Magazine 2020

the essential issue

photos from unsplash.com

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contents Untitled Tegwen McKenzie To experience or not to experience, that is the quarantine question Chris Berberian The role of art in a time of crisis Paula Cho

The unseen pandemic Isik Vera Senel

On being gold Tegwen McKenzie

I am (not) essential Elizabeth Provost Landscapes of life (and other forms of expectation) Ali Taha How George Floyd’s death underlines the importance of equity and human rights Sarah-May Oldfield

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CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEFS PAULA CHO ALI TAHA DIRECTOR OF DESIGN TEGWEN MCKENZIE SENIOR COPYEDITOR MELISSA BARRIENTOS WRITERS CHRIS BERBERIAN PAULA CHO TEGWEN MCKENZIE SARAH-MAY OLDFIELD ELIZABETH PROVOST ISIK VERA SENEL ALI TAHA

PUBLISHED BY MEDIUM II PUBLICATIONS 3359 MISSISSAUGA RD. N., STUDENT CENTRE, RM 200 MISSISSAUGA, ON L5L 1C6 WWW.THEMEDIUM.CA EDITOR@THEMEDIUM.CA

COMMENTS, CONCERNS, OR COMPLAINTS ABOUT MEDIUM MAGAZINE’S CONTENT SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO THE EDITOR, WHO CAN BE CONTACTED AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS ABOVE. ALL CONTENT PRINTED IN MEDIUM MAGAZINE IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF ITS CREATORS AND CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT CONSENT. OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS PUBLICATION ARE EXCLUSIVELY OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THOSE OF MEDIUM MAGAZINE. MEDIUM MAGAZINE IS A DIVISION OF MEDIUM II.

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Letter from the editors Wow. What a year.

While attempting to write this letter, we quickly realized that understanding or summarizing 2020 in a mere couple hundred words is hard. Nonetheless, there have been quite a few monumental events that have shaped the world as we know it today. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, ushering in an era of social distancing measures and a transition to remote work and online learning. In late May, the deaths of George Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet spurred global protests to end police brutality and racial injustice. The devastating wildfires in Australia and the west coast of America highlighted the urgency of our climate crisis. And over the past 11 months, one word has come up time and time again: essential.

Our magazine is an exploration of how this word, one that has taken on a whole new meaning, manifests in our everyday lives. We set out to answer the question of what “essential” has come to mean.

What do we deem essential? To take it a step further, what should we deem essential, and what do we take for granted? Although the future seems more uncertain now than ever before, we wanted to reflect on our present and on where we can go from here.

To us, “essential” means anything that sustains life—anything that brings us joy, provides us with agency, or grounds us with a sense of security.

The pieces in this magazine attempt to create their own definitions of the word. Chris Berberian takes the starkest approach by contemplating the word “essential” itself. Elizabeth Provost shares her first-hand account of working at a grocery store during the pandemic, coming to terms with modern society’s consumerist ideals. Vera Senel writes about the environmental crisis at a time when the global pandemic has largely minimized the issue. Sarah-May Edwardo-Oldfield reflects on the Black Lives Matter movement and the necessity of human rights. And in our pieces, we explore the resilient nature of artists and the ever-changing idea of home.

Years from now, when we think back to 2020, we’ll remember the novel coronavirus and how generally awful this year was. But that’s only one way to look at it. While this year might not have been what we expected, it has forced us to re-evaluate. We’ve become more sensitive to the things that are so quintessentially important for the world to function, such as sustainability, equity, and the importance of building community. Most importantly, 2020 has given us a chance to reset. In a lot of ways, this year has been about going back to the basics. It’s been about what really matters: changing how we behave, how we consume, and how we relate to each other.

This magazine acknowledges the bad but focuses on the good.

Despite everything, we’re optimistic.

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BY TEGWEN MCKENZIE

[untitled] The deciduous leaves Are dancing with each other, Come each gust of breeze.

They are trying to escape their captivity Before the autumn equinox Drains them of life.

I sit and watch a decaying world Whose fleshy earth allows its gifts To be run bone dry.

It knows, but doesn’t mind the ruthless people Who will never cease to stop. For it, The sheer act of provision Is gratification alone.

I’ve discovered that I don’t need A lavish life of splendor and greed.

The hum of a thousand insects engulfs me whole Like a heavy, warm wave soothing me to sleep.

And I can feel the virgin soil beneath my body, Radiate warmth that saturates my bones.

Sitting alone in the world I love.

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e i r e p x e to t o n r o e o t

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e c en

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that is the quarantine question

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e c n e i r e xp ARTICLE BY CHRIS BERBERIAN

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n this Covid-19 era, there’s a word you’ve probably heard over and over. It’s a word most of us know intuitively, likely learned by grade five, but few of us have ever dug into its definition. I know I didn’t. This word describes something tangible yet abstract. Like a Russian babushka doll, its purpose is elusive. So, what do we really mean when we say the word “essential”?

Naturally, we can first reach for a dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “essential” as the “fundamental elements of something.” Interesting.

But what does fundamental mean? It’s that relating to the “essential nature of something.” I see.

Rather than play ping pong with circular reasoning, where the paddles are the semantics and the ball is this ever-elusive meaning, let’s go a step further and consider “essential” more deeply.

For starters, our fundamental elements may be the things that, you know, keep us alive. It’s like Baloo says in The Jungle Book, the essentials are our “simple bare necessities.” Think of food and water for nutrition, clothes and shelter for homeostasis, and sleep so we can later perform the daily tasks of, well, everything.

By this definition, my midterm marks aren’t essential, nor are my Pokémon cards, no matter how vital they both seem. But we’re human. Our conscious experiences aren’t the same as Baloo’s nor his real-life grizzly cohorts. We’ve evolved to have greater cognitive capacities. We can reason, ponder our pasts and fret over our futures, and introspect on the meaning behind it all— like what I’m doing now, belabouring the meaning of a single, nine-letter word. With all this in mind, at least for us humans, the essential should reflect something more intellectually and emotionally profound than our simple bare necessities.

I imagine some people would consider money as essential. Money is fundamental to civilized societies, no question. We value money. We fulfill our physical needs with it. But in actuality, we don’t crave money itself—the flimsy plastic printed with maple leaves and historic figures. We value money for what it symbolizes and indirectly provides us. Money symbolizes social rank, success if you will, among other people. Even the things we buy aren’t inherently essential to us. I can buy a matte black Audi R8 because I think it seems cool. But why does it seem cool?

An evolutionary psychologist will say I

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desire the sports car to show off my genes, rank high in the esteem of our society, and increase my desirability among potential mates. It’s the same thing as a peacock strutting its feathers— except in this case, I bought the feathers.

essential experience is anything that feels fulfilling

But let’s remove the evolutionary lens and replace it with a psychological one. Can money buy happiness? Well yes, but actually, no. Contrary to the adage, research across countries and cultures shows that money only buys happiness to a certain point, above which it has no significant impact on our emotional well-being.

Estimates vary slightly, but most studies show that money loses its mood-boosting effects after we hit an annual income of $60,000-75,000 American dollars.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a famous psychologist with a notoriously cool name, the meaning of life “isn’t something we can buy.” Instead, life is about the search for meaning. Writing this essay is my way of searching for meaning, discovering what’s essential, translating the swirling nonsense in my head into coherent words on the page. Such an exercise is almost therapeutic for me, helping me to reconcile with what matters most and is deeply personal. I want this piece to mean something to me, but also something to you.

Put simply, I think the essential concerns one thing: experience. To experience or not to experience, that is the quarantine question. But are all experiences essential?

to shift my helplessness to eudaimonia, i had to find optimal experiences

I think essential experience is anything that feels fulfilling and aligns with my unique sense of purpose. It’s what Greek philosopher Aristotle called eudaimonia.

To me, there are three types of essential experience. The first are enriching experiences. The second are prosocial and altruistic experiences—experience which reflects rigid biological, sociological, anthropological, and psychological research (and probably a few other -ologies).

The third essential form is more personal, abstract, and philosophical. It’s meditative experience. In all, the essential are the little experiences in our waking life, and the emotional impacts they have on us individually, contributing to a sense of fulfillment and flourishment. It’s baking a cheesecake. It’s the relaxed silkiness of your skin after a warm bath. It’s hearing your cat’s purrs as you cradle her in your arms.

For the first few weeks of quarantine, I was fine.

I had no problem staying home. I’d wake up, eat the same breakfast, and scroll through Twitter a bit. Then, just an hour later, I’d crawl down into the basement where the sun can’t creep through the closed blinds, climb onto the creaky couch, and sleep. My favourite podcasts went unplayed for days, weeks, piling up in my feed. I chose instead to sleep the afternoon away. I’d wake up for dinner. I’d see my parents. Then, I was back on the couch. By day 34 of quarantine, the intrigue of this lifestyle waned. I felt lonely and confused. I felt helpless. Worthless.

Sure, I was alive and experiencing day-to-day things, but was I really experiencing them?

The psychologist Csikszentmihalyi would say no. I wasn’t having any enriching experiences, or what he calls, optimal experiences—the “deep sense of enjoyment” we get from doing something we love and being in control of our actions. What I find enriching in this moment differs from what I did at 10 years old and may differ mightily from what you feel now. Each are valid and essential.

So, to shift my helplessness to eudaimonia, I had to find optimal experiences. I needed to take baby steps to break free and so I picked novelty and challenge, two of Csikszentmihalyi’s components to achieve optimal experience.

The novelty component felt easier to tackle. I consider myself a cinephile. I’ve seen more than 1300 movies. But somehow, before the pandemic, I never saw an Ingmar Bergman film.

So instead of casually browsing Netflix, I took

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control of my actions and set out for novel film pastures. I subscribed to the Criterion Channel and, in the 14-day free trial, I watched 14 Ingmar Bergman films. I laughed at Smiles of a Summer Night, swooned at Summer with Monika, wept at Through a Glass Darkly. Slowly, quarantine life didn’t feel so worthless.

While these movies offered novelty, I also needed a challenge. I turned to what I’m most passionate about—movies, books, sports—and cranked up the challenge metre. For a month straight, I watched two movies a day, read a book every three days, and biked for longer and longer distances around my town.

Was I getting stronger? Was I practicing for the Tour de France? Was I changing the world? No, no, and certainly not. But by introducing challenges, and sprinkling in some novelty, I found enjoyment and eudaimonia in my life.

And yet, something was still missing. I was doing all this alone. I didn’t experience social connection, or at least, not wholeheartedly. I wasn’t being prosocial or altruistic.

To many people and theorists, social connection is the most essential aspect of humanity. It is the fundamental source of our emotional well-being, eudaimonia, and sense of fulfillment. The reassurance that people care about us, support us when life throws its curveballs, and maybe more direly, remember us after we’re gone.

It makes sense, evolutionarily and otherwise, to deem social connection as essential. Like all mammals, especially hyper-social ones like humans, we need love and companionship to feel fulfilled.

No person illustrated this idea better or more beautifully than Viktor E. Frankl, who discovered one of life’s essential meanings while trapped in a Nazi concentration camp.

On September 25, 1942, Frankl, his wife Tilly, his brother Walter, and his parents were forced out of their homes and deported to various

Nazi concentration camps. Surrounded by death, decay, famine, and illness, Frankl saw his father die from starvation and pneumonia. His wife, mother, and brother were all later killed.

Amid all the horrors and tragedies around him, Frankl clung to life, to something essential and greater than himself. To him, his meaning of life had to change with the environment he was forced into.

He learned to live for other people. He set up a watch unit to help despondent, resentful, and suicidal prisoners find hope and meaning in their life. For him, while at the Theresienstadt and Auschwitz concentration camps, his purpose was to help others who gave up hope. By shifting his perspective outwards, Frankl found that some prisoners could live relatively happy and fulfilling lives, even amid the horrors around them. It’s about finding your purpose in the moment, whether that’s contributing research to a particular field or being there for your friend who has lost their will to live. Being an altruistic person becomes your purpose.

Frankl’s experiences lay at the heart of logotherapy, which he developed while in captivity and under slave labour. The loosely collected papers later became his most famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Back in 2010, I hadn’t yet opened Frankl’s book.

I was in grade eight, playing house-league hockey with some of my best friends since kindergarten. And in March of that year, we won the championship. I remember the day so vividly: the walk into the frigid arena, the wet, muddy snow still lining the grass outside. I remember never seeing so many people in the stands before, the chatter on the bench, the clock ticking down on the giant scoreboard overhead, the clattering of sticks and helmets as my teammates hugged and patted each other on the head, and, of course, the shiny trophy.

I remember all this, a decade later, and I didn’t play a second in that game. I couldn’t. I smashed

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my collarbone two weeks before in a skiing accident.

I could’ve scored a hat-trick in the championship game. I could’ve had a longer hockey career. But I broke my collarbone. My purpose had shifted in that moment years ago. I was no longer living for myself. I needed to help my teammates. I needed to help them remain calm on the bench, to crack jokes between shifts and help remove the stress of the shiny trophy staring them in the face.

While in quarantine, I’ve tried to find ways of helping others. When a friend was having a sad day, I became an outlet they could trust and find comfort in.

I didn’t endure a concentration camp. Most people, thankfully, don’t. But even in the harshest conditions imaginable, after losing all your loved ones to senseless killing, humans can still find emotional fulfillment in life through social connection. It’s a testament to altruism. If eudaimonia is the end goal, then prosocial experience is essential.

Reflecting on what matters most in my life, I also find purpose in meditative experience. Meditation is practiced across cultures, religions, and philosophies. It’s seen in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and seen in Stoicism, the latter a philosophy I strive toward.

The ancient Stoics preached various forms of meditation, one of which was negative visualization. This is where we each reflect on the worst possible outcomes and imagine our emotional responses to them. I can imagine losing a loved one in a car crash. I can imagine coming home one day and finding all my cherished items stolen or reduced to ashes. Then I can remember that none of this has happened, that the impending stress of school performance or whatever other anxieties I have that day pale in comparison. It’s not to invalidate our anxieties, but rationalize their severities, which often aren’t as bad as they seem.

A welcome by-product of meditation, and another essential experience, is gratitude. Through mediation and negative visualization, I become more grateful for what I’m experiencing now. As Marcus Aurelius says, a famed Stoic and Roman Emperor on the side, “When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

It’s all pretty individualistic to introspect. While meditation is often an inward experience, it doesn’t have to be. You can be mindful of your relationship to things outside yourself, to your loved ones. If you’re thankful for your accomplishments and reminisce on those triumphant moments, you can also consider the sacrifices of the people who sacrificed to help shape you, directly or indirectly, to that moment. There’s beauty in both recognizing the strength and determination you give to your experiences, and the host of people who helped get you to that point.

We take many things in life for granted. I take for granted my family and friends, universal health care and the warm clothes on my back. It takes meditation to recognize how wonderful and valuable these things are in my life and to my emotional well-being.

Going back to hockey, my memory isn’t an individual experience, but a collective one. It’s a memory I’ll forever share with my teammates, with my friends. I didn’t win. We won. It’s something I wouldn’t have known if not for my parents paying the exorbitant amounts to register me for hockey, let alone buy all the equipment and drive me to the rinks across town, sometimes picking up my

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friends along the way if they needed a ride.

So, what I shouldn’t take for granted are these positive moments in my life. Life is like an ocean wave flowing between soft ripples and raucous tides, from happiness and eudaimonia to sadness and anhedonia.

ferent degrees. Frankl’s radio would have the empathy dial turned way up, while my extraversion dial would be turned way down. The finer differences we have shape how we perceive the world. The essential is not what we experience or how, it’s that we experience at all. That’s what’s essential, absolute, and fundamental.

As Frankl says, “The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day, from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

But I’ll take it a step further. I should also cherish my sad moments. Feeling sad shows that I’m alive, conscious, and can experience emotions.

And these negative emotions can help me better understand my life and the world around me in ways that joyful experiences cannot. Because eudaimonia isn’t just happiness. It’s living virtuously, doing what’s personally right in an absurd and ever-changing world. Meditation produces gratitude. Gratitude produces flourishing.

While there are different essential experiences, surely there’s the possibility for universals among us. Reliable psychological research reveals that, no matter our age, race, religion, culture, whether we’re blind, or whether we live in nomadic tribes, humans experience six universal emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust.

Even in our deeply complex everyday lives, the rich differences between us permutate from the same basic blueprints. We’re made of almost identical DNA, but the proteins they synthesize produce massive differences between our conscious experiences.

Maybe it’s better to think of ourselves as antique radios. We’re each the same make and model, but with hundreds of dials, finely tuned to dif-

It’s day 224 since Canada went into lockdown.

When I look back on the preceding months, the endless days that bled together, these are the moments I remember most—the ones where I tried new and challenging things, cared for others, and meditated on the relationships in my life and the nature that breathes life into us all.

Now, I no longer sleep the afternoons away. My basement blinds are open.

Appreciate life’s smallest moments and experiences—the good, the bad, and everything in between. They are essential. They are what make us human. MM

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Artistic freedom has always required a leap of faith, a belief that sharing our creations with the world is worth fighting against insurmountable odds Peter Russell

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Oscar Santillan

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THE ROLE OF ART IN A TIME OF CRISIS ARTICLE BY PAULA CHO

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n his romantic-era sonnet Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley describes the ruins of an ancient king—his political legacy undone by the indiscriminate forces of history. All that remains of his once flourishing civilization is a fractured statue of his legs and face, a piece of art that has withstood centuries of major events. While power and kingdoms rise and fall, art endures the fickle nature of humanity and the test of time. Paintings, literature, and song not only outlast humans on this Earth but sustain our lives as we live them.

Artistic freedom has always required a leap of faith: a belief that sharing our creations with the world is worth mounting a fight against insurmountable odds.

Within the small but saturated art world, systems of power that are designed to protect corporate interests and profits persist, making solely living off their craft a challenge for many workers in arts sectors. Yet, despite inequitable streaming platforms, middlemen, and a lack of social safety net protections, artists find ways to overcome obstacles inherent to their profession through resolve and the desire to not only make beautiful things, but also provide alternative ways of understanding our present and of moving forward.

Although some perceive art to be an elusive or frivolous endeavor, creating art for the vast majority of people who do it is indispensable. In sports, in architecture—art is entwined in every aspect of our lives. Last summer, a time that feels almost illusory now, I frequently hopped on Line 2 of the subway to travel to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see a new exhibit. My favorite part, however, was the walk from the station to the museum. Watching tourists and locals alike flock around the vibrant colours of the city’s hidden pockets of street art and crowd around exuberant dancers and saxophone players was both quotidian and thrilling. Sunglasses on and recording devices ready, we got to capture art in motion right on the street corner. I would end up at the gallery late in the afternoon and spend hours staring at paintings, soaking in the detail and history of every stroke.

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At the heart of our vital cultural institutions are artists themselves. Their unsteady lifestyles are characterized by clichéd tropes such as the freelance hustle, the starving musician, and la vie bohème. These denote a deep dedication to the artist’s chosen vocation, along with a slew of parttime work to pay the bills. Our society’s creative sector consists of such individuals working as freelancers in industries, from music and film to design and fashion. They are the vanguard of what is known as the gig economy, evoking a promise of entrepreneurial flexibility to obscure the economic and social precarity that often taints this type of work. Even so, the resilient casual class of creative industries understands how volatile their lives can be and continues to make art in the face of it all.

But when Covid-19 shut the world down in March, artists reckoned with yet another barrier, this one with new stakes. Their lack of protections that accrue from a standard employment relationship, such as health and unemployment insurance, was exacerbated by the uncertainty of a developing global pandemic. Immediately, museums closed their doors and music festivals were cancelled, which meant curators, performers, and the independent contractors working behind the scenes lost months’ worth of income with no foreseeable refuge.

Canadian indie-rock band Stars knows a little something about the triumphs and perils of making art. Their two-decade long career has witnessed disruptions from the beginning of the music streaming era to the emergence of social media, but a component of live performance was always central to their craft. “It’s the lifeline of our band,” Pat McGee, drummer of Stars, tells me over the phone. “We never sold an enormous amount of records and so our income is almost exclusively derived from touring. But live music also reaffirms the reason I do this. To play our music for people and to receive a visceral response—it’s supported me both financially and spiritually.”

Without festivals this summer and having to cancel their scheduled shows, Stars faced an existential challenge. Because music streaming platforms, such as Spotify, pay notoriously low royalty rates, musicians must depend on other revenue sources such as live gigs and merchandise sales. Consequently, alongside thousands of other small businesses and workers across the country, the band applied for a government loan and the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in the interim as they searched for ways to supplement their income.

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Enter Patreon. Stars and many other recently out-of-work singers, writers, comedians, and designers have turned to digital subscription sites as their alternative income stream and a direct way to connect with their supporters. Reporting over 100,000 new users since April, Patreon is the latest instantiation of the platform economy—an online labor marketplace where workers create and monetize their digital products. Alternatively, tech investors have been quick to dub it the “passion economy,” highlighting how digital workers are profiting off doing what they love.

But because the term risks both magnifying payoffs and concealing its ties to gig work, we must be wary of the long-term precarity that typifies this labour and the privilege tethered to the modern work mantra of do what you love, love what you do all together.

However, amid a protracted economic downturn, avenues like Patreon offer workers earnings independent of traditional employers or even a physical environment. For musicians like the members of Stars, it’s a channel for artists to control their ship and for fans to support them directly. “If you want to donate five bucks a month to us and get involved in our backstage antics or unreleased music, it’s a wonderful new place to interact,” McGee says. Although Covid-19 is just the latest upheaval, artists continue to persevere under even the most dire of constraints. “What I find interesting is that throughout history, in every shape and form across this planet, art has come up against adversity. And like a river, art always circumvents it and figures out a way around it. People are just compelled to do that.”

Saša Rajšić, exhibition coordinator at the Blackwood Gallery, was caught in the middle of de-installing an exhibit back in March when news of the shutdown broke. He and his small team of curators, archivists, and research assistants were thrust into uncharted waters too and had to navigate through closing their gallery spaces and reinventing how they featured art. “One of the first things that became obvious is the lack of resources and intensity of struggle within different art communities,” Rajšić says.

To contend with and collectively ruminate on the art world’s new reality, the Blackwood launched a call for submissions for their special digital issues Tilting (1) and Tilting (2). “Tilt” is defined in Old English (tyltan) as “to be unsteady”— the overarching theme of the writers’ contributions. Their personal essays and

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Isabella Varasso

Isabella Varasso

Art is a balm for a troubled world and we cannot let artists... some of our most essential workers... lead such precarious lives

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cultural critiques reflect frank and instinctual reactions to these capricious times and examine topics from social distancing in a time of social media to powerlessness and our capacity to resist.

A gallery’s curatorial process constantly evolves to adapt to new art and to transform traditional museum spaces. Temporarily closing these physical environments pushed the Blackwood to re-evaluate “the ways in which we activate our four lightboxes, gallery website, and social media,” Rajšić says. “At the same time, some aspects of our curatorial philosophy are being carried forward. We remain committed to thinking about our physical and digital spaces as spaces for living ideas.”

Currently on display throughout campus, Burning Glass, Reading Stone is the Blackwood Gallery’s latest lightbox program: the image sets illuminate the conditions and limitations of spectatorship and interaction between humans and the natural world. The series’ second installment Solaris depicts the Chilean Atacama Desert, the most arid place on Earth. Artist Oscar Santillán’s work combines out-of-focus but vivid mahogany, amber, and seafoam greens with fragments of iridescent light to portray a dusky atmosphere of endless desert and open skies. Even during a global pandemic, where travel is banned and lockdown is mandated, these photographs transport onlookers to another part of the world, if only for the minute they gaze towards the towering lightbox.

The creative process begins young. For Jennifer Liu, finding a passion for print media and designing in high school led her to UTM. When the university cancelled in-person classes last March, Liu, an art and art history specialist, remembers initially worrying about not having her art supplies to finish her ongoing assignments. Her studio space at Sheridan College was an integral part of her work, and she immediately missed the communal aspect that came

with making art alongside others. “It’s a different relationship when you’re with people in a creative environment,” Liu says. “In a studio, you’re being creative together, thinking together, and working through your problems.”

Isabella Varrasso, an art and art history graduate and current freelance graphic designer, agrees and believes the pandemic has disrupted creation in more ways than one. Social distancing has spurred “far more isolation, which can be helpful for some artists but devastating for others.” She adds that although the bonds and friendships forged in creative spaces have been transferred to an online-only environment, making and sharing art is still “one of the only familiar things during these weird times that helps me escape for a little.”

“Art has never felt steady for me,” Pat McGee concludes. “I’ve always felt on the precipice of destruction and known that this was a dream.”

Yet however evolving music and culture may be, however sustainable and promising another career path may look, everything pales in comparison to the purpose and beauty art inspires.

“If everything fell apart, I would still play music.

I would still be playing the drums. And knowing everything I do now, I definitely would have still joined Stars.”

After eight months of quarantine, the destabilizing effects of this crisis have undeniably influenced our capacity for optimism and ability to predict what might come next. But perhaps art offers some solace—a method to visualize our ideation or a mechanism to elicit the emotional responses we need right now. The rush we feel when we listen to music with a bass so loud that we can hear it in our hearts. The serenity we feel when we read books that spill words off a page and paint images in our minds. And the wonder we feel when we walk down Roncesvalles and see larger-than-life murals on exposed brick buildings. Art is a balm for a troubled world, and we cannot let artists—some of our most essential workers—lead such precarious lives. MM

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Lianhao Qu/unsplash.com

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The Unseen Pandemic The Impacts of Covid-19 on Climate Activism ARTICLE BY ISIK VERA SENEL

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year ago, on November 29, 2019, I was standing among hundreds of other Toronto residents in Nathan Phillips Square across from the Old City Hall. Everyone had come together to demand climate action despite the cold weather. After serving as a marshal in the previous global climate strike a month prior, I had seized the first opportunity I could to do it again.

ing globally, with approximately six million people joining in global climate strikes across the world on September 2019.

Some news sources went as far as calling 2019 “the year of climate consciousness.” Although the issue of climate change isn’t a recent development, 2019 saw an unprecedented increase in activism in social and political circles.

The crowd was mostly made up of high school students who had taken the day off from school to advocate for sustainability and legislative change. The younger activists I spoke with were anxious about the future, unsure whether they would even have the opportunity to save the planet.

Before March of this year, protest participation was increas-

Multiple environmental disasters worldwide also contributed to the united climate action movement. In the summer of 2019, a disastrous heatwave took over Southern Australia, causing devastating bushfires across the region. Appropriately nicknamed “Black Summer,” the ecological and environmental impacts of the fires dominated international media.

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People across the world came together to spread awareness and collect donations. Get Up! Action for Australia and Connect4Climate are among the top fundraising campaigns that took over the online sphere.

liament House to leading millions through the streets of major cities.

As the year came to an end and 2020 began, there was only one other issue that caused public concern on a similar scale to climate change. A Social media also played a fundamental role new virus was spreading around the world, and in spreading awareness and increasing particits infection rates were beginning to cause inipation at coordinated protests. Organizations ternational concern. In March, this novel corosuch as Fridays for Future and Extinction Renavirus, named Covid-19, was declared a global bellion spread internationally through social pandemic by the World Health Organization. media engagement, acAs society redesigned cumulating new memitself to accommodate bers each day. The genthe recommended safety While we must prioritize erational shift in the measures, trivial compothe ongoing health crisis, movement was also benents of daily life, such especially with the threat coming exceedingly apas in-person social gathof a second wave, we parent due to the reach erings, were postponed cannot stop advocating of social media. Youth indefinitely. The global for climate action and participation in protests pandemic was the only significant legislative and digital campaigns thing on people’s minds. change. helped spread the word farther than ever beEnvironmental activism fore. These young actransformed during the tivists were no longer Covid-19 pandemic. just fighting to keep the environment healthy; Prior to stay-at-home orders and lockdown they were fighting for their own lives. In 2019, measures, more and more people were becomduring the September 25 Global Climate Strike, ing a part of the movement. In March, with the hundreds of Torontonian children and adolesemergence of the novel coronavirus pandemic, cents refused to attend school and gathered in social distancing measures were established front of the Ontario Legislative building. to stop its spread. Small and large companies alike were forced to downsize and dismiss some “We will not let you get away with this. Right employees since they could no longer operate here, right now is where we draw the line. The like before. Employees considered imperative world is waking up,” stated Greta Thunberg at to the fundamental operations of society were the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Sumasked to continue their work. When we think of mit. Thunberg, the 17-year-old Swedish foundessential workers in this context, the first that er of Fridays for Future, was awarded TIME come to mind are the ones who provide us with Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2019 for her healthcare services and daily necessities. contributions to climate activism and environmental awareness. Her stand against the inHowever, the bigger picture suggests that our dolence of political figures toward the climate survival depends on more than just hospitals emergency inspired millions, many of whom and grocery stores. were around Thunberg’s age. In the course of a year, Thunberg had gone from participating in It is essential that we don’t lose our focus on solitary protests across from the Swedish Parwhat is truly vital for the continuation of soci-

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ety just because we are prioritizing life in the current pandemic. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we have 10 years to take radical action to protect our environment before an ecological Armageddon becomes inevitable. This means that the responsibility of raising environmental awareness and demanding legislative change falls on everyone’s shoulders. We are all essential workers in the fight against climate change.

While we must prioritize the ongoing health crisis, especially with the threat of a second wave, we cannot stop advocating for climate action and significant legislative change. That is a luxury my generation cannot afford. Just because life currently appears to be on hold does not mean that the climate emergency has also been adjourned. What we do in the next decade will determine whether or not our children will have a chance at survival. We must listen to health officials and follow infection prevention measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and hopefully develop herd immunity to protect the most vulnerable. However, it is equally vital, perhaps now more than ever, that we follow the recommendations made by environmental scientists and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

We are slowly adapting to the new social distancing measures to establish a new “normal.”

We do not know when we can return to our old habits, but we’re nonetheless able to survive in these extraordinary circumstances. As such, it is essential to continue the fight toward climate action and sustainability. How we feel about wearing masks in public and attending virtual classes instead of in-person lectures won’t matter by 2030 if we forget about the climate emergency. As much as I miss going to campus and attending in-person lectures, surrounded by my peers, I understand how important it is for me to stay home. This is why I am fighting for climate action today. Just because an

environmental catastrophe won’t happen in my lifetime does not mean I can condemn the next generation.

The connection between climate change and the global pandemic is far too alarming to ignore. A study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health states that Covid-19 infections are more likely to prove fatal in areas with high amounts of air pollution. The environmental conditions created by climate change make the perfect setting for most infectious diseases to strive in. Taking climate action would not only save us from extinction, but it would also help us defend against another global pandemic. Nature makes us reap what we sow, and for many years now, we’ve been taking our earth for granted. Unless we exchange our old habits with sustainable alternatives, we will continue to face one tragedy after another. Over the past eight months of being confined to our homes, we’ve had the opportunity to see how there is still hope for change. Significant improvements have been observed in the air quality of major cities as lockdowns have kept residents at home. This pandemic has served as a global experiment on how our daily actions influence the climate and how we still have the opportunity to reverse some of the damage.

Amid the pandemic, the traditional picket and poster protests have been replaced by live-streams and virtual teach-ins. On October 21, the Fridays for Future’s Toronto chapter participated in a Zoom lecture by author Seth Klein. He spoke about his book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, and the Canadian Constitution’s climate action handicaps.

Similar events are being organized around the world every day.

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An open letter addressed to the European Parliament about its approval of the new Common Agricultural Policy was published on October 25. The letter urges the European Commission to withdraw the agriculture policy, which is expected to cause immense environmental damage due to its support of unsustainable farming practices. More than 55,000 signatures were collected in only five days, and the number of people pushing to withdraw the new policy continues to increase.

“Know this as well,” reads the letter. “We understand the science, and we know what is at stake. We are watching, and we will never forgive you.”

While some view the global pandemic as a threat to the climate action movement, others believe it is an opportunity to engage a broader audience and prompt sufficient change. Last year saw many favourable developments in environmental activism, but the issue of climate change has followed us into 2020 and will continue to threaten our lives if we remain inactive. I follow Covid-19 safety guidelines so the more vulnerable and older individuals in our society don’t get sick and live long lives. However, I fight for climate action so my children and grandchildren can get the chance to live at all. We need to recognize the significance of the climate emergency and continue the fight toward change just as we’ve continued the other essential operations of society.

Images of hundreds of displaced animals with third-degree burns carried out by Australian firefighters spread across the internet last summer. Families took refuge in lakes as tornadoes of fire consumed their homes. People worldwide saw and spread these heartbreaking photos that captured their fight for survival, demonstrating how natural disasters affect people from all regions of the world. The events in Australia were so impactful because they weren’t just a mundane hardship. Natural disasters can take place anywhere and anytime, destroying every-

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thing in their path and leaving nothing behind.

Just because we don’t come face to face with the disastrous impacts of climate change in our daily lives doesn’t mean it’s any less crucial. As a matter of fact, it is the most dangerous threat to humankind’s survival at present.

Toronto is under more danger than we may have initially believed, as it’s one of the top cities expected to undergo a significant environmental catastrophe before 2050. The extreme weather patterns that we’ve been experiencing these past few years are just minor symptoms of a much larger disease consuming the world.

Major urban areas such as Toronto are at an increased risk due to the heat island effect caused by asphalt surfaces. The Clean Air Partnership’s report on climate change states that residents agitated by the smoggy Toronto summers will have to tolerate even worse conditions as the “trend of oppressive summer heat is expected to continue and increase in severity.”

We see the impacts Covid-19 has had on society every day. When entering a store or restaurant, we have to make sure we wear a mask and have a thermometer pointed at us immediately.

We remind ourselves constantly to hold in our sneezes despite seasonal allergies and refrain from touching our faces. These factors, alongside many others, make sure we don’t forget about the pandemic and take measures to ensure everyone’s safety.

While constant reminders of the climate emergency aren’t posted on storefronts, we are responsible for taking action and reminding politicians of the threat we face. As we continue our lives indoors, we may not be able to see the impacts of climate change, but it is essential we make our voices heard. MM

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BY TEGWEN MCKENZIE

on being golden The golden flesh of a sweet pineapple, golden delicious apples, golden raisins, golden papaya, the flaky decadence of a golden pastry; the golden hue of an expecting mother, a newborn baby only hours old in the world; the golden undertones of a midsummer’s sunset, golden daffodils outstretched toward the golden, life-bringing sun; a delicate chain resting on a maiden’s bosom, a bulky gold timepiece on a workingman’s wrist; the golden shine of a single piece of coiled blonde hair; a band of golden promise on the fourth finger of the left hand; the golden halo of the wealthy, the privileged, the sophisticated; the golden luster of a crown reflecting golden rays of light; golden crosses in churches, catholic schools and around necks, the golden radiance of holy, angelic light; the gold tinsel arranged on trees at Christmas, gold glitter on New Years; the golden glow of a candlelit room; golden nuts and bolts used in conjunction; the golden threads of Buddhist tapestry, porcelain china cups trimmed in gold; the golden classics mothers read to their children before bed, the golden coated Labrador who lived a short life; gold itself, a manifestation of all things pristine and lavish that are loved but, alas, incapable of loving back. MM

“The truth is, I’m not essential and no one cares.”

ARTICLE BY ELIZABETH PROVOST

T

he world pre-Covid-19 seems like a faint memory, tucked away in the deep recesses of my mind. Like many of you, the new rules, regulations, and societal measures have become part of my daily routine.

The idea of “someone has to do it” hit me firsthand when I found myself working through the pandemic as a bakery clerk at Whole Foods. Who knew my expertise on sourdough bread and pastries would be deemed essential in a world of chaos (and what seemed like a zombie apocalypse).

Brittani Burns/unsplash.com

I remember at first, in mid-March, masks were just an afterthought. I even refused to wear one. I didn’t like how stuffy they felt and how every single time I exhaled, my breathe would fog up my glasses and blind me. But, as I watched customers fill their carts with disinfectant wipes, toilet paper (lest we forget), and

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hand sanitizer, the gravity of the situation soon hit me. And so, the mask quickly became a part of my daily life.

My workplace adapted quickly.

Masks became mandatory, along with millions of other protocols, including markings on the floor to control traffic and about 10 new sanitizer solutions for every surface.

As I entered the store for every shift, a temperature gun would be aggressively pointed at my forehead as part of the new screening. Each time I would mumble-pray to myself, “Don’t get Covid today, Liz.” As customers shopped with fury in the months of March and April, it was obvious that many were preparing to be enclosed in their houses for a prolonged period of time. They stocked up on tuna (what’s up with canned tuna?), bulk food, family packs of quite literally everything, and sometimes seven loaves of bread (to be frozen, of course). I became disgusted by the ideals of consumerism as customers carried out unsafe shopping practices on their weekly grocery runs.

They were more confused by the fact that our open hot food bar was closed than how bewilderingly unsanitary it had been in the first place.

Did Karen really have to bring her three toddlers (wearing no masks, of course, because they’re special like that) into the store as she shopped for her kale and protein powder? Did

Johnny really have to wear a thong as a mask (I’m literally not even joking)? Did Deirdre really have to chat up her neighbour Susan for 20 minutes, blocking traffic and infringing on social distance mandates? And my favourite: did they all really have to lower their masks just because I didn’t hear them the first time? How about you just speak louder? I’m trying here too, shoving Q-tips down my ear canals because literally everyone is whispering and I’m screaming and thinking I’m going deaf!

What I realized is that people will do anything to get what they want. If calling me “essential” gave customers peace of mind as they filled their shopping cards with consumer goods, that was to be done (how else will they fill that bottomless, empty hole within).

And this destructive behaviour didn’t stop. Rather, people found comfort in pretending that the pandemic was non-existent, both with their actions and with their thoughts.

At their worst, people live for things, not for other people. During the pandemic, people have found comfort in the addictive and mesmerizing qualities of getting what they want. These consumerist ideals, while all too common, have only been amplified by the pandemic. If your neighbour is buying six bottles of isopropyl alcohol and enough food to feed a small village, so should you, right?

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When people order clothes online, for example, do they really think about the manual labour that went into making the product? Same goes with a visit to Whole Foods. Those customers picking up their loaves of sourdough bread that were freshly made in the morning, are they reflecting upon the bread team members that began their shift at 1:00 a.m. to have all the bread baked, packaged, and sliced for opening time? Probably not.

The cold, hard truth is that people refuse to face reality, especially in times of distress. They refuse to admit that they have to adapt, overcome, and change for the better. No one wants to change. No one really wants to wear a face mask. And I promise you, none of us want to be essential. Because, what are we essential for? The illusory happiness that comes with consuming material goods?

The system is enticing. It really is. The marketing, the bright colors, the key words. It’s a whole industry. The store employs a person to, quite literally, spend all day making signs that fit the Whole Foods “aesthetic.” It’s easier than you think to sell something. The system will never be stopped. Even if every single consumer, including myself, became fully aware of it, we couldn’t really do anything about it. We all have to feed ourselves at the end of the day.

In the months of March and April, customers were pleasant and under-

standing of the stress essential workers were facing by constantly being exposed to the virus. I even had a few customers walk around the store with signs reading “thank you” and other such warm messages. My neighbours and friends brought me supporting gifts and homemade snacks—I didn’t realize I was to be celebrated in such a way.

Yet, when April hit, customer patience ran thin, and so did mine.

I experienced a customer walk in yelling at me to take off my mask.

His rationale was that I was brainwashed by the government to wear it and, really, I was “slowly dying and suffocating, like that one elderly lady in the news.” Thankfully, I was more reliant on the scientific studies that were released daily, proving the functionality of masks and how they saved lives.

Those pleasant customers I had the pleasure of encountering at the beginning of the pandemic had now turned impatient, angry, and dismissive.

Many got frustrated when I took the extra two seconds to slice their loaves of bread, or when I struggled to serve them promptly when my department was understaffed due to frequent sick calls.

Along with the inner battle of being stuck at home and enrolled in Zoom university, I had to face the fear of catching the virus as I spent

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16 hours a week baking cookies, pies, and other confections.

I constantly felt tired, sad, and plagued by depressive thoughts. All I could think about was: “When will this end?” “Why me?” “I hate this!” and, most importantly, “Fuck Covid.”

As each month passed, I moved my own Covid-19 expiration date prediction forward. What I originally thought was going to last a few months is now forecasted to continue into next year.

I feared for my own life and that of my close relatives. I tried to see the positives in the situation, but some days did not come as easily as others. I forgot who I was and came to be more exhausted with every mask-enclosed breath I took as I mindlessly navigated through life. I struggled to really find the “why” to being essential.

Whole Foods gave out t-shirts to all employees that labelled us as “heroes.” I didn’t feel like a hero and I was sick of being essential.

Alas, I continued to work through the summer.

My plan to work full-time and save up came crumbling down as I decided to take the minimum number of shifts to reduce my exposure to the virus. Between shifts, I spent my time losing my mind at home, deeming every sniffle and cough to be a Covid-19 symptom.

Seven months into the pandemic—and seven months into “being essential”—the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was declared in my workplace. With that, the true colors of my management, and that of corporate capitalism, shone through.

What I realized was that as everything closed—shopping malls, restaurants, hair salons—my grocery store became a hub for socializing and satisfying cravings and desires. I was confused when my manager began comparing sale values from the pandemic to the same time last year. She was disappointed that they weren’t the same. Excuse me, ma’am, we’re in a pandemic. Please expect less. Like seriously. “Life goes on” truly isn’t the most appropriate or relatable statement when facing a pandemic. Because it does, and yet it doesn’t. Consumer habits change, public health regulations change, employees change as they face new adversities. Everything changes. And yet, everyone is pretending that it’s all the same. You just have to wear a new accessory now.

It all began with the generic text I received from Whole Foods alerting me that “your location has a confirmed case of Covid-19.

Your safety and health are our top priority.”

Having made it seven months without a single case, it didn’t hit me that this text from a five-digit number was really addressed to me. I nonchalantly looked up the number followed by “Covid scam.” It was only when other co-workers reached out that it clicked.

My reaction was not a pretty one.

I was terrified. That same day I had spent time working on a project with three other individuals from my university. Had I infected them? What would they think of me?

The highly stigmatized Covid-19 diagnosis seemed to be more plausible than I thought.

As I rushed over to a test centre, I couldn’t help but really reflect on the “your safety

and health are our top my safety and health w ority for Whole Foods me a generic text and tal earthquake that wa who had been missing if I had interacted wi have broken the prov the maximum occupan in order to allow “mo and reduce line-ups o have rejected my requ off as I waited for my that “no one said you wait for your results?”

If they did, then that valid. But they did not

We never did find o had the confirmed ca numbers of more tha ends, with no monitor fused my request to ta awaited my (negative) explained that “your te care about the result. W

In other words, the s money. The financial p important than possib employees and custom portant than caring fo ing and stability. Mor ing understanding tha my workplace. This isn what really goes on be pyramid scheme, and are at the bottom. We sea of sharks.

priority” statement. If was really the top pris, would they have sent d spared me the menas trying to figure out g from work lately and ith them? Would they vincial regulations on ncy of enclosed spaces ore customers to shop outside?” Would they uest to take a few days y test results, deeming can’t work while you ”

t statement would be t.

out what department ase. The store reached n 100 on busy weekring. My manager reake a few shifts off as I ) Covid-19 results. She eam needs you. I don’t We need you here.”

store needed to make prerogative was more bly sparing the lives of mers alike. More imor my mental well-bere important than beat I didn’t feel safe in n’t an exaggeration of ehind the scenes. It’s a the essential workers e are the shrimp in a

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One thing I pride myself in is that I am not a push-over.

I didn’t show up to work until I had my confirmed negative result, as advised by the doctor that conducted my test. I put in my two weeks’ notice the same day. I didn’t care that my manager was “pressured by corporate to hold certain sale values.” I was not going to allow anyone to treat me as such.

I may be an essential worker, but I am also human. These last eight months have been trying. I learned many lessons, and I truly was the bravest (yet, most emotionally drained) version of myself.

I learned what fear does to people. I learned what money does to people. I learned what ignorance does to people. I learned what is important in life (and it’s not bread and pastries, that’s for sure). I learned how hard life gets. I learned how sudden change can come. I learned what a pandemic does to me. But most importantly, I learned that I am resilient.

However, I don’t think I really am as brave or essential as our healthcare workers, who are the real heroes. What truly came out of this was me standing up for myself as I faced corporate capitalism, something I will most likely face many more times in my bright future.

The truth is, the label of an “essential worker” is nothing more than a façade perpetuated by corporations to soften the blow of having to work during a pandemic—of having to

make them money. The danger non-essential (yes, I said it) and essential workers are placed in could have been avoided had it not been for the greediness of corporations to make money. Crony capitalism, propaganda, call it what you want. Sadly, the system can’t be changed. It is engrained within us.

Unless I become a hermit, I can’t avoid it.

Calling a worker “essential” shouldn’t minimize the risk of holding the position. The situation we’re in should not be taken lightly, and we shouldn’t agree so easily to the terms set out by others. So really, are we heroes?

Or are we victims?

These days I continue to be careful and wear my mask. When I shop at grocery stores, I say “thank you” and am courteous. There is a mutual level of respect that needs to be demonstrated.

The real way to thank essential workers is to avoid contact with them. I’ve seen friends change as the virus emerged. I’ve seen my co-workers live in fear and defeat.

There are right and wrong ways to deal with the adversity of Covid-19. I have yet to find all the right ways, but I am getting there. Quitting my job as an essential worker that I had for four years led me to a new job in my field of study, as well as new endeavours, all of which I didn’t think I would achieve in our current situation. As the world thought outside the box, adapted, and overcame, so did I. So really, Covid-19 has been a blessing in disguise. But please, make it fucking stop.

Oh, and fuck corporate capitalism. And honestly, fuck Whole Foods. MM

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“Man’s primary concern with life is to make it as significant as possible.” Albert Murray uring the mid-80s, my father traveled from Lebanon to Canada in search of a steady income. He and my grandfather began their search in Alberta, traveling across the country until they reached its most eastern edge. A month later, by word of mouth, they learned about the convenience store nestled in the heart of Martin’s River, Nova Scotia, a community of fewer than 1000 people.

My grandfather bought the store, handed it to my father, and returned to Lebanon shortly after.

As I write this, I sit at the kitchen table of the apartment above my father’s convenience store. It is likely the last time I will be here. After almost 30 years, my parents are returning to Lebanon for good.

I’m certain that as soon as they set foot on Canadian soil, they craved another place, somewhere farther away and more familiar. And now that they have decided to return to Lebanon, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about what life in Nova Scotia has meant for my family.

ARTICLE BY ALI TAHA

When things end, we can do one of two things: we either take time to reflect on

what has come to pass, extracting the lessons learned and finding value in the experience, or we let it slip beneath the surface, leaving it unacknowledged (and therefore allowing it to manifest in some other aspect of our lives).

Growing up, my home life was a microcosm of Lebanese society and Islamic tradition enveloped by a wholly rural, Western, salt-of-the-earth culture.

The expectations given to me by my parents, friends, brothers, classmates, teachers, and the broader community seemed to always be at odds.

On this last visit to Nova Scotia, after my father had closed the store, my parents and I sat in the upstairs apartment enjoying each other’s company. It was then that I asked them how they had met, almost thirty years ago. I knew barely anything about their lives before Canada, and until then I’d never thought to ask.

I knew my father had traveled back to Lebanon in the late ’80s to find a wife. I knew that after my parents married, my mother had lived with her in-laws for a year before moving to Canada to be with my dad. What I didn’t know was that my

Ruth Troughton/unsplash.com

landscapes D of life (and other forms of expectation)

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Matthew Fournier/unsplash.com

WITH US, MY MOTHER BUILT A HOME. parents had only known each other for six days before they were married.

My question offered them, my mother in particular, a moment to reflect on the past. And while she spoke nonchalantly about her experience leaving Lebanon and coming to Canada, her words were heavy, underscored by years of regret and longing.

In 1990, at 19 years old, my mother followed my father to the convenience store in Martin’s River. She spent the majority of her time in the upstairs apartment alone and quite shell-shocked. She was in a foreign place, away from everything she knew, unable to speak English, and without a clear path forward. My dad worked long hours in the store, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., leaving them both without much time to connect. As my mother put it, “We never took the time to really learn about each other.” Although they lived together, my parents never really lived together.

During that time, my mother found peace in her faith. She said that she

would read the Quran and pray regularly in those early months, using religion to make sense of her situation.

She had come to embrace a part of her upbringing that had never been central to her way of life before.

Near the end of that year, my mother gave birth to my brother, Mohammed.

Two years later, she had my brother, Ahamed. Six years later, she had me.

With us, my mother built a home. As we learned how to become people, she learned how to become a parent.

Two years after I was born, my father bought the two-story house that sat behind our store. As I grew up, the house became the landscape of all my parents’ expectations.

And throughout my upbringing, they expected many things. They expected me to make good friends and succeed in school. They expected me to pray and speak Arabic, and to go to Friday prayer when possible. They expected our family to be a unit.

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Their greatest expectation was that my brothers and I wouldn’t call our house a home. It wasn’t home, and it could never be home. Home was much farther away, halfway across the world, where my parents had been raised and where they had developed their expectations for life. Nova Scotia was just a placeholder until they could return to their true home again.

our expectations shape our understanding of what should reside in a landscape, a place

When you hear the word “landscape,” what do you think of? You may think of a view, of rolling grasslands or mountainous terrain, a garden, a forest, or even a farm or city skyline. Landscapes are not static places. They change and transform thanks to the people that inhabit, visit, admire, and think about them. Nature also has a role in the evolution of landscapes by changing the physical typography over time through natural processes.

Landscapes are places. To an extent, our expectations shape our understanding of what should reside in a landscape, a place. Upon closer inspection, we may find our expectations were right. But we also may learn that they were wrong or mistaken. Expectations follow us throughout life. One expectation replaces another, on and on, ad infinitum. We project our expectations onto a landscape, at times surprised by what we actually find. Some-

times what we assumed to be included in the landscape may be something else entirely.

Paul Groth describes landscape as “the interaction of people and place: a social group and its spaces, particularly the spaces to which the group belongs and from which its members derive some part of their shared identity and meaning.”

Landscapes as an idea are imbued with emotional energy that shapes our understanding and expectations of a place. We see farmland in the distance and expect there to be animals grazing and fields of rising crops. We may get closer and realize that there is absolutely nothing there.

The land is barren, left unused for decades. There are no animals or crops, or even a house or barn that would signal the existence of some past life.

A landscape can include people, animals, objects, and, further still, values and meaning. Laura Alice Watt describes landscape as “a representational and symbolic space.” Religious ideology is represented and reinforced by the physical space of a church, just as the idea of family is defined and reinforced by the physical space of a house. The place informs our expectations, and our expectations shape the place.

Expectations and assumptions are essential to life. They are how we make

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sense of the world, believing that A leads to B leads to C and so on. It’s a simple way of managing our complex environments. And there is a fine line between expectations and assumptions: when we expect, we want something to happen. When we assume, we think something will happen. For both, we hope the outcome is in our favor.

While describing Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space for Aeon magazine, Gillian Darley writes, “[Blachelard] guides us through an actual or imagined home, its comforts and mysteries, assembled and brought into focus, in a place and at a time undefined except by the limits of our own daydreams, longings, and memories—those inner landscapes from which, he said, new worlds can be made.”

Traditionally, the concept of home has been related to comfort and security.

The shared expectation among humans is that each of us has a home. Home is part of our very essence. It’s where we come from and return to. Throughout the day, we may enjoy the company of friends, attend class, spend time at work, visit family. But at night, we are home, safe, asleep.

Darley continues, “The well-being of the warm animal (or human) protected in its nest or cocoon or cottage from the bad weather raging outside is a primitive sense of refuge that we can all share, adult or child.”

We are comfortable with the image of home as hearth, but why? What is home? What makes it so?

Many people conceptualize home as a place of safety and, in a way, acceptance. Home is inherently a place, defined by the people, animals, objects, and things within it. Home acts as a centering idea. It binds us to something beyond ourselves.

There is an inherent comfort to that idea: that we belong somewhere.

Home is a place that, once lived in, becomes a shared idea. The idea of home is transferred to the people that live within it. A home’s shared atmosphere, customs, culture, and way of life inform our expectations of it. Home is specific to the individual but can also be scaled to encompass the village, town, city, state, or country.

As I’ve alluded to, there is an underlying sense of trust in our basic conception of home. It is one that breeds feelings of comfort and belonging, the loss of which reflects a disruption of our idea of home and the inherent trust we have in it. When we leave home, we expect to be able to return. Those without a stable conception of home become wanderers—drifters.

Home can be the context of our environment and the choices available to

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us, as well as the values we deem important. Home can be the freedom, or lack thereof, we have in our current situation, based on where we are. When we can’t say for certain that we have a home, a feeling of longing develops.

We yearn for a routine, for community, for social interaction, for a place to be.

Home provides us with meaning and a sense of belonging. When our expectations of home never seem to align with our immediate surroundings, the idea of home becomes nostalgic. We long for an ideal that we’ve constructed in our minds.

Above a small hill behind our house is the Trans Canada Trail, now called The Great Trail. As a child, I would follow it across a bridge overlooking the river my community was named after.

The trail would lead me to a forest that, during my adolescence, felt like another world.

Looking back, I now understand that my constant adventuring through the forest was an escape from the social pressures of my lonely and isolated parents.

I spent a lot of time outdoors, admiring the natural world. And in Nova Scotia, nature prevails. Deep, thick clusters of trees hug every trail, road, highway, home, village, town, and city. The province is surrounded by water, so no matter where one goes, the vast and

sublime Atlantic is always nearby.

There were times when I would go too far into the forest behind my house and fear I’d lost my way, only to find a familiar bunch of trees, or the mysterious bottom half of what seemed to be a pillbox, to guide me home.

However, after exploring enough, I would come to learn that the forest didn’t go on forever—far from it. Soon enough, the sound of squirrels dashing across the forest floor and trees groaning against the wind would be replaced by cars zooming over the highway.

During my final venture into the forest, I went so far as to reach its edge, where the trees met the highway. The throom of cars zooming past blocked out all other noise, and, just like that, the forest’s mystery and wonder diminished.

The forest was bound—limited—by the highway. It was no longer vast and infinite in my mind, but conquerable and small. The forest was less menacing, less gigantic. Could it even be called a forest?

I had thought the forest went on forever. I had held this assumption from a very young age, and even during the

experience, I was unaware of what it meant. And it could mean many things: man’s fear of nature, the ego as archetype, the retrenchment and demise of the natural world. It was only until I was well separated from that place, with many more years of experience under my belt, that I could name the experience for what it meant, not just what it was.

When our expectations of home don’t align with what home really is, we develop a sense of longing for a home that matches our expectations. Along this vein, homelessness is akin to restlessness. Homelessness relates to the feelings of dissatisfaction we may have in our lives. For some, there is a tension between the desire to have a home and the desire to be free. One may have a home but still long to travel, adventure, or establish a new home elsewhere.

When we desire a new sense of home, our current home may feel uncomfortable. It may become unlivable, even.

Throughout life, a person’s desire for home oscillates between settling down and moving beyond or away.

The concept of home is fluid and continuously shifting within us. Home may feel right to us until it doesn’t. In a way, we decide what it means to us.

We build a home and then tear it down.

Throughout life, there are times when we must recenter ourselves and answer the question again: what is home?

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Home is as much a marker of identity as anything else. It’s a place where we can develop, grow, learn, understand, and create.

As it has been defined, we build homes all the time, with places and then with people. We continually renegotiate home as our wants and needs evolve over time. We simultaneously long for and resist home, never wanting to be too comfortable or too lost. This relationship can be likened to chaos and order: too much of the former and we fall into anarchy, too much of the latter and things become oppressive.

Is home really where the heart is? For some, yes. Some of us need to feel the warm embrace of our loved ones, or the closeness of family and friends, to feel at home.

As cliché as it sounds, that statement has a great amount of truth to it. Clichés tend to be overused particularly because they are so honest. They are true to an extent—while they work to explain a certain phenomenon, they tend to simplify the experience. “Home is where the heart is” underlines the importance of being connected to people rather than places. However, it is still an expectation: if I am with the people I love, then I expect to feel at home. But there are unspoken assumptions that come with this conception of home that can be easily uprooted. What if those you love don’t love you back? What if they live far away? What if home is a terrible place to be and is made terrible by those who share the space with you?

What becomes of “home” then? It can be a disorienting experience when your expectation of home is suddenly changed— or was always bad—by exogenous forces, whether they be people or otherwise.

What makes a person say, “I am in love with my life”? One answer is that we love life when things are in alignment— when they make sense. When we accept the past and anticipate the future because the present is just so good that we wouldn’t have it any other way. Home contributes to that feeling of alignment.

When we “feel at home,” we’re a step closer to loving life.

Soon after I turned 18, I left Martin’s River to attend university in Mississauga, Ontario. I had become tired of the familiar landscapes of Nova Scotia.

My decision to leave home was quite decentering for my mother. Mohammed and Ahamed had left long before me, and my parents were both counting the days until I would go too.

Throughout her 30 years of life in Martin’s River, away from her family and friends, my mother had built a home with us, her kids. She invested a great deal in our well-being, our success, and our futures. Life had given her a new

landscape, and she had learned how to build a home within it.

After my brothers and I had left, she found no reason to stay. Home had been us, and now we were gone. That was the driving force behind my parents’ decision to leave. Now, three years later, they are finally on their way out, back to their first home.

For me, my expectations of home had transcended what Nova Scotia could give me. I wanted something more exciting, more my own. I had found myself longing for something else.

Now, four years later, I realize the city was what I expected, but not what I wanted. Home still alludes me, but my expectations for it have never been more concrete.

Now the idea of home has become a quiet one, far off in a small town where things are simpler.

Home is a little room in a little house.

It’s peace and joy. It’s a regular, quiet life that is mundane but beautiful. It doesn’t need much to sustain itself, and it’s burnt all the other lives I thought I wanted. I’ve built it in my mind, over and over again, and I can’t wait to say that home is mine. MM

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How George Floyd’s Death Underlines the Importance of Equity and Human Rights

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RTICLE BY SARAH-MAY OLDFIELD

cottonbro/Pexels

“P

lease! I can’t breathe!” Those were some of George Floyd’s last words, as former-officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck.

The history of the United States is stained with the blood of African American people. Human beings were wrenched from their homes, packed

into ships like sardines, and brought to America. Those that survived the journey would see themselves and 400 hundred years of future generations enslaved—reduced to less than human.

On January 1, 1863, amid a civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated that people held as slaves “henceforward shall be free.” While the proclamation marked the end of the brutality of slavery, the marginalization and maltreatment lived on. And African Americans remained far from “free.”

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The legalization of segregation took over where slavery left off, depriving Black men, women, and children of the same opportunities given to white people. Black communities continued to remain marginalized, treated as less than human even though slavery had been abolished. Segregation became the modern-day form of discrimination and oppression. It was legal to ban “coloured people” from restaurants, stores, schools, and neighborhoods. Public executions by lynching were a regular occurrence.

And when segregation was made illegal with the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, unequal treatment persisted, though subtly. It was not easy being Black and American.

For people of colour in 2020, an African American man dying at the hands of American police is nothing new.

Even the community outrage following this event was expected: the protests, the riots, the demand for justice, and the call for reform. The only thing unprecedented following the killing of an unarmed Black man was the global outcry.

Even in Canada, growing up Black comes with trials, and it starts when you’re young. Well before the “birds and the bees” talk, our parents sat my sister and me down on multiple occasions to explain racism. We never learned what it was, what it meant, or why, but we were warned it was something we would face. Not if, or might, but would encounter many times in our lives.

My sister was eight when she experienced racism in her grade three classroom. She was the only black student in her cohort. Her teacher had deemed the carelessly drawn stick figures of other students as worthy of a higher grade than my sister’s carefully drawn out characters.

floyd was not the first african america to be murdered while in police custody

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My sister didn’t understand why. She’d worked so hard, put in a lot more effort, and yet it didn’t seem to matter. During the parent-teacher interview, my mother said the teacher couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer as to why one student should receive a lower grade than the rest. The school principal stepped in, and even she was astonished, but she couldn’t say the words. Saying the words would’ve made it real. Saying, “This teacher is being prejudiced against her black student,” was too much for her. But my mom knew what was happening. She had told us it would happen.

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As kids, we couldn’t understand. If we were good, remembered our please and thank yous, played nicely with others, and did well in school, what reason would anyone have to be racist toward us? We learned that it didn’t matter what we did or what we said; our skin would always come first. The colour of your pigment would determine how you were treated and how you should be treated. Merit, character, and personality, if ever considered, would come after. Or not at all.

In 2008, Barack Obama became the first African American President of the United States. His “Blackness” was debated throughout his campaign and over his two terms as president. Obama’s “Blackness” was questioned. Was he too Black to be president? Or was he not Black enough to be considered the first Black president of the United States?

It didn’t matter that he graduated from Columbia University and, later, from Harvard Law School. It didn’t matter that he represented the 13th district of Illinois for seven years. It didn’t matter that he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. I, and many others in the Black community, thought this was a turning point for Black America and our futures. We thought this meant that racism was dying. After all the sweat, tears, and blood shed by African AmerCooper Baumgartner/unsplash.com

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ican slaves, America had elected its first Black president. Twelve years later, not much has changed.

I’m still hyper-aware of the police. My pulse quickens and I sweat when an officer looks my way. I try to avoid anything that might cause them to look my way or be suspicious of me. I’d copy my white friends and try to act less Black when possible. I didn’t even know what “being Black” meant, but I didn’t want to take the chance. During adolescence, my mom warned me and my sister that we would have to work twice as hard as “them”—as white people—to get the same jobs, the same pay, the same recognition, and, the same respect. It feels like we’re always at war, and it’s because of the pigment of our skin. It seems like such a trivial thing, but it can mean the difference between life and death for Black people.

Floyd was not the first African American man to be murdered while in police custody. He was not the last. George Floyd’s death was not even the most shocking in recent years. But overnight, millions around the world were angry, something we have never seen before. And a new movement started with Floyd.

Not Breonna Taylor, shot 15 times as she slept in her bed.

Not Ahmaud Arbery, gunned down while exercising in his own neighborhood.

Not Trayvon Martin, a teenager walking home late at night.

Not Walter Scott, shot in the back five times as he ran away.

Not Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy shot while playing with a toy.

Though the above deaths were more egregious, it was George Floyd’s death

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that finally drew the world’s attention to the U.S. and sparked a wave of criticism toward unjust police practices and the unequal treatment of Black people.

It was his death that inspired Black Out Tuesday. It was his death that inspired internet influencers and celebrities around the world to speak out and disavow racism and police brutality. It was his death that inspired individuals and corporations to set up charities and funds to help make bail for arrested protesters and help support the families of victims.

The declaration of Covid-19 as a global pandemic drastically disrupted the world as we knew it. Countries around the world went into lockdown. Individuals were forced to quarantine.

Schools, restaurants, and movie theatres closed. Professional sports were cancelled, businesses suffered, and jobs were lost. And with nothing else to do and nowhere to go, people were glued to their screens.

For the first time, the presence and pressure of social media allowed people worldwide to have direct access to the horrifying footage of Derek Chauvin’s knee pressing the life out of George Floyd. Everywhere we turned or scrolled, there it was. It was shocking. It was disturbing. But most of all, for the first time, we all agreed: being treated like a human being should be an essential part of the interactions between those in power and those who have none.

But it is more than that. So much had to happen for Floyd’s death to have the

impact that it did, for people who usually never thought twice about police brutality to be as outraged as they were.

Foremost, the growth and reach of social media are higher than ever before.

The internet and the accompanying technological advancements have made sharing instances of police brutality and bias as simple as a few taps of your thumb on a device screen. Before social media and advanced technology, the instances between African American people and police would have been inaccessible to common folks. They would have gone unseen, swept under paperwork, administrative leave, and internal investigations.

It might be difficult to stomach; the idea that without the existence of smartphones, we might never have known the way Floyd was apprehended and consequently killed by police. How easy it would have been in the past to simply state: “Died in police custody.” Without video evidence, what proof would the average citizen have of an injustice that has occurred?

Social media has become a quick and efficient way of not only sharing information with others across the world but accessing it as well. In the world of social media, there are no boundaries.

No one needs a passport. A couple of taps and you will have access to all the news and content you can consume.

You cannot have a global outcry without a global reach.

Secondly, and thanks to the pandemic, many people were left with a lot of free time. Overnight, the pandemic re-

moved the urban world’s many distractions. No school, no work, and no professional sports. No dinner and drinks with friends, no house parties, no gyms, and no music concerts. It is difficult to ignore something and brush it aside when there is nothing anyone can do to avoid it. And even if you could, you would not be able to do so for long.

change ca Thirdly, internet influencers, celebrities, and corporations have made a point to renounce racism and promote the essentialism of Black lives. This might have been the product of the rise of “Cancel Culture,” a trend in which people are denounced or “cancelled” for acts or attitudes of racism or any other form of discrimination. No one wants to be associated with the side that has perpetuated Black people’s death at the hands of police.

Finally, and most importantly, the pandemic has forced us all into a collective vulnerability. For centuries, African Americans and other people of colour have endured fear, helplessness, and

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photos from unsplash.com

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the hopelessness of being hated and discriminated against because of the pigment of their skin. They, and all other people of colour, have endured the all too common belief of their peers that “racism is dead” or “racism doesn’t exist.” But for the first time, on a global scale, everyone else feels the same way.

Lockdown and being forced into quarantine have left people feeling pow-

an happen erless over their lives and the present state of affairs. Futures feel uncertain.

People fear for their lives and fear for the health and safety of their family and friends. This is a fear people of colour often feel. They fear for their children, parents, family, and friends in a society that does not value them as human beings.

The fear of disease cannot compare to the fear of death and persecution, but that fear does evoke compassion that has allowed the world to empathize with the plight and trials of people of colour. “I feel your pain” in the wake of this pandemic has never been truer for so many of us. “I feel your pain” now

means “I not only understand that how you’re being treated is unjust, but I understand more than ever that your life and your rights haven’t been regarded as essential.”

You don’t get the chance to choose the body parts you’re born with. You certainly don’t get to choose the colour of your body’s largest organ: your skin— the one thing you could never change or control, the thing you were born with and will live with for the rest of your life.

And yet the colour of your skin is the difference—the difference between a pass or a fail, of getting the job, of getting the promotion, of being killed.

The U.S. is on fire. Its people are angry, scared, and desperate for change. Their futures are uncertain amidst a virus that takes thousands of lives each day.

They can’t rely on their leaders to keep them safe and informed of the reality of the difficulties they now face. And for Black Americans, they fear all of the above, and they share that fear for the lives of their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters, their husbands and wives, their friends, their siblings. You can’t appease that fear without real and honest change. And you certainly can’t appease fear by labelling Black lives as political. In 2020, if slavery and oppression and racism are dead, why are Black lives still labeled political? How can you politicize a human life? How can you politicize a human life by the colour of a person’s skin? Why should there be a debate about whose lives matter?

But change can happen, and it is happening. Organizations like the NBA

and its members have taken to raising their voices. Players are wearing jerseys with statements in support of Black lives. “Black Lives Matter” is painted into the hardwood of the basketball court that’s broadcast to millions around the world. YouTubers, actors, and social media celebrities have published videos and statements in support of Black lives and to denounce racism. They’re joining protests, donating funds, and getting in the faces of those who have the power to affect change and develop reforms. I’ve never seen so many advertisements and endorsements to vote in my life.

I still fear for the lives of my loved ones, my friends, and those in my community. The change we need won’t happen overnight. We’ll have a Covid-19 vaccine before Black lives are truly seen as essential. But I draw some comfort in the belief that the world will be a different place for my children and my children’s children.

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Junior delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” Nearly six decades later, the world is finally listening. People around the world are not just hearing what we have to say, but they’re putting in the work to make change happen. They’re listening.

They’re angry for us. They’re angry for me. And for the first time in my life, I believe there can be change. MM

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my house burned down last night i didnt watch it happen my eyes were shut but I felt the fire’s heat set free to the passion that once found home in my concrete world i didnt see it happen my eyes were shut but the break of day brought a new heat a kiss of sun on my resting body when i finally opened my eyes i saw that my house was gone but for the first time i could also see where i needed to go