Pop 89: City Rubes
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
I’ll admit there are days when I’d like to walk to the coffee shop on the corner of College and Yonge and people-watch from the window seat overlooking one of Toronto’s busiest crosswalks. I yearn for faces of all colours and expressions, wearing everything from dreadlocks to turbans to cornrows to ball caps. I’d like to ride the Red Rocket street car and hear every language under the sun and bask in laughter at foreign punchlines. The city provides an anonymity that allows for immersion in ground zero of the herd we call humans.
When I moved to Toronto in 2006 to work at the Mother Corp, as my friends at Quebec’s regional CBC station called head office, I was a typical westerner-Quebecker: I was born hating Toronto. So imagine my surprise when I met friendly people eager to strike up a conversation in a coffee shop. People in cities work every kind of job imaginable with others or alone, in labour or academia, schools or hospitals. They worship in a variety of churches, synagogues, temples and gardens. They frequent bars, yoga studios, parks and libraries, and if they don’t like one they can try another. And when they sit beside you in a cafe, they have no idea if you’ve been “living here for a week or all your life.” And they have no idea how long you plan to stay. They never saw you come, and they’ll never see you go. Such is the fluidity of cities.
I’ve lived in the heart of big cities, in small towns and in suburbs. I’ve lived out of my suitcase and on friends’ and families’ couches, but I’d never lived in a village until I moved to Val Marie, where some folks take offence to the name of my column because “we have over a hundred residents now.” The imperative to point out the extra 11 or 15 people kind of proves my point. But triple digits mean something when you’re this small. When my mom lived here in the 1930s and 40s, there were over 500 people in town. And we had shops. Not “a” shop.
When I blew into Val Marie, I am certain I carried the unmistakable imperious, know-it-all air of a city person. We do that: we come bearing news of the urban world - as if it were the “real” world, not just another version of it. Reality, I’ve come to believe, hits home in nature. And when creatures outnumber buildings and humans, nature reminds us we are just another critter. There is nothing more real than foxes, coyotes and owls invading one’s dreams at night. There is nothing more real than walking too far into the hills in the dead of winter or the middle of a summer day and realizing you could actually die from the cold or the heat. There is nothing more real than standing in the middle of a teepee ring and listening the voices of the ancients made audible by the wind in the grass. Facing my own mortality in the deep silence under the dark starlit skies is about as real as it gets. It humbles and shakes you - me, anyway - to the core.
I want to stress here that I was not aware of my “city airs”. I was running away from the noise, the distractions and diversions, the constant bombardment of advertisements on billboards, screens, and bus shelters, selling me the latest thing I cannot do without. So many products and applications, so many high heels resembling leg hold traps for hapless animals. I wanted to hide and sit and write, wear the same old skirt and t-shirt or old jeans day in and day out. I arrived with dangerous romanticizations about “country folk” being the “salt of the earth,” the heart-beat of the world. I was as wrong to think that all “country folk” would be warm and welcoming as they are to assume all city folk are cold and unfriendly.
The truth is, it took me a long time to fit in. At first, I made a point of broadcasting my history of travel and stage, radio and publishing, degrees and awards in the hopes of winning friends and influencing people. It took me an even longer time to realize: They don’t care. Because: how do any of those skills contribute to the local economy? “Can you drive a combine? Work a baler?’ This is what they need to know. And, naturally, I could not. But I could tone down, stop talking and really listen and learn. I started waitressing at the cafe. I volunteered to flip burgers at the rodeo and the Bonspiel. I joined the Elevator Heritage Committee. I collected aprons for the museum and researched the history of women in the territory. I made friends with some people who saw I was making an effort, but I also made enemies with people who would never accept me as a local because locals in villages are people who have lived here all their lives, whose parents have lived here all their lives, whose grand-parents have lived here all their lives.
Just the other day, a couple of young women who are obviously new to town and probably will be gone by the end of the summer walked past me on the road. I chirped hello, as we all do here, with a wave and a smile. One waved, the other ignored me. I found myself wanting to stop in front of her and take her shoulders and say: “Ok. Let’s get this straight. This is not the city. We all know each other here. You are the stranger. So, you need to make an effort. Most city and university people arrive with a tone of superiority. It’s ingrained and subconscious, but it’s loud and clear, and it emanates: ‘I’m here to bestow my worldly wisdom on you rubes before I return to civilization.’ Don’t make that mistake. Don’t miss out. Listen to what the territory and its people have to teach you. You’ll be surprised: you might even stay.”