For my longer runs, I often pick a route
that passes along the trail cutting through River Landing, but yesterday was
the first time I noticed a special feature put on the vertical face of the north
bank pylon of the Sid Buckwold Bridge as I ran under it. I don’t know when it
appeared but it must have been recent, and out of all of Saskatoon’s bridges
this is the only one I saw it on. If it was up there for very long, I’m
embarrassed to admit how oblivious I've been to it for all this time. It
would be due to me usually having eyes front focused or tunnel vision when I’m
exerting myself. However, this time I was stopped in my tracks because the
message of it was very bold, striking, and profound. It was sort of a public
message board that we as citizens could contribute to, with a very distinctive
theme. It was simply a ruled blackboard with an open ended, fill-in-the-blank
statement . . .
Curiosity led me to stop and linger around
there for a while to see what was listed there. It’s interesting what people
will dare to put there when they can do it in anonymity. There was no chalk
around to make my contribution though. I wondered if this is a feature unique to our
city, or if this is part of some grander movement around the country, or
globally. If it is national or global, I’d be quite interested to see what
differences and similarities there are in the types of wishes people write out.
In a sociological perspective, if this is a
genuinely accurate sample of what goes on in the heads of people in this city, from
what I could judge from the collective wish statements made on there, I must
say that generally the people of Saskatoon are:
·
Not too materialistic, which is
nice to see. There weren’t many, if any, wishes for wealth, cars and mansions,
or owning other such finery. I saw one statement about winning a lottery but
that was about all that struck me. The luxuries our citizens mostly listed was
about freedoms and experiences that they wanted to have, like traveling abroad,
“to retire”. There were lots of intangible things up there too, like “to fall
in love”, “find my soulmate”,
·
There weren’t as many vulgar, low-brow
scribblings up there as I expected. In such a public place with a node of
contact with a high property crime/economically disadvantaged area, I thought
there would be a lot more content on there that would be there more the sake of
defacing it rather than serving to expound good intent. One example of the low-brow
stuff was “get stoned with Snoop Dog”, but for every one stupid statement like
that, it was countered by a lot more noble stuff, like “learn another language”,
“get my Ph.D.”, “starting a business”, “to see my great grandchildren”, etc.
·
I was expecting more levity and
humour like, “see the Toronto Maple Leafs win a Stanley Cup”, but that wasn’t
the mood of this monument of our city’s residents. It was more serious, but a
positive sort of seriousness. There were very few messages of desperation
(maybe the Leafs comment counts as one though). The only one that stuck out for
me was “to stop living in Hell!”
·
Lots of wishes and pleas for grander
designs of positive social/environmental change, like “to be free from fossil
fuels”, “see the end of global poverty”
I don’t know if this wall of wishes gets periodically
washed down, recovering and renewing space for other people to add more things. There
is a comfort in knowing that there is a lot there already that I have in common
with some other souls out there. With facing my own mortality some while ago,
its big message gives me pause for thought about it. There is a lot that is
left that’s undone. I am left to wonder what I have that is not on there, and
is unique for me.
I do know that I will be running by there
more often to read it and to see if there are any more additions and changes. Perhaps I’ll
make it a point to run over there with my own piece of chalk next time.
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