This morning I am thinking about an email slideshow my sister Jeannie sent me yesterday called Old Winnipeg. It is snapshots of the city from the early 1900’s through to the 50’s.
There is an aerial photo of the 50's Red River Flood, the same one in which dad drove us over the Redwood Bridge in his Model A Ford, with the water halfway up the sides of the car. That's a very vivid memory. I remember the overpowering sense of awe and excitement that we were actually driving through the river to get downtown from our East Kildonan home.
There is also a shot of the Osborne Street Bridge from the opposite side of Assiniboine River from the Legislative Buildings. Up on the dome is the famous prairie Golden Boy holding a sheaf of wheat.
This brought back another very vivid memory of my youth.
At this time, I think I was living on my own in the rooming house on Balmoral Street but I can’t remember clearly. I could’ve been much younger. I don't remember why I was walking over the bridge.
It was winter and I had walked past the Legislative buildings and was heading across the Osborne Bridge on the right hand side.
I had begun making snowballs and was heaving them over the side of the bridge and down onto the ice far below when I spotted a shopping bag on the ice. I guess someone had thrown that over the side.
From where I stood it looked about the size of a postage stamp.
I can’t remember verbalizing anything but a feeling of invincibility came over me and I knew I could hit the bag.
I rolled and tamped down a perfect snowball and winding up, threw it with all my might over the side of the bridge and as far out as I could.
It spun out and away from me and slowly began arcing downward. There was the beautiful sensation of watching it descend as if in slow motion toward the surface of the river and then there was the incredibly satisfying smack as the ball hit the paper bag dead centre and exploded in a puff of white.
I knew better than to try it twice and diminish this glorious feeling of accuracy.
As I continued on my walk, I knew with a calm and peaceful certainty that there was nothing that I could not accomplish in life if my intent was pure.
* Note: Satori is a Japanese Zen Buddhist term for a moment of enlightenment.
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Hi Baba
I loved the memories invoked by the pictures, mine were different--I was a little young for the flood--in fact it was just before I was born. My memories were of a time when cars were still a novelty, and going downtown still meant Eaton's and Hudson's Bay along with the little dimestores in between. Kresge's and Woolworths, from an era now a distant memory and the store where Dad had worked also before my time --Dayton's mens clothing store.
My memories were of pre-pavement
streets, and ditches. Seeing the even earlier pics from a time that our parents might remember, brought realization of how quickly things change.
We have already lived a lifetime. A perfect snowball, a perfect
picnic, a perfect street car ride downtown to buy red pedal pushers
(what are now called capris). How quickly everything changes.
I was thinking just yesterday about whether people ever have time to just sit and be. Reading Krishnamurti who advocated this practise as meditation. Observing your own thoughts and the clouds scudding by in the sky.
With all of our time saving devices, we do seem to have less and less time to be. Did I imagine that there were times for being when I was young? Lying on the grass and looking up at the sky.
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