Can you play dumb at that point, with a heart attack in progress?

So the scary part is that there’s a whole bag of fears where those came from. And the stressful part is that it’s tempting to think that maybe they aren’t all as bad as I imagine they will be. That they’ll happen and I’ll go, “Oh, well, now that’s over with.”

Like the time I walked Denise to the subway early one morning. I didn’t need to be up so early and decided I would go right back to bed so I pulled a dress over my nightie which was over nothing, slipped into some flip-flops and walked the few blocks to the station on a quiet blue morning. As we approached the entrance a train went by underground and my dress-nightie combo flew up around my ears. Straight up. I pushed down the front and the back billowed on. I held the back down and the front went up again. Finally, I stepped off that damn subway grate.

Then I had to walk back past all those people waiting for the bus.

In this case, I think I must have experienced someone else’s worst fear by accident cause I assure you, I wasn’t losing sleep at night fearing that I would one day be naked in front of the Junction commuter line up. I didn’t wear a dress for ten years or so.

The thing is, all these little fears sap your confidence and it makes you feel like you’re in a bit of a trap. It’s how you feel when you’re without a job, without resources, without the language, or the connections or a community to tell you it isn’t as bad as you think. (Or a family to tell you it’s worse!)

You need some kind of reference group in order to check in and realize that you aren’t public enemy number one. Then, presumably, you don’t have to learn everything the hard way.

Note to self: always be prepared – wear under garments.

Tail Gates and Black Ties

My family is so cool. I like that they can do tail-gate parties and black tie events.

I especially like when they do both at the same time; witness the parking lot before Joe and Kristin’s wedding.

It’s not really about the hummus and olives and specialty beer in cans is it? It’s about bonding and hanging out and being one unit before you go into the fray to become part of a bigger unit. It’s like home-room in high school, only with better beer, and you actually want to be there.

Families are sometimes underrated.

And sometimes overrated.

My Addiction: No Laughing Matter

It happened when I went back to university, the second time. I used to be pretty healthy in those days; no meat, no dairy, no alcohol to speak of, no coffee, no processed foods. I needed an easy lunch to take to school so a friend who could read Chinese hooked me up with some noodle soups in China Town (Montreal) that were vegetarian, no MSG.

In those days we had one of those water boilers which are always hot – as long as you keep them full of water. Makes it really easy; crunch the noodles in the bag and pour them into a bowl, add the flavour packets, pump-pump on the water thing, let it sit for a bit till the noodles are soft and enjoy.

It wasn’t long before I was having the soup as soon as I got to school. And then I started to have it at home before I even left in the morning. Earlier and earlier. I started eating the soup before the noodles were even soft.

One dark morning, barely awake I grabbed my noodles, crunched them into a bowl, added the flavour and pump-pumped on the water – Empty! Someone hadn’t refilled the tower! With a howl of rage I stormed downstairs to the neighbours who also had a water tower and banged on their door till Krikor opened it. I pushed past him, barged into his kitchen, pump-pumped on the water and started scarfing the crunchy stuff right there and then, breathing hard, glaring at the world, while the little me that watches me realized: something isn’t right here.

I went up stairs and threw out the rest of the soup.

The next day I went back to China Town to get more. I couldn’t tell which one it was. I bought a few. It wasn’t the same. I couldn’t find my soup! For about a year, I’d get whiffs of it now and then and a little “gimme some!” urge.

Since then, I am careful not to have coffee seven days a week. Careful not to do anything too repetitively. I got lucky with the noodle soup and Krikor was presumably too sleepy to be offended with my behaviour.

What I have learned this week is that Crack is the most addictive of the street drugs: you only need to try it once. Then your body wants more, and more. The recovery rate from Crack is apparently almost zero. Eventually people’s behaviour drives away all of their friends and family. To say the least.

I didn’t know that. How would your average teenager know that? YOU ONLY HAVE TO TRY IT ONCE TO BECOME ADDICTED.

Makes me want to join the vice squad (do we have a vice squad or is that only on TV?) and bust the people who are profiting off the destruction of people’s lives. Like the Shaggy Guy who pimps Snowsuit Lady.

They found me one night. Alone in the cafe I witnessed their moment of discovery as I looked out the window to see them, surprised, looking in and pointing. I called 911 that time, not the other number. As the police car arrived Shaggy strolled by the window looking in, then disappeared. It’s always her who takes the risks.

I waffle between “Bring it On, tough guy!” and “Where’s my dog when I need her?!”

“Do you want me to stay on the phone till the police arrive?” asks the 911 lady.

“Yeeesss.” I say, clearly not in Bring-It-On mode.

Up and down the street the neighbours and business owners are standing together to make it clear that this is a community that cares, not one that will turn a blind eye. We are all aware that the best case scenario means they will probably just find a new neighbourhood.

Is somebody somewhere working on a big-picture solution to this?

Good guys.

I remember being 12 years old in Guelph when some boys were picking on Fatima. I intervened in some fashion which diverted them on to me. Stranded at the top of a six-foot fence, albeit the fence of my own yard, I finally scared them off with hand signals to my imaginary gang who was ready to pounce.

I remember being 23 years old at the post office, when this guy returned from a long suspension to distrupt people’s peace of mind with his abuse. Particularly Henry’s. Henry’s real or imagined wife was the target of much of his venom. Everybody just shut up when this guy was around.

Finally one day I couldn’t take it. I went up to him and told him that you can’t talk to people like that. Among much bravado he said “What are you going to do about it?” “I’m going to report you.” I told him. Much abuse and threats ensued. “I’m going to report that too.” I said, and I reported him.

Unfortunately, I reported him to an idiot. The guy came back after a talking-to and told me how much he needed his job and couldn’t afford another suspension and that he knew where I lived and if I ever said anything again he’d mess up me and my whole family. I reported that too.

Unfortunately I reported him to an idiot. The idiot explanined to me in patronizing tones that when people make death threats they don’t really mean it. It’s just an expression. The idiot was afraid of him. Aren’t some people paid not to be afraid?

The guy did mellow out and took to maligning his own real or imagine girlfriend in stead of Henry’s. Many months later I was accosted in the washroom by a female postie who said that the big cheese was here to talk to me and I’d better watch what I say. Curious.

What the big cheese wanted now was for me to tell him how this guy had been harrassing me since. ‘In fact,” I told him, “the guy has not been harrassing me, or anyone else that I can tell.” I thought this was good news, but the big cheese had other plans.

He outlined several fictional infractions that I had committed and how they added up to a two week-suspension that could be applied to me without notice at any time. And Christmas was coming. Maybe now I wanted to tell him all the things that this guy has been up to the last six months. They certainly wouldn’t want me working in an unsafe environment.

I told him to have a good day.

Eventually the idiot himself was threatened by someone and I found myself in a room full of people in suits wanting to hear my story. About how the idiot had told me that death threats were meaningless so how can he charge someone else when suddenly it is he who is threatened. At least, I thought they wanted to hear it. As I got into my story they all jumped up yelling and left the room except one fellow in a suit. This fellow asked me to finish the story and then said thanks for coming out. And good bye.

It took me a while to work out that my “Yeah, but” argument wasn’t much good if your defense is based on ”No I didn’t”. I was surprised to discover that there were no good guys in that battle.

I quit the post office that day. This world withought good guys was a world I didn’t want to live in.

And now, I’ve summoned up my imaginary gang for the walk to the cafe past Snowsuit Lady and her everpresent Guy, and I wonder if there are any good guys in the world she lives in.

This is MY Area

Snowsuit Lady at King and Garfield seems to be stirring up quite a bit of heat lately. She “hitchhikes” there from dawn till dawn, regularly trying to get into my car even though I come and go from the cafe five times a day.

Local businesses and residents call the cops more and more frequently. Not sure what went on between her and some young kids that got people up in arms. Her “guy” went into the buisness next door to tell them to back off. Today the air was let out of the tires of my car. Yes, I’m jumping to conclusions. I know.

After moving the car I decided to have words with her and found a police woman on the corner instead who warned me that Snowsuit Lady has a history of violence and communicable diseases; best to keep your distance. I didn’t see her all afternoon.

Then on the way home tonight I see she has moved from out front of my cafe to the end of my street. So I kept my distance. And I wrote down the license plate of the car that stopped. It took off. She got mad and started yelling all sorts of things. Like “this is MY area.”

“Am I interfering with your business?” I asked her. She gave me her opinion about her business. I told her it’s not her business I object to, but the violence that she is bringing into the neighbourhood. She gave me a long song and dance about how she has never assaulted anyone in her life. She “WROTE half the bible,” she says. Don’t know what that means. 

Eventually her guy came along. He got mad. Called me all sorts of names. What has to happen before something changes? I’ve heard the stories about the association in the next neighbourhood where someone is doing a thesis on vulnerable populations and that people like me – well, I wasn’t one of those people till today – people like me are intolerant.

“Punch her in the face!” Her guy said to her.

She wound up and stopped short of my face. “She’s gonna beat your face in!” he said.

“What are you, crazy?” he said to me when I just stood there. “Get out of here or I’m going to kick your ass!” 

“I live here,” I told him.

They went the other way.

This is not YOUR area. This is OUR neighbourhood.

Christmas Present

It’s Christmas Day and we sit reminiscing about Christmas Past.

Once upon a time we used to drive up to the farm to cut down a tree for Christmas. As a teenager I would pile batches of friends into our station wagon and drive 3hrs north to Burks Falls. This idea of a real tree was novel to some of the friends, particularly those from southern climes.

Somehow, your perception of how big of a tree you need is different in the wilderness. One time, we had a tree that was so heavy we couldn’t get it to stand up straight without anchoring it to three corners of the room. Another year we didn’t have the means to get up to the farm, so we cut the tree from the front yard at Glenlake. You can’t really blame the neighbours if they thought we were Herdmans.

That tree too was somehow so much bigger once we got it inside and in my Christmas enthusiasm, I cut off the top instead of the bottom. Exhausted from the struggle when we discovered it was still too big we just wedged it between the floor and the ceiling. It didn’t need any container or anchoring and appeared to be growing into the second floor of the house.

And then there was the Christmas (or several) when we didn’t even have a tree and used a wooden ladder, somewhat bejeweled with decorations and stacked with presents. How do people recall this stuff? It is all so conveniently blocked out of my mind in favour of some kind of Rockwellian past.

On the 23rd I woke up four hours and two appointments late. As I dashed out the door, Mike tried to waylay me with lists of menus and plans and chores and I burst into tears cause the tree was up and the house was decorated and the tables were set and everything was underway and I hadn’t even been home in two months let alone helped out with Christmas.

Christmas is my holiday. I own it. It starts on November 1st and happens when, how and with whom I say. Santa knows this. Everyone knows this. So it was a bit of a surprise to see that it marched right on without me this year, too busy even to think of presents or over-the-top fru-fru.

On the 24th at noon we closed up the cafe and I wrapped the presents Mike had bought for the kids. Then I realized I didn’t even have a present for Mike. I ran down to Kool Stuff on King and met – aw, shoot, I asked him his name twice – a very nice guy who owns the place, full of stuff that Mike would love. I knew from recent “What would you do with a million dollars” conversations that Mike was coveting some sort of video game, possibly that requires a new system that he doesn’t have, but I could not recall the details and buddy at the store was more of a comic collector. Wouldn’t it be great if I listened better? Remembered things? Paid more attention? Planned ahead?

I gave up and got a $20 gift certificate for Kool Stuff.

They say that in a person’s life we can only manage four (4) priorities. That after that, we can’t keep to our commitments. I ticked them off on Christmas eve, shortly before the family arrived for happy hour at the cafe. In no particular order: Community-building; Teaching (Bestseller Bootcamp); Writing (aka ‘Learning things the hard way’); Heart of the Hammer Cafe; Family. Give you one guess which one has fallen off lately.

And now it’s Christmas Day and the kerfluffus is over. I’ve been in pj’s all day and finally went hunting for games in the hall dresser when what should I discover? The gifts I bought for Mike all those months ago and stashed in a drawer so he wouldn’t find them.

The Kool Stuff gift certificate is still pegged to the bulletin board at the Cafe and Mike still hasn’t seen it. The certificate itself is so cool that I suspect it will never get spent.

Maslow’s Adendum: The Artists’ Paradigm

In my MBA class one of the weirder things we were asked to do to was to self-identify our social class based on a textbook list with a pretty strong bias.

In marketing terms, businesses look at groups of people to study their buying power, buying habits, buying preferences and figure out how best to make money off of them. I checked boxes indicating that I had the material values of the upper-upper, the social network in the middle-middle and the financial profile (historically) far below lower-lower. As I pondered this, I realized that most of my friends were in the same boat as I, making us undefinable targets for marketers. After pondering this I came to believe that for a minority of people, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is exactly inverted. I am referring to the Artist Class, though I suppose no one will ever study these people because there is no money it in. At least, in the short-term.

For the artistic temperament, self-actualization is all. They are willing to sacrifice safety, shelter, food, family, social acceptance, financial gain, everything on the imperative need to be themselves; to be true to themselves, to be all that they can be. When they develop some confidence in this, they then want to be accepted for who they are and build a place for themselves in the world, whereas previously they disdained the opinions of those who couldn’t value them. After years of toiling for little recognition or compensation, they start to want to indulge in a few material essentials, like a credit card, a car or a house with their name on the deed. And finally they start to want a little security, and begin to look for teaching jobs and other stable occupations that let them earn a living while practicing their craft and being themselves.

I see this tendency even in a child who knows in his heart that no one really listens to him, no one really understands him, no one sees him for who he really is or values him for his him-ness. We are all trying to stuff him into a box – for his own good – and his reactions repel us.

Given that this is being called the creative age from so many angles, I wonder what would happen if this small number of creative types were actually identified, invited into some kind of environment like the Centre for Social Innovation where they could develop some confidence that their self-ness wouldn’t be taken away, and then worked backwards from there to help make the world a better place. Is that what happened to me? Here at CSI I have found home, shelter (even food) acceptance, encouragement and all the support one could want for self-actualization and I wonder if that is the reason why I am now engaging in outreach, in (gag) cooperation, in helping others to self-actualize. And suddenly it makes me wonder, what’s next?

What if everyone was treated like an artist from the beginning and given these basic ingredients for life?

One Good Teacher

It sometimes happens during our time in school that we get one good teacher; one person who offers us a glimpse of the big picture, a motive to excel, an understanding of the options on the road ahead.

On a recent tour of Prince of Wales elementary school in Hamilton, I was surprised to see that they had set up a tracking system to measure at what level each kid was performing and to track their progress. The interesting thing about the PoW (an unfortunate moniker) system is that it was a roadmap of success for the school and each kid had a place on it; each kid was part of the success and had to succeed individually in order for the school to succeed.

When did my MBA I quickly got a tutor for my finance class cause it seemed to me that I wasn’t learning anything. After our first mid-term when 70% the class failed there was a general sense that it wasn’t the students who were at fault and my tutor was called in to pinch hit weekly for the rest of the class. Evidently I didn’t even know enough at the time to know if it was me or the teacher who wasn’t making sense.

This is also true in grade three and grade four and grade five. You don’t know that you’re not alone in your struggles. You don’t know that 2/3 of the school is below the level they should be at for reading, for instance. All you know is that you’re a dummy, or a disappointment. And most people, be they teachers or not, are not going to look much farther than at the kid to find out the source of the problem or even try to solve it. Most people are content to agree – the kid’s a dummy. Why look for an answer that might point to me? Or you? Or to a problem that is beyond my ability to solve?

So when I saw this system at Prince of Wales School, I could see right away that there was more than one good teacher at this school and that there was some mighty fine leadership that wasn’t afraid to find the source of the problem and tackle it even if it seems insurmountable. So when they saw that so many of the kids were below grade level in basic skills like reading, they started recruiting readers from the community, people to come in and read to a kid for a short time each day, or each week, or each month. People to come in and help kids get used to hearing someone read.

I remember doing this with my little friend Xavier many years ago, and the struggles we went through. I remember his mother’s breakthrough when in a conversation it came out that it seemed to him as if all the other kids had come to school “knowing” how to read, whereas he didn’t. So his mother explained to him that all those other kids had had to learn to read just like he was doing, they just happened to do it before him. And that was his breakthrough that got him on the reading track.

So if you live in the neighbourhood of Ivor Wynn Stadium, which is right beside Prince of Wales School, and if you can read, and if you’ve got a bit of time each week, call up the school and tell them you want to read to a kid. If you’ve got a business in the neighbourhood, consider giving your employees an hour off (paid) each week to do the same. With so many kids, demand is high.

We’ve all heard the stats. We’ve seen the movies and read the news stories. The “Three Rs” are the starting point for every bit of success that these kids are heading for and this intrepid school could use your help putting them on the right path.

It’s our turn to be that one good teacher.

Loner Pie

One hot July day in 2007 I was feeling a little bit invisible, like I had no connection to anything and sort of felt like I needed people to see me. To know that I was here. I needed some way of making a scene without making a nuisance so I changed my birthday on my Facebook profile to the day in question.

Back then we were all new to FB an only had 40 or 50 friends each, you remember those days right? So of course everyone saw that it was my birthday and I got a great many well-wishes and nobody seemed to care that it wasn’t February.

Then the following February I turned 40. I didn’t feel 40 but when you’re sitting around broke and jobless you really feel like “this is not where I planned to be at 40!” I had planned to have a fabulous masquerade ball with all my favourite people at some sort of Cirque-esque venu, or to have a potlatch and give things away. But I didn’t have any things to give.

So I invited the family out to breakfast at the Grenadier restaurant in High Park and just crossed my fingers that someone was going to pay for mine. I think several someones did and now we have a new birthday spot in the family.

I remember in first year theatre at Concordia, after about one week of going home alone each night and then spending a whole weekend with nothing to do, I went back to school that Monday morning, found Barb, Isabel, Walter and Krikor sitting in the hallway, and blurted out some kind of blah-blah about not having any friends in Montreal and nothing to do and they all said “Yeah-yeah, me too!” And even though I left after one year, we all stayed friends.

And sometimes I write about things that I think are just my own weirdness, and I put it out there in the hopes that it is entertaining to people. (Actually I’m hoping for engaging, compelling and enlightening, but I’ll settle for entertaining) And then I am always surprised by how many people comment, send emails, messages or Facebook notes saying “Yeah-yeah, me too! I get it!”

How come we all get lonely if we all share the same weirdness?