The Community Edition: February 2016

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 5 • FEBRUARY 2016

ONE MAN’S TREASURE PAGES 8-9

WOMEN ARE FUNNY PAGE 15

KITCHENER CANVAS PAGE 7

HOME SWEET OFFICE PAGE 5

FEBRUARY 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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A LETTER TO THE EDITOR Volume 4, Issue 5 Next issue: March 2, 2016 75 University Ave. W Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 519-884-0710 x3564 Advertising All advertising inquiries should be directed to Care Schummer at 519-884-0710 x3560 care.schummer@wlusp.com THE COMMUNITY EDITION TEAM Editor in Chief Jesse Bauman jesse.bauman@wlusp.com Publisher Lakyn Barton lakyn.barton@wlusp.com

Photo Editor Matt Smith Social Media Manager Megan Nourse

CONTRIBUTORS Alexandra Bissley Elizabeth DiCesare Christopher Emory-Moore Julia Gogoleva Carolyn Gray Stacey Jacobs Jon Johnson Ramona Leitao Allison Leonard Cathy MacLellan Elise Marion

Leah Martin Joe Martz Erin McLean-Purdon Christina Proctor John Roche Eva Rucki Ally Siebert Dave Thomas Cara Vandermey Wanda Wagler-Martin Kirk Zurell

WLUSP ADMINISTRATION President Executive Director Advertising Manager Treasurer Vice-Chair Director Director Director Director Director Corporate Secretary

Bryan Stephens Lakyn Barton Care Schummer John Pehar Abdiasis Issa Thomas Lillo Rafey Sattar Fred Kuntz Angela Foster Gary Doyle Emily Crump

The Community Edition is an alternative monthly intended to engage and inform the community.

Started in 2012, the Community Edition is an editorially independent newspaper published by Wilfrid Laurier University Student Publications, Waterloo, a corporation without share capital. WLUSP is governed by its board of directors.

Opinions expressed within the Community Edition are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial board, The Cord, WLUSP, WLU or Canweb Printing. All content appearing in the Community Edition bears the copyright expressly of their creator(s) and may not be used without written consent.

The Community Edition is created using Macintosh computers running Mac OS X Yosemite using Adobe Creative Cloud. Canon cameras are used for principal photography.

The Community Edition’s flag font is Lobster, an open source font created by HVD Fonts. We also use Brandon Grotesque and Petrona.

The Community Edition is a member of the Ontario Press Council, which is an independent ethical organization established to deal with editorial concerns. For additional information or to file a complaint, contact info@ontpress.com or call 416-340-1981.

The Community Edition circulates monthly. Normal circulation is 6,000. The Community Edition subscription rates are $20.00 per term for addresses within Canada.

Preamble to the Community Edition Constitution The Community Edition will keep faith with its readers by presenting news and expressions of opinions comprehensively, accurately and fairly. The Community Edition believes in a balanced and impartial presentation of all relevant facts in a news report, and of all substantial opinions in a matter of controversy.

The staff of the Community Edition shall uphold all commonly held ethical conventions of journalism. When an error of omission or of commission has occurred, that error shall be acknowledged promptly. When statements are made that are critical of an individual, or an organization, we shall give those affected the opportunity to reply at the earliest time possible. Ethical journalism requires impartiality, and consequently conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest will be avoided by all staff. The only limits of any newspaper are those of the world around it, and so the Community Edition will attempt to cover its world with a special focus on the community of Waterloo Region. Ultimately, the Community Edition will be bound by neither philosophy nor geography in its mandate.

The Community Edition has an obligation to foster freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This obligation is best fulfilled when debate and dissent are encouraged, both in the internal workings of the paper, and through the Community Edition’s contact with the community. The Community Edition will always attempt to do what is right, with fear of neither repercussions, nor retaliation. The purpose of community press is to act as an agent of social awareness, and so shall conduct the affairs of our magazine.

MPs Marwan Tabbara (Kitchener South-Hespeler) and Raj Saini (Kitchener Centre) play with virtual reality at the Google office opening while the Prime Minister talks to children. RAMONA LEITAO PHOTO

FEATURE

8-9 KEN’S WORLD

INSIDE KEN WILSON’S STORE WOW, AND THE TRICKY BUSINESS OF DECIDING WHAT’S GARBAGE, WHAT’S NOT, AND WHAT NORMAL LOOKS LIKE

3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 11 11 12 14 14 14 15 15

IN BRIEF INSIDE A SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE ON TRYING TO BE A MALE ALLY NIGHTCRAWLER HOME SWEET OFFICE ROMANCE AND EXISTENTIALISM CARA’S V-DAY ILLUSTRATION ‘ARTIN AROUND: TERRY WALTERS SEXPLANATIONS AN ORTHODOX CHURCH VISIT WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY FIVE KINDS OF LOVE BRFC ON BEER: HOMEBREWING WEAR OUT THERE: LOVE YOURSELF WR OPINION: SHORT AND DISTORT TCE TELLS YOU WHAT TO DO FEMINIST COMEDY

I was glad to read Marc Xuereb’s article, “Union Fights WLU Sub-Contracting,” in your January issue. In the future, I would appreciate reporting about the gendered wage gap in Ontario.

I work as a clinical assistant in the mental health and addictions department at Grand River Hospital. I’m also a member of the executive board of the Waterloo Regional Labour Council and an executive member of Unifor Local 1106.

In my work I’ve noticed different ways that the gender wage gap is institutionalized and/or perpetuated—this is not strictly a dollars and cents issue.

Over the last number of years, wage settlements have differed for essential services depending on whether the service is male- or female-dominated. Nurses’ and teachers’ wage increases have not always kept up with the rate of inflation, and most of those increases have come at the expense of other benefits. In most cases the male-dominated professions have had wage increases two or three times higher than so-called female professions.

Current discussions around recognizing post-traumatic stress disorder as a workplace hazard for first responders is another example. The government has so far failed to include nurses and allied healthcare providers in this conversation, although they are often the first to see gravely ill or dying patients driven to hospitals by family. Nurses experience trauma and are assaulted on the job. It is hard not to see sexism in their exclusion.

Dr. Eric Hoskins, Ontario’s Minister of Health and Long-Term Care recently announced a freeze on parking fees at hospitals. This is a positive move, but the freeze does not apply to hospital staff, who are overwhelmingly female, and who are one of the only groups of frontline emergency service personnel who have to pay to park at work.

Teachers also often use their own money to purchase supplies for the classroom. Nurses are expected to provide their own stethoscope, pens and uniforms, among other items. Police officers are never asked to buy their own gun, or to gas up their car on their own dime.

It’s hard not to see sexism inside the Ontario government’s own house, in the way it treats its own employees and those it funds.

The government controls the mechanisms and laws that regulate how these groups of workers bargain and are compensated. To truly close the gender wage gap they need to consider how much people make, what is included in that pay, and how that pay is bargained for. They must also ensure that mechanisms for salary increases are equal and fair.

Dave Eales Waterloo DON’T WANT TO WRITE FOR US? WRITE TO

US. We welcome letters on all subjects, but the editor reserves the right to edit them. Remember: shorter is sweeter, and include contact information. To submit a letter, e-mail info@communityedition.ca, or call 519-884-0710, extension 3563.

FEBRUARY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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IN BRIEF

Voices Carry II is happening on February 10. More information on page 15.

JOE MARTZ PHOTO

Get ready, the Community Edition team has started planning Steel Rails 2016.

MATT SMITH PHOTO EDITOR

NEWS

ARTS

URBAN

$35M INVESTMENT FOR VIDYARD

ALL YEAR ART DISTRIC GALLERY

NATIONAL COUNT OPT-OUT

Kitchener’s Vidyard aims to create new body language tracking products with a $35 million investment from US company Battery Ventures. As part of the deal Michael Brown, partner at Battery Ventures, will sit on the Vidyard board. Battery Ventures is a venture capital firm invested in Groupon, Skullcandy and Dronomy, among others.

The Art District Gallery, an artist-run co-op, is enjoying a successful first year with a new exhibition every six weeks featuring member art. Over the past year ADG has also featured work from 72 non-member artists from the community. The co-op is located in downtown Kitchener and admission is free.

What’s not to love?

Waterloo Region opted out of a national homelessness count along with several other municipalities across the country. The Region collects this information on an ongoing basis, which they argue provides a more accurate picture of homelessness in the region. Nonetheless, the Region says it may participate in future national counts.

NEW HOSPITAL PARKING RULES

CALLING ALL LOCAL ARTISTS

NEW RESIDENTS WELCOME

The Government of Ontario has announced that hospitals charging more than $10 per day for parking must now offer discounts for long-term users. Grand River Hospital already offers a significantly discounted rate for longer-term visitors, such as those visiting childbirth, oncology and dialysis patients. All hospitals will now have to offer discounted five, 10 and 30 day parking passes.

Kwartzlab is now accepting applications for its 2016 Artist in Residence program. Kwartzlab and other hackerspaces are about creation, innovation and cooperation. There are four, three-month residencies in 2016. The artist in residence has unlimited 24hour access to the space for the duration of their residency. Apply online if you have something to make.

Waterloo Region continues to welcome government sponsored refugees, while other municipalities like Ottawa and Vancouver say they cannot accommodate any additional people. At one point in late January, over 200 new arrivals were being housed in a Kitchener Howard Johnson hotel. The agency dealing with new arrivals in Waterloo Region says things are in good shape.

A NEW CODE RED RECORD IN 2015

FOR THE LOVE OF ARTISANS

$60M OWED IN PROPERTY TAXES

In 2015 Waterloo Region experienced a 3.5 hour Code Red, which describes any period of time when all ambulances in the region are busy and none are available for calls. Code Red situations are the result of increased calls as well as delayed transfer unloading patients at hospitals. The problem is systemic as ambulances have been added to the fleet in four out of the five years since 2011.

On February 13 craft lovers can find the knitted, the kitschy and the handmade at the Kitchener Market. Do not lump this craft bazaar in with all the other craft sales, though. This is the Valentine’s Artisan Bazaar, so all of the trinkets you buy aren’t just regular trinkets. They’re love trinkets. Expect works from Centric Woodworking, Tea Time Pottery and Ellie Anglin.

Roughly $60 million in property taxes were not paid by the public last year. Kitchenerites held back 6.2 per cent of their property taxes in 2015, compared to 4.2 per cent in Waterloo. Worse still, Cambridge residents left nine per cent of their property taxes unpaid. After three years of unpaid taxes on a property, the city can register a certificate to cut ahead of creditors.

SPIKE IN OPIOD TWO STEPS FOROVERDOSES IN WR WARD, ONE BACK?

GOOGLE FINDS NEW DIGS

Between January 23 and 26 six people in Waterloo Region overdosed on opiods, one fatally, following similar trends in B.C. There is currently no province-wide overdose monitoring database in Ontario. Locally, the Waterloo Region Integrated Drugs Strategy tracks overdose statistics and advocates for better access to naxalone, which effectively treats the effects of an opiod overdose.

Google unveiled its new national headquarters in Kitchener on January 13, 2016, with a visit from Prime Minister Trudeau. The new digs include shared booths for noshing and working, a full-time chef, a rock climbing wall, a gym, an arcade and a caricature wall featuring every employee and the Prime Minister. People who work at the office are called “Canooglers,” for some reason.

Even though $122,000 was awarded to literary, arts, musical and theatre projects in the region in December, a bid to boost arts funding in the region was rejected this January. Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic asked Regional Council for a 1.5 per cent increase for various groups, but the request was denied because a regional committee is already reviewing arts funding.

FEBRUARY 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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A COMMUNITY THAT CARES IS AWARE OF ABUSE NOBODY IS ALONE AT WATERLOO REGION’S SEXUAL ASSAULT/DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TREATMENT CENTRE CAROLYN GRAY CONTRIBUTOR

Content note: this article discusses gendered violence.

In the heart of St. Mary’s General Hospital, tucked away behind the hustle and bustle of triage, is a room with no hand sanitizer dispensers on the wall, no cold laminate floors and no cries heard through a thin curtain. Inside, the soft glow, comfy couches, framed pictures of flowers and lush green plants offer safety from the sterility of the hospital and the bitter February winds. As a part of the Waterloo Region Sexual Assault/ Domestic Violence Treatment Centre, this is the room where nurses accompany victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

The Waterloo Region Police Services investigates a “domestic incident” about every one and a half hours. Last year over 400 victims

came to this room, most of them women.

The treatment centre supports people of all ages and genders, and is the only sexual assault program out of thirty-five in Ontario with social workers and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANE) on-call 24/7. Thanks to the centre’s work, hospitals across the region now automatically screen all female emergency room visitors for sexual and domestic assault, so that women don’t have to offer vulnerable information themselves.

Unless they refuse, when a victim of assault reveals the circumstances of their injuries they are brought out of the busy and exposed emergency room into the special treatment space.

Each victim is offered food or a hot drink while they wait for a social worker to arrive. Attached to the sitting room is a washroom where they can shower, an act often desired after a traumatic violation. The adjoining examination room is also decorated as non-medically as possible, with house plants and soft lighting. Here, the victim can choose to receive

blood tests for STIs (sexually transmitted infections) or to have a DNA sample taken. Depending on the legal decisions they make, diagrams or photos might be filed.

“When we say ‘domestic violence,’ that covers a gamut of abuse: sexual, emotional, financial, spiritual, etc.

Sometimes women don’t realize they are being abused. In some cases they just think ‘this is part of being in a relationship,’ or ‘this is just how things are,’ or they don’t want to speak out about it for a number of reasons,” explains Julia Manuel, the treatment centre’s manager.

Statistics Canada reports that one in three women and one in six men will experience some form of sexual violence in their lifetime, and that 39 per cent of women report having had at least one experience of sexual assault since the age of 16. Victims experience many different and strong barriers to reaching out for treatment, reporting harassment and leaving abusive relationships. Many victims of abuse, for many reasons, feel that relationships are in general just “like that.”

The work done at the treatment centre to broaden the conversation about sexual violence provides hope, although the persisting cycle of violence is complex, and progress can feel slow.

Manuel says that our conversations about sexual violence too frequently “seem to be directed at women. The info is how to keep women safe, and I think there needs to be some conversations with men, and it needs to start in primary school, about, for example, what it means to be in a healthy relationship. There needs to be more conversations with males on how to interact with women.” Abuse will continue at its current rate unless and until children are better educated about how to be in healthy relationships.

The centre’s tagline is, “A Community that Cares is Aware.” Flyers in Manuel’s office boldly state that “you are not alone,” and that “it is not your fault.” With a committed team working all day, every day, this seems true. Because of the centre’s hard work, you are never alone.

Two notes on language: 1. All staff that I spoke with used the term victim, not survivor, though this remains a contentious point.

Author Rahila Gupta recently argued that the term “‘survivor’ is important because it recognizes the agency of women.” However, “it focuses on individual capacity, [while] the notion of ‘victim’ reminds us of the stranglehold of the system.”

2. Many use binary gender terms while talking about sexual violence, and those who identify as women disproportionately experience gendered violence. At the same time, one in five trans people in Ontario have experienced physical or sexual assault for being trans. Race, class, ability and other social locations affect a person’s likelihood of experiencing sexual or domestic abuse.

After an abuse screening in the emergency room, victims are brought to this safe room inside the Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Treatment Centre at St. Mary’s Hospital. CAROLYN GRAY PHOTO

UNLEARNING OUR MANY TOXIC MASCULINITIES LOCAL MEN WORK TOGETHER TO UNDERSTAND MASCULINITY AND THE ROOT CAUSES OF GENDERED VIOLENCE

ERIN MCLEAN-PURDON CONTRIBUTOR

Content note: this article discusses gendered violence.

In 2015, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a report entitled “The Best and Worst Places to Be a Woman In Canada.” Looking at Canada’s 25 biggest cities, the report considered the gender gap in five areas: economic security, leadership, health, education and personal security. Collectively, the cities of Waterloo Region ranked 25th, making them the worst cities for women to live, in Canada. The cities also ranked second-last in the area of personal security, which considers the prevalence of reported domestic and sexual violence against women.

So Waterloo Region can generally do more to foster a safe and supportive community for women. But, and beside the obvious, what role do men have to play in ending sexual violence against women?

Sara Casselman, the Executive Director of the Sexual Assault Support

Centre of Waterloo Region, described how sexual violence is a systemic issue that disproportionately affects women.

“About 85 per cent or so that are [sexually] assaulted are women or girls. The other 15 per cent are predominantly boys. Certainly adult males are sexually assaulted, that’s true and they deserve support and understanding when that happens...

Unfortunately, 98 to 99 per cent that offend sexually are male.”

Because men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of sexual violence, in 2006 an idea began to float around SASC. Instead of focusing on what women can do to avoid sexual assault, they decided to look at the root causes. In order to create meaningful change, men needed to be involved.

In 2008, the newly-created Male Allies Against Sexual Violence program started engaging men and boys in ending gender-based violence through workshops, training and facilitated discussions about masculinity, respect, equality and feminism.

According to Casselman, “we were the first sexual assault center in Ontario that had something like a male allies program.”

In 2013, SASC made another unprecedented decision when they

hired a man to work with MAASV. To appreciate the boldness of this move it helps to understand the genesis and philosophy of sexual assault centers like SASC. “We live in a society where women’s voices are seldom amplified. Women are usually not the ones in leadership positions,” Casselman explained.

In the Tri-Cities, women make up fewer than one-third of city councilors. One-third of senior managers are women.

“Sexual assault centers exist because (of) women’s advocacy and women working together, amplifying one another’s voices. It’s a very delicate balance in terms of how we engage men in the work,” Casselman shared.

Navigating this balance now, as MAASV’s coordinator, is Stephen Soucie.

With MAASV, Soucie talks to men and boys about their role in ending sexual violence against women, toxic ideas of masculinity, and the intersection between these two things.

“The same dominant idea of manhood that leads some men to use violence towards women also leads to violence against men,” Soucie said.

“In my high school, the men with the most masculine capital were the men who were the most aggressive,

the most physically dominant. For the next four years, I struggled to put on the hard masculine performance. That led to a lot of anxiety and vulnerabilities. I kept thinking ‘What’s wrong with me?’ ‘How are all my friends naturally able to do this?’”

“Men aren’t taught to have these conversations,” Soucie continued.

“I treated other people very poorly, specifically women. When I started to understand where that behaviour was coming from, I started to feel better about myself and treat those around me better.”

Casselman and Soucie nudged me into an uncomfortable state of self-reflection: not perpetrating sexual violence against women is the obvious place to start, but it is not enough.

There’s more to do. I’m always unlearning and working to be a better ally, partner and man, though the faults of others are typically easier to see than our own. However, this attitude does little to motivate us to look critically at how our actions, as men, cultivate a culture where sexual violence against women occurs, often with impunity. ​Nonetheless, Casselman shared that “MAASV gives me hope… that social change is possible, that sexual violence against women is universal but it

is not inevitable; it’s preventable.”

Having men participate in MAASV, Casselman continued, is also an important step in the healing process for some survivors of sexual violence.

Wendy, a survivor of sexual violence, shared her experience of talking to a group of MAASV volunteers-in-training. “At first I felt every emotion imaginable. I was skeptical that men would take me seriously. As it turned out, I was shown the utmost respect by all.

I was surprised at the amount of understanding they showed me. That was never the case before. I had my faith in people restored that night. From the first time I revealed to anyone what was happening to me until that night, I felt I was alone,” she shared.

Wendy concluded that “after speaking, I felt relieved and a little happier because I saw a big change in how survivors of sexual abuse were seen by society. I am very hopeful that the group of men I spoke to will go on and be able to help survivors in years to come.”

Much work has to be done. This work requires men to support and not lead, to listen without talking, and to be respectful in all their interactions with all the women in their lives.

FEBRUARY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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DRIVING WITH THE DRAGON NEW MOBILE OUTREACH PROJECT HITS THE STREETS IN K-W

Sanguen’s Violet Umantez prepares the organization’s new Community Outreach Van, or “Vanguen,” for a Thursday night on the road. The van provides harm reduction support to community members. JESSE BAUMAN PHOTO

On the street, “chasing the dragon” means getting high on heroin, while successfully treating hepatitis C is called “slaying the dragon.” Whichever path folks are on, says Umantez, “Sanguen aims to keep them safe.” JESSE BAUMAN PHOTO

ALEXANDRA BISSLEY CONTRIBUTOR On Thursday evenings around the time that most of us are trudging home through the snow and hunkering down for nightly hibernation, a group of workers from Sanguen Health Centre in Waterloo are loading a van up with hot chocolate, snacks, warm clothes and harm reduction kits, and getting ready to hit the streets. Sanguen’s Community Outreach Van, or Vanguen, as it has been affectionately dubbed, is a new mobile outreach project that has been unofficially underway since the beginning of December. Each Thursday night they spend three hours on the road and at several sites across Kitchener-Waterloo, connecting with individuals who have otherwise limited access to support services.

“From a social work perspective and from an outreach perspective, it’s nice to make connections with people who we’ve never seen. Ever. People in the community who really need connection,” says Pete McKechnie, a social worker at Sanguen. Though its schedule hasn’t been formally advertised, over the past two months community members have grown to know and expect the van, and at each stop its staff are now greeted by waiting, increasingly familiar faces. The van parks for 45 minutes and Sanguen’s staff get to work. Those staff include a mobile outreach worker; a hepatitis C nurse; McKechnie; and Manager of Outreach, Education and Prevention

Services, Violet Umantez. At each stop they hand out mugs of hot chocolate, offer on-the-spot hepatitis C testing and referrals for treatment, as well as provide snack-packs and basic needs items such as toilet paper and toothbrushes. All the while they are learning about the needs of the population they aim to serve.

Sanguen Health Centre supports individuals with and those at risk of getting hepatitis C, through testing, treatment, support, outreach and education. Their mandate is specific to marginalized populations and a harm reduction philosophy shapes their work, which aims to reduce harms associated with drug use in people unable or unwilling to stop.

“We’re here with the idea that everybody is equal, everyone is entitled to be healthy, everyone is entitled to be safe,” says Umantez.

But health and safety look different and are differently accessible to different people. Many of Sanguen’s clients and potential clients live with a complexity of factors that impede their access to service: housing and income insecurity, and limited access to transportation, for example.

Despite outreach projects such as a weekly clinic at St. John’s Kitchen and home deliveries of harm reduction supplies, Umantez says that the staff at Sanguen realized that “there are a lot of people who are not in downtown Kitchener who are not on our radar.”

The need for mobile outreach was identified as a way for Sanguen to do its work “in a way that actually works for the people we’re trying to reach,” she explained.

Over 100 people visited the van in its first month and Umantez describes

the range of people who accessed the service as “youth and seniors and everyone in between. All ethnic backgrounds, all ages.”

The van was initially intended to bring harm reduction supplies, and a safe disposal site and testing to the community. That focus remains, but Umantez says that they have been overwhelmed with requests for basic needs, like toothbrushes, socks, Q-tips, tampons and basic health care. It’s been a profound indicator of the service and accessibility gaps in our community, which Sanguen is aiming to fill by developing partnerships to expand the services and resources offered by the van.

“We’re looking to meet people who don’t have access to a lot of services,” Umantez says.

“And we’re in there saying to them, ‘What do you need? We’ll find a way to make that happen.’”

Sanguen has funding for the van’s first year and has already expanded the mobile outreach project, having added a second night each week in January.

When I spoke with Umantez, they were working on plans to bring the van to Cambridge one night a week starting this month. So far the project has been warmly received by the community.

When I asked Umantez about possible backlash as the project grows and gets more publicity in the coming months, she stressed that there is nothing controversial about the van.

“We are not running a safe injection site out of the van. You cannot argue with hot chocolate. You cannot argue with first aid kits or snacks. So you also can’t argue with keeping people safe from hepatitis C or HIV. These are basic health needs.”

WORKING WITH STRANGERS

I WORKED IN SOMEONE ELSE’S LIVING ROOM AND I LIKED IT

Ideas and people collide inside Apartment Cafe. JULIA GOGOLEVA PHOTO

Kitchenerites Sam Nabi and Sarah Pearson started a café in an apartment. Once a week they open the front door of Nabi’s place to interested co-workers.

JULIA GOGOLEVA PHOTO

MEGAN NOURSE CONTRIBUTOR It started in the elevator. A woman and her dog came through the front door of downtown Kitchener’s York building just after Apartment Café organizers buzzed me in. I guess I stood out as a non-resident—probably because I couldn’t figure out how to use the ancient-looking elevator. She asked what I was doing and I explained that I was headed to the seventh floor for Apartment Café, the brainchild of Kitchenerites Sam Nabi and Sarah Pearson.

Like the name suggests, Nabi and Pearson started a “café” in an apartment. Once a week from 11 in the morning until seven at night they open the front door of Nabi’s place and let locals drift in and out to work in his living room. Places like Communitech and Velocity provide co-working space for tech companies, but the same does not really exist for creative types. Less formal than their tech counterparts, Apartment Café is a space for people who would typically work from home to spend their day in a comfortable setting working alongside others.

When I first heard about the café I thought it sounded like my worst nightmare. [Editor’s note: Megan said, “That sounds like my worst nightmare.”] The joy of working from home is that I don’t have to put on real pants, and that if I choose to venture to a cafe,

I can retain my anti-social tendencies but with better food. So I’m obviously not the café’s target co-worker.

The cafe is open every Wednesday—Nabi and Pearson have committed to hosting for at least the next two months—and I dreaded going all morning. With my interest in interacting with strangers diminished after my elevator encounter, I approached the open door of apartment 73.

Four or five people were spread across Nabi’s apartment, quietly working away over laptops and notebooks as I bit the bullet and entered. The sound of local musician Evan Pointer was streaming while Nabi, a freelance web developer, and Pearson, a musician and music therapist, shared kitchen duty and worked away simultaneously. The Cafe offers things like coffee, kombucha and soup—all homemade or locally sourced—and accepts (but does not require) donations from attendees.

Pearson and Nabi share the feeling that going into a stranger’s home (and vice-versa) is not that weird. They frequent house shows in the area and seem totally comfortable opening their doors to the community. People do it for lodging on sites like Airbnb, so why not for co-working?

I work in an office, where a lot of my day is eaten up with chatter among co-workers, but usually our best ideas, solutions and projects come out of side-conversations and encounters that initially seemed like distractions.

Can Apartment Café provide that networking and brainstorming utility for people who may otherwise spend all day alone in their home office?

Ultimately, Apartment Café was a much less awkward experience than I expected, and it was obvious that some of the others working were completely comfortable. The previous week, there were as many as 15 people working away at one time, which is the max the apartment can hold while providing seats for everyone. Nabi and Pearson each said there were points where they didn’t know anyone in the apartment. Other weeks they’ve had friends around. On the day I went, they seemed to know everyone who came in and out—I felt like the only unfamiliar face.

I managed to stay for a few hours, and I didn’t hate it. I also got way more work done than I would have at my office. The few hours I was there were quiet and focused. Coffee was poured and music was played, but the activity was at a minimum. What was really cool about the space was the option to quietly work or socialize with like-minded people (not that I actually would have socialized).

Pearson and Nabi have created a unique space that is likely to inspire similar home openings around Kitchener. On the days I work from home, it’s way too easy to become trapped in a vortex of talking to my cat while being distracted by snacking and television. The Apartment Café provides a comfortable space to work without the typical café pressures to buy more food or leave after a few hours. I hung out, I worked and I’ll probably go back next Wednesday. I might even talk to people next time.

FEBRUARY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

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LONELY IN LOVE THE PERFECT ROMANCE WON’T FIX YOU

JOHN ROCHE CONTRIBUTOR Valentine’s Day is one of those special holidays with the power to make us feel totally shitty about ourselves.

Some of that has to do with loneliness, and some of it has to do with romance, but most of it has to do with the fact that being socialized by capitalism and pop songs has left us pretty unsure of what loneliness and romance actually are and how they relate to each other.

There are two very different kinds of loneliness.

The first is social, and it’s addressed by making adjustments in your interpersonal life, like dating or starting a relationship.

The second type is known as existential loneliness. Nietzsche calls this type of loneliness “the abyss,” and it’s characterized by a painful sense of emptiness or incompleteness. The problem for pop song psychology is that while romance does help to alleviate social loneliness, it’s really bad at addressing existential loneliness.

Think of romance as sea water, social loneliness as a fire, and existential loneliness as a thirst. Dumping the sea water (romance) on the fire (social loneliness) will put it out, but trying to satisfy your thirst (existential loneliness) by drinking sea water will just make things worse. That doesn’t stop us from believing that drinking sea water will quench our thirst, though.

This mistaken belief wreaks all kinds of psychological and interpersonal havoc, and it takes two primary forms.

Let’s call the first flawed view of romance the anxious approach. The basic assumption of this approach is that romantic relationships can eliminate the pain of a person’s existential loneliness when that person receives enough love.

Unfortunately, like a parched castaway gulping down sea water, the anxious romantic can never get enough. Consequently, this approach to romance is characterized by neediness and insatiable demands for greater intimacy—the sharing of our intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and/ or sexual reality with another person.

The object of the anxious romantic’s affection cannot possibly meet the expectations placed upon them, and the anxious romantic becomes resentful and attempts to overcome the problem by clinging to their partner even more.

The relationship takes up a central, obsessive place in the anxious partner’s mind, leaving them in inner turmoil and often having significant impacts on other areas of their life. At the same time, their partner is caught in a trap: either they can continue to fail to live up to inhuman standards, or they can leave. And it’s usually only a matter of time before they decide to

leave.

We can call the second flawed view of romance the avoidant approach.

The basic assumption of this approach is that with the right partner a romantic relationship can eliminate the pain of existential loneliness.

This approach to romance leads people to avoid intimacy rather than to seek it out. But despite the fact that anxious and avoidant romantics look so different on the outside, they both hold the same mistaken belief that romance can take away their sense of alienation and incompleteness.

The only difference is that while the frustration of this expectation leads the anxious romantic to cling to their partner more tightly, it leads the avoidant romantic to abandon their current partner in search of someone “better”: someone who will dispel their existential loneliness.

Unfortunately for the avoidant types, today’s hopeful ideal inevitably becomes tomorrow’s all-too-human disappointment, and the existential loneliness remains, leaving a trail of broken hearts and a growing fear that they may never find “the one.”

Sometimes, in the face of this fear, avoidant romantics will idealize an ex rather than a future partner, comparing current prospective partners to a perfect relationship that never actually existed.

While neither the anxious nor the avoidant styles are wrong or bad, they’re definitely ineffective at addressing existential loneliness and cultivating romantic intimacy.

The good news is there’s an alternative, the secure approach to romance.

The basic assumption of the secure approach is that romantic relationships are not capable of eliminating the pain of existential loneliness, and that that’s okay, because that’s not what they’re supposed to do.

The secure romantic knows that existential loneliness is part of human existence, and as long as we’re on the run from it, even the most attentive or impressive partner will fall short of our standards. Rather than running, secure romantics stare into the abyss and accept that it’s there. It never really goes away, but in befriending rather than fleeing from it, it becomes a source of creativity and compassion. Accepting this part of ourselves also makes us a lot more likely to accept our partners’ human limitations.

Cultivating this kind of relationship to self and other isn’t easy, and it doesn’t make for very good pop songs, but it’s guaranteed to make Valentine’s Day a lot less shitty.

John is a therapist who practices in Waterloo.

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7

SEXPLANATIONS

STACEY JACOBS COLUMNIST

Terry Walters, and his regionally inspired art. CAROLYN GRAY PHOTO

Do you know a happy couple? You know, with the type of relationship many people are looking for: they laugh together, they cry together, they take on the world together. You may wish you knew their secret or you might want to barf. Either way, this couple probably has a relationship based on a deep friendship.

Dr. John M. Gottman is a researcher, author and therapist with over 40 years of experience working with couples. According to Gottman, happy relationships are built on deep friendships consisting of mutual respect, enjoyment of each other’s company, intimate knowledge of one another and daily expressions of fondness.

Theses couples may argue, and they may even scream at one another, but they also have what Gottman calls “emotional intelligence.” This does not mean they are smarter than other couples. It does mean they are able to keep their negative thoughts about each other and their relationship from overtaking their positive thoughts. Some couples come by this naturally and others learn these skills.

Being intimately familiar with your partner and their world is an important factor in a happy relationship. Gottman says knowing your partner’s hopes, dreams, likes, dislikes, fears, stresses and joys will prepare you to cope with stressful life situations.

Knowing and understanding one an-

other will keep you connected. But you must keep updating this information.

Thoughts and feelings change over time, and so it is vital to keep communicating, to keep asking questions and to keep sharing. If there are things you think you do not know about your partner, ask. What is your favourite childhood memory? Do you believe in an afterlife?

What is your biggest regret? What is one thing you would change about yourself?

Do you love Taco Bell as much as I do?

Sharing with your partner is a lifelong and worthwhile process.

Gottman thinks fondness and admiration are crucial in a happy relationship, and that couples must continue to remind themselves of their partners’ positive qualities.

This will prevent contempt from sneaking in. So when you are away from your partner try to think of their positive qualities and minimize your negative thoughts about them. Make an effort to notice the qualities and actions that you appreciate about your partner and let them know you appreciate them.

For example, say “thank you for bringing me Taco Bell for dinner, I appreciate that you know how much I love it and that you don’t find me disgusting.”

Are you often on your cell phone?

Take a minute to think about how this affects your relationship. Are you distracted? Happy relationships thrive on partners being aware of one another and paying attention. So set boundaries around phone use, and establish when your (and your partner’s) phone should be turned off. This shows respect for your relationship and your partner.

Heed Dr. Gottman’s advice, and your relationship could make you as happy as Taco Bell makes me.

ARTIN’ AROUND K-TOWN WITH TERRY WALTERS LOCAL ARTIST SHARES ABOUT HIS CREATIVE INSPIRATIONS AND PAINTING (IN) DOWNTOWN KITCHENER ALLY SIEBERT CONTRIBUTOR Terry Walters will tell you he’s not great with words. He’ll also tell you he’s not an artist. Read past his humility, however, and you’ll discover that Walters has mastered the art of living out his words and creating from the heart.

A self-taught painter, Walters’s works are dynamic and imaginative, yet somehow still uncomplicated. He enthusiastically tells his story by pulling out the paintings that best explain it, paintings with the same captivating impressionism of Monet’s haystacks or the Group of Seven’s wilderness scenes.

“Van Gogh is so exciting to me,” he says, “just bursting with emotion.

In the visual arts field, people are constantly pressing the boundaries and making you question everything, which is cool, I like that too. But I’m looking for something less intellectual, more direct.”

It’s not just his art that has a directness about it. Without a cell phone or social media, Walters manages to avoid many of the distractions of 21st-century life. In his words, “there’s something about moving through the world and paying attention to the world that to me is satisfying. In my subtle, quiet way, I promote that idea of being satisfied with less.”

This philosophy has allowed Walters’s life to take place deeply within his surroundings. Walters and his wife have lived in Kitchener for a few decades, and you may very well run into them at the Globe Studios, City Cafe Bakery, Recycle Cycles, or at the library.

“There are days when I walk around and think ‘this is a cool city.’ Maybe

it’s happened that way for us because we’re old-fashioned, but we run into people walking on the street or at the coffee shop. It’s by being in proximity and by being open.”

The Waterloo Region also inspires his art, featuring scenes of Victoria Park or pathways along the Grand River. As he sees it, “if you’re biking to Tai Chi class and it’s sunset and you look down the railroad tracks to the old tire factory and the light’s like, ‘Whoa.

Somebody has to paint this.’”

Though the city is his home, Walters finds himself especially devoted to the lakes, parks, and pathways of Ontario.

Many of these scenes are inspired by indigenous artists, like Norval Morrisseau or the Huichol yarn painters of Mexico.

For Walters, there’s a deep spiritual connection in these places. “I’m not really a religious person, but you walk on the beach at night and you just feel a certain magic. It’s like my church, Lake Superior.”

This spiritual connection gets recreated on the canvas itself. “You could put this on the Internet, reproduce it all over the place, but somehow it’s not the same as sitting in front of it. I want you to feel the brush strokes; the light bounces off of them. Or maybe it’s magic, I don’t know,” he explains.

Seeing the art in person, he believes, allows us to access this magic. Though he is supportive of local artists, and has filled the walls of his home with his favourite pieces, selling his own art never felt right.

“I did do a couple of shows. I dabbled in the idea but it felt like ‘forget it.’ Art is my therapy, or in the words of The Talking Heads’s song, art is ‘cleaning the brain.’ If I don’t paint for a long time, I don’t feel the colours the same way.”

In recent years, touches with grief have immersed Walters once again in his art. “For 10 years we had our daughter with us. We lost her two and a half years ago and suddenly, very

suddenly, we’re not parents anymore.”

He adds, “I’m trying to figure out where to go from here. So I thought, painting’s always good for me, I’ll go back to painting.”

As an artist embedded in his community, with a home studio room full of canvases, Walters has started giving away some of his work.

“There are a lot of waiting rooms at cancer clinics, for example, that need some real artwork, instead of some banal print or bad photograph. I gotta get around town a little more and match paintings with spaces.”

If you’d like to get in touch with Terry Walters, or to see more of his artwork, visit his blog at www.moomooart.wordpress.com. Or, just wait to meet him and see his art in person; you never know where he might turn up.

KEN’S WORLD

A 76-YEAR OLD MAN AND HIS WAREHOUSE, THE STORE WOW WORDS AND PHOTOS BY JESSE BAUMAN As I sat beside Ken Wilson in the middle of his Store WOW I could see, without turning my head, one punching bag (40 pounds), a large “TAN HERE” nylon sign, a cookie jar, two coat racks with coats (one topped with a wig and Canada flag cowboy hat), a rack for wine bottles, a potted plastic flower arrangement, various canned soups and vegetables, a framed painting of the Virgin Mary, an old bicycle horn hanging from the ceiling (with “SERVICE BLOW HORN” sign attached), at least four mirrors, more than 25 lamps, one right-footed Bauer hockey skate, one right-footed roller-blade, three canes, a black feather boa, a bed frame, two aquariums (one filled with dusty vitamin bottles), three stereos connected to different speakers, six or more dolls, a soccer trophy (FINALIST), a tiny red model Ferrari, a sewing machine, a faded box of sea salt, a jar of zinc, a dumbbell, three rolled up foam mattresses, Gran Turismo 4 for PlayStation 2, a VHS cassette labelled “MAHALLA JONE,” and a sign that says “If any lack wisdom, let him ASK OF GOD…and it shall be given him. James 1:5.” All of the above sits upon a sort-of-visible architecture of shelving, much of it improvised.

Before I go on, and while we’re sharing a smile about an 80-year-old man and his stuff, let me state clearly: Ken Wilson knows that you think he is crazy—he told me so. But to the extent that anyone can choose how to live a life, Wilson has chosen his.

His store sits in the shadow of the new Google office in downtown Kitchener, and “it’s called Store WOW because when people come in, they always say ‘wow.’”

The store-not-store is not on Google Maps, though it is, in a way, inside Google—more on that later. A sign on the loading dock advertises a closing sale—more on that later, too.

Before he opened the store about five years ago, Wilson worked as a furniture refinisher, at one time managing eight locations around Southern Ontario. He also spent much of his life buying and re-selling estates. This accumulated past is now the Store WOW. According to Wilson, the two afternoons I spent at the store were unusually slow, owing to weather and especially the closing of Waterloo Street for LRT construction. Before LRT construction the store apparently received “between 40 and 50 customers” each day.

My first afternoon there, I counted four: a regular visitor with no intention to buy anything; Alex, from KW FreeCyclers, who per his group’s mandate to “create from recycled goods,” took a couple broken VCRs (free), but was really looking for parts to make an ozone generator; a quiet guy who mostly sat by the front window, and who was there my second visit as well, organizing nuts and bolts; and a redfaced teenager who paid $20 for a box of speakers, as-is.

That first afternoon I badgered Wilson about paying his bills, and shared with him my astute observation that there were less than 40 people in the store. He explained to me that he is happy living simply, and that he spends less than one dollar on himself, each day.

At this point he picked up a yogurt container full of fried rice, which a friend dropped off for him that morning, unsolicited. As he cares for others, he is cared for.

I can tell that he can tell that I am skeptical. And yet he seemed entirely sincere and open, including when he explained that he cuts costs by wearing the same clothes every day.

“I need to wash my clothes every month only. And I’ve asked my close friends, the ones who would tell me, and they say that they smell no bad odours on me.”

I did not smell any bad odours on Ken Wilson.

“I always make the sales I need to,” he said. “For example, I sold a whole lot of stuff to the guy decorating the Google office, a sculptor from California.”

Staff at Google identified the artist as David Lovejoy, who I reached in California.

“Ken’s amazing. We picked through [Store WOW] almost daily,” Lovejoy shared with me by e-mail. “On the workbench [also at Google] is a large steel mallet, manufactured by KENTOOL. I bought it from him and put it there in his honor. He was a godsend.”

When I arrived to spend a second afternoon at the store I met Demetre, a kind-eyed man in a large furry hat, who explained that he was watching the store for Wilson, who was busy.

I found him in the back of the store showing an armoire to a couple who drove from near Lindsay after seeing a Kijiji advertisement. A friend of Wilson’s sometimes posts items online, for a cut, and he called while I was there to see if it had sold.

After a few minutes Demetre wandered over and asked me to watch the store, because he needed to leave, and I did.

Wilson and the couple took half an hour to return to the front of the store, at which point he shared with them a story he shared with me the first afternoon, but this time with a prop.

Wilson recovered from polio as a 12-year-old, which until a recent bout of pneumonia was the last time he was sick. Nevertheless, he recently scheduled a medical check-up. At that point the prop emerged: a round coil of steel with two handles to be squeezed together—a simple grip-strength machine.

As Wilson explained, “the first thing the doctor did when I arrived was test my grip strength. He said squeeze, really squeeze, and I really squeezed!

When he saw the result he sent me home, because nobody with that kind of strength could have anything wrong with them.” I took my turn squeezing

the handles. It was harder than it looked, and Wilson nodded knowingly.

Wilson understands his polio recovery as a sign or gift from God, to whom he promised to devote his life if he survived. He regularly shares the home he rents with street-involved people just out of jail or trying to get clean. I know that he often takes his rusty cargo van to the food bank to pick up groceries for others, and that he encourages them to volunteer at his store.

“People know I want to help, so they often come to me for help. But I don’t give money because I have no money to give.”

The first time I walked into Wilson’s store he was on the phone, telling a prospective customer about Jesus’ radical politics and virtues, universal love, voluntary poverty and selflessness among them. I asked Wilson if he had ever considered the similarity between his and Jesus’ life, a question he found funny but not worth discussing. When I asked a second time he changed the subject.

Wilson hopes to be moved out of by the end of the month, though he also admitted to me that he’s been saying that since September. When I asked him about the closing sign and his future and the fact that his store is still packed with stuff, Wilson explained that he wants to leave because the roof is leaking, and badly. I could not confirm this with his landlord, but he showed me water damage, and Alfred, a friend of his with strong opinions about gentrification and McDonald’s, described the leak as being like “rain, but inside.”

But the rain is not Wilson’s only or biggest problem. The Store WOW is huge, and though it’s literally three degrees inside I’m not surprised that rent is $4,000 per month.

This is a problem because Wilson’s stuff is not, for the most part, immediately saleable. It takes a lot of work to turn what’s in his warehouse into stuff that people will buy—more work, he admitted, than he cares to do at this stage in his life, and more work than most shoppers are willing to invest.

But he will not take Store WOW to the landfill. He hopes to find a place for all his stuff, and to find people currently without a livelihood who are interested in learning skills like furniture refinishing, or upholstery, or electronics repair, and who could take over his work.

Worse-case scenario, I ask, could you junk your stuff?

“Well, what in here would I junk?”

Wilson pointed to a large piece of wood with two small thin pieces of wood attached, which he explained is a sauerkraut masher, and which I took to be evidence that everything under his roof has a purpose, and value. A professional mover recently quoted Wilson that it would cost him about $20,000 to empty the Store WOW. “And I told him, you’ll be the first and only thing in the dumpster.”

FEBRUARY 2016 // @THECOMMUNITYED

11

ORTHODOXICALLY MODERN

TCE CONTINUES SURVEYING WR’S DIFFERENT FAITH COMMUNITIES

CHRISTOPHER EMORY-MOORE COLUMNIST Entering the small uptown church on Saturday just after dusk, a robed priest immediately turned to greet me at the door with a sign of the cross and a “God bless you.” This instant blessing from Father Christopher Rigden-Brascall commenced my warm welcome to his Orthodox Christian community. Christ the Saviour (XCS), on residential Dunbar Street, is the only English-speaking Orthodox parish in Waterloo Region. His welcome was extended through Saturday evening vespers and Sunday morning orthros followed by the divine liturgy.

While he prepared the space for vespers, the first service in the Church’s daily worship cycle, which begins at sunset, Father Christopher carefully answered my questions about Orthodoxy and inquired about my own religious background. He encouraged me foremost to relax and enjoy myself, to stand or sit as I please, but to maybe not lie down as this might attract some strange looks.

I followed him past the candlelit icons in the foyer to a large windowless room filled with candlelight.

More icons lined the back and side walls above wooden pews facing the altar. Colourful imagery and ritual objects were partially visible within the altar’s inner sanctuary. The altar was separated from parishioners by a wall of beautifully arched wooden

panels adorned with standing icons of the ascension, Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist. After the service, Father Christopher joined me in the back pew to chat. He seemed sincerely touched by my visit and answered my question about the goals of Orthodox practice by elaborating on his brief sermon about humility. He explained how, in the Orthodox tradition, union with God is possible for anyone, but that there is no arrival. The more a person advances towards union with God the more they become aware of their sins.

When I raised the subject of theological parallels between Orthodoxy and other mystical traditions, he shrugged humbly.

“Truth is truth,” he said.

Vespers, orthros, and especially the divine liturgy unfolded in full collaboration with parishioners’ physical senses: burning incense, lighting candles, kissing icons, eating holy communion and singing devotions.

The divine liturgy was a bustling family affair. As orthros blended into liturgy, the pews slowly swelled until there were as many children in the room as adults. At one point Father Christopher invited the wee parishioners to the altar steps for a teaching about the importance of saying “thank you” upon receiving a gift. This, he explained, is precisely what we do in the Orthodox Church: We say thank you to God. After the service I was kindly offered plenty of leftover communion bread to snack on, and invited to stay for fellowship and a proper meal in the church basement. I politely declined, but insisted that I’d be back.

The Christian identity of XCS and its

parishioners is rooted in a sense of the historical continuity of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The phrase I heard Father Christopher chant most often was “now and ever and unto ages of ages, amen.”

A pamphlet in the Church foyer explains: “The original Church has remained united in the Apostolic Faith since the first century... Built on the foundation of Christ and His Apostles, nothing has been added to our faith, and nothing can be added. It is complete.”

Such staunch conservatism may seem contrary to my experience of XCS’s warm welcome of “seekers from all backgrounds,” or the variegated sensuality of its worship. But clash they do not. Worship at XCS is a fascinating blend of solemnity and levity, where collective theological certainty supports a collective openness to the squawks of uninterested children and the gawks of unknowing guests.

Walking into liturgy at XCS feels like walking into a rite that has literally been going on for centuries. Candles illumine the altar’s gilt icons and God’s praises are already being sung. Parishioners settle into their pews to partake of the indispensable eucharist, profoundly aware of their own dispensability. Come one, many, or none, the rite transpires. To Father Christopher’s chant, “Again and again in peace, let us pray to the Lord,” the assembled respond melodically, “Lord have mercy.”

A church, but not the one we’re talking about. Unorthodox, right?

MATTHEW SMITH PHOTO EDITOR

NOT JUST FOR THE FELLAS SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES FOR WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY DAVE THOMAS CONTRIBUTOR There are lots of obstacles and challenges for women entering the tech field, but there are also many rewards and successes.

It’s an area that’s still dominated numerically by men, from coding to the boardroom. Waterloo Region hit the news in a negative way last summer when a survey by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives pegged Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo as the worst community in Canada in which to be a woman. It looked at criteria such as leadership roles, education attainment and economic security.

But the outlook is not entirely bleak.

Tina Nguyen is the main organizer of Girl Geek Dinners Waterloo Region, regular gatherings that “bring together technically-inclined women, from students to experts, artists to engineers.” She says there are many initiatives that provide support and impactful change, such as Year of Code Waterloo Region, Code Like A Girl and Ladies Learning Code/Girls Learning Code.

There are also many successful startups headed by women.

Caitlin MacGregor co-founded Waterloo-based Plum with her husband, Neil MacGregor, and Christine Bird.

The company’s software is a pre-employment assessment tool and hiring solution to determine candidate fit.

MacGregor is Plum’s CEO. She studied

international development before discovering her entrepreneurial flair through building up two other companies, and heads up efforts to raise funds for the company. She’s faced perceptions and assumptions that men don’t.

In a recent open letter MacGregor responded to an article that discussed a perceived lack of women candidates in Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

She wrote that “men may be judged based on potential or gut instinct, whereas women will be judged on absolutely everything else.

“For example,” MacGregor continued, “a man may be hired or invested in by another man because he is relatable… Because he is reflecting a pattern that has proven to be a success and due to that reflection, the employer or investor is willing to take more of a risk on them. Women are rarely given that leap of faith.”

Never one to shrink from a challenge, MacGregor has had to work that much harder to seek grants and investment funds. That’s her strength, and she’s managed to raise $1.7 million to grow her company. That meant a lot of work to get matched with an American accelerator program and to compete for industry awards to build a profile of achievement. It’s important to have those tangible results in order to attract investors, she says.

MacGregor’s colleague Bird, who heads up sales for the company, has also faced some obstacles, such as being told that she should tone down her sales presentation, or wear more neutral clothing than the colourful dresses she prefers.

Beth Nenniger and Laura Austin

also came from non-tech backgrounds to establish their startup, DraftingSpace, in 2013. The two architecture grads from the University of Waterloo came up with the idea of building a software platform to make designing bathroom layouts easier for the average user.

After graduating, they had to learn how to code. They did online tutorials and joined a Python group. The group consisted mostly of male tech grads, but the two women felt welcome right from the beginning. With financial support from the Velocity Venture Fund—theirs was the first startup with a female CEO to get such support— they were able to engage additional expertise to finish a prototype app.

Getting off the ground over the next year and a half, Nenniger and Austin soon met up with the founders of Vancouver-based BuildDirect, a large online building supplies company who eventually acquired DraftingSpace. Nenniger and Austin still work with their colleagues out of a downtown Kitchener office, heading up the design centre division of the company.

Stories about women-led companies like Plum and DraftingSpace/ BuildDirect bode well for the kind of impactful change that Nguyen says is needed in the sector. “Women and men need to be advocates,” she says, and to “step up (and) lead by example.”

Though Google recently moved out, the Tannery remains a hub for technology in downtown Kitchener. In a recent report Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo was pegged as the worst city for women to live in, in Canada. Part of that report described how the tech industry, which is a large part of the local economy, remains male dominated. MATTHEW SMITH PHOTO

Five kinds of Love

TCE ASKED CONTRIBUTORS TO SHARE ABOUT LOVE, LOOSELY INSPIRED BY THE ANCIENT GREEKS, WHO THOUGHT ABOUT THE CONCEPT IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS. WE MAY HAVE CREATED ONE OR TWO TYPES OF OUR OWN.

Philautia: Self Love ELIZABETH DICESARE CONTRIBUTOR In my experience, Valentine’s Day goes one of two ways: celebrating your love for your significant other with some cheesy date and flowers that will inevitably die within the week, or sitting at home in your sweatpants binge-watching Netflix. Should these be your only two choices when it comes to deciding what to do on February 14? Heck no!

This year, try celebrating the Ancient Greek’s concept of Philautia, the practice of self-love.

Ancient Greeks recognized two types of Philautia. The first was a form of narcissism—drunk on power and self-betterment—which no one wants to put up with. The second, however, was the practice of self-love.

In order to practice a healthy level of self-love, and be true to the idea of Philautia, you need to truly love yourself. The idea behind this belief is that you can only truly begin to

form strong, healthy relationships with other people if you have a strong understanding of your own self and your own being. How are you expected to love someone else—friend, family member or significant other—if you don’t truly love yourself?

Learning to love yourself can be difficult. Being critical is easier than being proud of yourself, but those harsh feelings aren’t going to make you a happy person.

One of my first steps towards selflove is finding small things that make me happy.

Whether it’s spending more time with family and friends, writing, reading or going to the gym, figuring out what makes you happy is the first step.

The second step is practice. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself by ordering a large pizza for dinner this Valentine’s Day, do something productive for yourself, whether physically or mentally. You’ll feel better.

You can also try making a list of all

the things you want to accomplish for yourself. Sometimes you need to be a little selfish to figure out who you are, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Take some time to reflect on who you are, and who you want to be. Being true to yourself will allow you to flourish, and your positivity will reflect well on others.

Finally, don’t forget to treat yo’self!

Whether or not it’s Valentine’s Day, buy yourself those flowers and chocolates. Dress yourself up, or down, and wear what feels good. And don’t take crap from anyone! Remember, Philautia comes before other forms of love, because you need to love yourself first.

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who makes

you happy

Pragma: Long-Standing Love

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WANDA WAGLER-MARTIN CONTRIBUTOR In a technology-laden, rapidly changing, instant everything kind of society, lasting long-term love is increasingly counter-cultural. In a world of multiple choices we may simply move on if our relationship no longer seems to be working.

Through my 28 years of work as a therapist I am well aware of the energy and creativity that people commit to sustaining relationships, and that at times relationships do need to end.

And yes, during our dating years we may need a few “practice partners” before we refine the relationship that fits best for us.

Long-term love is hard work, but we see ourselves reflected back most clearly in the context of long-standing intimacy.

This reality holds gifts and challenges, and I’ve observed that relationship struggles can be as much about unresolved personal issues as about the relationship. Sometimes leaving a relationship can feel easier than facing the issues that arise for us in an intimate partnership.

I believe in the rewards of long-term love and the value of working through the challenges that can arise in any relationship.

That being the case, it’s important to talk about the incredible gifts a longterm commitment can yield, and to encourage people to consider staying the course in relationships. Commitment is not a one-time pronouncement, but requires ongoing clarification and re-committing in the midst of lived experience.

Long-term partnerships go through different stages. Some of these stages are life giving while others can be taxing. Every relationship ebbs and flows—we should not be alarmed or give up too easily. In every relationship we will at times feel connected and secure, and at other times distant and uncertain. An ongoing commitment to work on and to care for the relationship, and the courage to face each other and our own issues, can take couples to a significant depth of trust and understanding.

And, when couples have done the hard work of connection over many years, it is possible to integrate the

sexual, spiritual, social, emotional and cognitive aspects of the relationship in ways that bring satisfaction and enjoyment that were simply not possible in earlier stages.

So we shouldn’t assume that love and passion will decrease over time, when the opposite is a real possibility.

A well-kept secret may be that the best sex is happening in long-term committed relationships, where a depth of trust and care has laid a solid foundation for both passion and openness to new experience. When a relationship reaches the place where we are fully known and accepted for who we are, we can truly experience the many dimensions of love.

Love comes in many forms and people have the right to choose how they approach relationships. But let’s not sell ourselves short: so much is possible in a long-term, committed relationship. I’ve been married for 28 years and in spite of the challenges, and because of the growth that has come with facing them, I’d marry my partner all over again.

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Philia: Friend Love

Ailouros: Cat Love MEGAN NOURSE CONTRIBUTOR The Ancient Greeks knew what was up when it came to love. Though less discussed, they were obsessed with the concept of cat love. In the modern world, cat love describes the beautiful experience of sitting on one’s couch watching Netflix while a precious angel sleeps on your keyboard, blocking the screen and hitting mute every time they roll over.

True, cat love can feel one-sided.

Your feline friend outwardly wants nothing to do with you, unless it is on their terms, and offers no emotional support, unless they’re looking for food. This is what makes cat love the most treasured form of all. We spend our lives taking care of these darling creatures, let them sleep on our pillows, drink out of our water glasses and barf wherever they want. And still we love them.

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others got to be bitter on Myspace.

That tension remains, but it’s moved to Instagram.

Valentine’s Day is a consumer-driven, made up holiday, but I can’t help but love it. Instead of focusing on romantic love, as pop culture tells us to do, I like to celebrate the platonic love in my life. Just as important as the romantic variations on love, platonic (or Philia, as the Greeks named it) love describes the profound and deep relationships we have with friends.

As a woman, I feel especially lucky for the female friendships I’ve formed.

It’s a strong and pure love, just as worthy of celebration as romantic love.

And most of the year, I don’t bother telling my friends how much I love them and how grateful I am to have them in my life. So even if a greeting card company made up the holiday, I’m happy to celebrate. As the 90s proverb says: friends are forever, boys are whatever.

Agape: Unconditional Love

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MEGAN NOURSE CONTRIBUTOR I love Valentine’s Day. As a strongwilled feminist and independent woman, I feel constant tension between my values and my love for Valentine’s Day. Can I support gender equality while celebrating this inherently patriarchal day? I feel pressure every year to be anti-Valentine’s, whether or not I have a significant other. And yet I love wearing red and pink, drinking wine, eating chocolate and watching You’ve Got Mail on February 14. Can I do that as a feminist? Yes, I fucking can. But not without tension, which started in high school.

Once sharing cards with the whole class stopped being mandatory and we all became inundated with hormones (for me it was around 2005) Valentine’s Day stopped being fun. It became a day that pitted single girls against those in relationships. Some ladies got useless but cute stuffed animals, and

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CATHY MACLELLAN CONTRIBUTOR Valentine’s Day, like so many other special days, bears little resemblance to it’s Roman origins, thank goodness—not that the present consumerist version is much better. Valentine’s Day endures because love is eternally interpretable, adaptable and essentially human. The highest form of love originates from the Greek word agape.

In Latin it is caritas, which is the origin of our word charity.

Agape means unconditional love. It is also the most powerful, sacrificial and willful way to love someone. While falling in love can happen before your brain even registers it, agape love requires far more investment. The principle of agape love is found in all major religions, but religion is not the only way to access agape love. When

we resolve to put the welfare of others above our own, or give until it hurts, or act with compassion, kindness or tenderness, then we are exhibiting agape love. Without question, the world needs more of this. Without question it is the most difficult expression of love.

But it is not impossible.

People like Jean Vanier—not that there are many like him—provide an example of how to cultivate agape love in our lives. The Canadian created L’Arche, “a revolutionary international network of communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together as peers.”

L’Arche communities are focused on connection rather than commerce, and when Vanier won the Templeton Prize last year, the citation declared that he “discovered that those people who society typically considers the weakest

enable the strong to recognize and welcome their own vulnerability.”

Vanier is also a prolific writer, and in his books explores fully our loneliness and anguish and directs us to the only thing that will help us: love, agape love.

As he puts it, “there’s in us all an ego we have to conquer. You kill the ego so that the real person may rise up.

And the real person is the one who’s learning to love.”

That seems doable. Who doesn’t want to be a real person? And all it takes is a willingness to learn to love.

In Becoming Human, he puts it thusly: “We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time.”

FEBRUARY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

BRFC ON BEER

JON JOHNSON COLUMNIST I first wrote about homebrewing in May 2015. My neighbour and I had brewed two batches of beer, and I was full of excitement, promise and dreams of bigger things. I recommended you go out and try it for yourself. How do I feel about it eight months later? Pretty much the exact same.

Some plans, like getting on a consistent schedule and brewing a new batch of beer every time we’re bottling the last batch, haven’t turned out exactly as expected.

Other things have gone better than I could have hoped, and I think I’ve learned some things from my mistakes.

Brewing is a great hobby because it easily scales to different levels of interest, skill and space. A friend told me the other day that he is about to brew his first one-gallon kit. He’s excited because it fits into his condo life, and because he and his friends can get together to drink it all in one night.

Over time, my brewing partner and I have scaled up to making five- to six-gallon batches, and have moved off the stove to a dedicated burner. Other friends have even larger setups, with available capacity of over 10 gallons and complicated self adjusting systems. To each their own, according to the amount of beer they want to have in the end, and the amount of time, space and money they want to invest.

And there’s the community aspect I discussed last issue. Shortfinger Brewing is doing a great job fostering the local homebrew culture with their monthly “Homebrew Hangouts.” The Kitchener Waterloo Craft Beer Club also organizes semi-regular Growler Get Togethers, where a number of homebrewers get together with their own beers.

Shortfinger also hosts local contests, once you feel your homebrew is up to snuff. We entered a Black IPA in the last one, with little confidence.

Surprisingly, we earned second place in our category and a definite confidence boost. Now we’ve got three beers on the go for their next competition, which happens at the end of February.

So if you’re into beer, try brewing it yourself. Whether you brew one gallon once in awhile, or 10 gallons every weekend, it’s a satisfying hobby that may increase your knowledge and enjoyment of beer as a whole. It can also introduce you to some great people, and maybe lead to winning some awards. If nothing else, it’ll probably get you drunk, if that’s your thing.

Are you a bored brewer? Grow your own hops. JESSE BAUMAN PHOTO

WEAR OUT THERE

CHRISTINA PROCTOR COLUMNIST Love your body and its imperfections. This is a tall order for most people. When we look in the mirror, we often focus on the aspects of our appearance that we are unhappy with, while ignoring the parts that make us beautiful. This Valentine’s Day, I invite you to give yourself a little love, and work on accepting your body for what it is: unique and incomparable. We all have pictures in our mind of some ideal figure, towards which we are supposed to aspire. But the human race is naturally varied. Our individuality should be celebrated and embraced.

You are you, and that is wonderful.

Accepting yourself for who you are and what you look like is one of the most precious gifts you can give yourself. Research suggests that our self-image has a powerful impact on our success, happiness and overall well-being. There are many tips you can incorporate on a daily basis which, in time, will help you to view yourself and your body in a more positive way.

Here are a few of my favourites.

Stop comparing yourself with others, and take time to reflect on and to note your own attractive traits.

We are bombarded with hundreds of images, ads, and songs on a daily basis that describe how we should look, feel and act. Comparing yourself to those ideals is not a useful activity because they reflect the experiences of a select group of individuals. When you stop placing value on these comparisons, you might begin to develop a friendlier and more loving relationship with yourself.

Try also to silence your inner critic.

We all have one, which brings us down or builds us up, depending on the situation. Keep track of the times and circumstances in which you find yourself criticizing your appearance, and try to replace those thoughts with positive ones. By becoming more aware of your negative thinking patterns and shutting down those criticisms, you could see yourself as a more capable and attractive individual.

Take a daily appreciation break. Set aside time each day to ask make a list of three things that you appreciate about yourself and your appearance.

Write down your answers, and compare each day to give yourself a mental boost.

Loving yourself for who you are and what you look like is essential to living a happy, healthy and fulfilled life. While fashion, beauty, and your personal style are all tools which can help you feel more confident, be wary of becoming obsessed with looking perfect. Perfect doesn’t exist, and its pursuit often leads to feelings of insecurity and unhappiness, the opposite of our goal. A healthy level of attention and care for your appearance is beneficial though, and is a sign of healthy self-esteem.

This month, start your journey in self-acceptance, and take a moment to appreciate that you are a wonderful human being. Embrace the unique characteristics that make up who you are, and choose gorgeous outfits to enhance your special features. You are an individual, unlike any other. It’s time to accept it, embrace it and enjoy it.

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WR OPINION

KIRK ZURELL CONTRIBUTOR Today’s conversations about the value of public services in our community have a mercenary undercurrent.

Listen closely and you can hear it beneath the criticism of civil servants, especially our firefighters and police, as well as the community of artists and other workers who receive local public funds.

According to “the tapped-out taxpayer,” the local heroes of the 9/11 era now sleep their days away between calls to fetch cats out of trees. We are told that firefighters and police are greedy for working a flawed arbitration system, though most taxpayers appreciate administrative errors in their own favour. When public servants engage in constitutionally protected collective bargaining, the taxpayer seethes; they’d prefer to just alter the deal.

To the tapped-out taxpayer, public spending used for anything other than road construction must be for someone’s vanity project. Especially so if monies are spent on culture or heritage—although it’s apparently more productive to top up a million dollars for art-themed business than to give

money directly to louche artists who might buy paint, or food.

There are many ways to correct the price of public service. We could try to find a consensus around arbitration and paid leave, or meaningful public arts funding. We could dream up real solutions to the intractable free-rider problem faced by unions. We can talk up innovations.

Some of our neighbours employ a different tactic. Traders occasionally practice a nasty technique called “short and distort.” They borrow something valuable and immediately sell it. If the price goes down before they have to buy it back to return it they will make money because they have sold high and re-bought low. Unsurprisingly, these traders try to make that downturn happen by spreading negative messages, disinformation or outright slander.

Our neighbours are borrowing the gains of the previous century—human rights and labour standards, the social safety net, our cultural heritage—and selling them, metaphorically speaking.

They’re using the community as raw material for an increasingly aggressive campaign for economic growth.

Next, these neighbours talk down the value of community. They heap scorn upon the budgets and the professionalism of the firefighters, the police and the community workers and artists that together build a healthy, demo-

cratic community. We hear from these neighbours that public servants’ work is easy and overpaid. Artists’ work is derided as impractical or meaningless.

The invisible skills and achievements of entire careers are written off.

When our neighbours need to replace those contributions (and they must, someday, if they want to continue living in a healthy, democratic community) they might just be able to buy them back at a bargain price.

As a tactic, it costs little up front, so it’s a natural temptation for those who are tapped out from earlier bad economic choices. But it’s extremely risky.

What if the value of community keeps going up? That’s the “short squeeze.” The ever higher buy-back cost means the losses are potentially unlimited.

Can we guess where the market price of public service will go? It’s hard to say, but insulting those who supply it only gets you so much of a discount.

Are the critics of police, fire, civic and community workers and artists making a risky economic bet? Will they win? Will we lose?

TCE welcomes letters and opinion pieces from all community members, but does not endorse all expressed views. Let us know what you think and weigh in with your own letter, or online @theCommunityEd.

FEBRUARY 2016 // COMMUNITYEDITION.CA

TCE RECOMMENDS WE UNDERSTAND IT’S HARD TO BE COOL. LET US TELL YOU WHAT TO DO THIS MONTH LEAH MARTIN CONTRIBUTOR thing to do, number one:

thing to do, number two:

Voices Carry II is a fundraising event that also raises awareness about sexual and domestic violence in Waterloo Region. Proceeds from the evening of entertainment will go to the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region and to Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region.

Voices Carry was originally created as an alternative to Bill Cosby’s performance at the Centre in the Square last year. The Centre chose to uphold their contract with Cosby, who was then accused—and has now been charged—of many counts of sexual assault. This year’s event serves as an opportunity for members of this community to raise their voices in support of survivors of sexual assault, abuse and domestic violence.

As event organizer Melanie Baker emphasized: “We always have wanted to focus on our community, and that holds true today.”

Kitchener’s newest art space, Open Sesame, is throwing its Zine Library Launch Party. TCE readers may remember Cara Vandermey’s December interview with the venerable KW maker and curator Ellie Anglin. In that article Anglin talked about how the “culture surrounding zines, which historically has punk, feminist, queer and counter-cultural roots helps you connect with other weirdos!”

This month Anglin launches the zine library, carefully collected and made by various contributors from the region over the last decade. A complete listing of zines currently housed in the library is available at ellieanglin.blogspot.ca. So whether you’re a zine maker, zine lover or still have no idea what a zine is, the event promises to connect you with other weirdos in a beautiful space. Plus rad local zines. Yeah, we say zine a lot, so what?

the facts:

the facts:

February 10, 7-10 p.m. at Dallas Nightclub. 19+. Tickets available online at voicescarry.ca: single tickets are $21.80.

February 12, 6-9 p.m. at Open Sesame. All ages. Free.

Lauren Mitchell hosts comedy at the Princess Cafe. JESSE BAUMAN PHOTO

FEMINIST COMEDY AT THE PRINCESS CAFE

ELISE MARION CONTRIBUTOR The cozy Princess Cafe in uptown Waterloo recently hosted a Feminist Comedy Night. Four comedians performed: Jess Beaulieu, Natalie Norman, Aisha Brown and headliner Chantal Marostica. These strong, successful women shared their personal experiences with feminism in a refreshing way: with a sense of humor. With Beaulieu as the host, each performer’s comedy made it possible for the audience to share in a discussion about feminism.

While different people shared questions or concerns with me about the title of the event, calling the show a Feminist Comedy Night suited the performers, who all identify as feminist comedians.

“The show attracted a lot of attention based on the name alone,” said Marc Leconpte, owner of the Princess Cafe and organizer of the event.

Tickets sold out days in advance, so in that way was certainly a success.

Feminism is not only for women, and there were a handful of men in the audience. “Of course men can be

feminists too,” said Leconpte, “but it’s important for women to be the voice of feminism.” When asked to describe feminism, Marostica said “it’s about taking steps so that everyone is included.”

The topic is clearly difficult to define, because it can feel so personal and yet universal. “It’s like trying to define something that is uncharacteristically mine,” added Leconpte.

Some people equate being a feminist with being a certain type of man-hating woman, but the performers demonstrated how it is also about being inclusive of all people. It’s about believing in equity, and connecting people to each other—laughter makes that connection easy.

“The feminist argument is about being who you are and being comfortable with that,” Marostica, the headliner, explained. “If everyone was equal and accepted, there wouldn’t be a need for feminism,” she continued.

So when people ask why do women need their own comedy night, the question really is, why not?

The Princess Cafe regularly holds comedy nights, with performers who identify in many different ways, and is planning on holding more like the Feminist Comedy Night in the near future.

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