I’ve always liked a good goodbye. Something about the contrast of staying vs. moving on, and reflecting on what’s next, has always drawn me in. But over the years, I have realized that true endings are hard to come by, and my final goodbyes seem to be more unexpected or awkward than melancholic or romantic. And since I am pathologically attached to the past, it is rare that I truly leave something. Subsequently, when I have moved on from somewhere, it has often been with frustration and hatred, with a sense of ‘good riddance’ that I would never be coming back.
But as I write this, my final President’s Message for you, on the lead up to my final board meeting as chair (our AGM, November 6, at 8:00 PM- if this makes it to you in time, come out!), my feelings are of gratitude, not frustration. I am proud of what the community association has accomplished in the years I have been involved, and I am thankful for being given the opportunity to lead. That’s not to say it has always been easy.
I think of the community association like a large rowboat, and it can be hard trying to decide between steering and taking up an oar yourself. Finding enough people for those oars (or oars for people) has also been difficult at times. This isn’t a new problem, as I realized glancing at the last 20 years of Mid-Sun Messages, but I also didn’t want to let it make me cynical. We have gotten better at recruitment too, by developing specific new roles and projects that have attracted more interest. I am always reminded that there are many great people in the community looking to help out.
The board’s place in this metaphorical ship has also been a question- what is our role, versus that of our staff/ the City/ our communities’ resident’s associations? What is it that the community association does?
The simple answer is, look after the Mid-Sun Community Centre. The building is a true gem in our city, and my experience with the board has really made me appreciate it. Learning about the years of volunteer planning, fundraising and hard labour that went into its creation, and later its renovation, was eye-opening- this is the legacy of so many amazing residents. The glow of our interior renovations is now matched by a new exterior, where the blues and greys blend into the sky, topped by the natural multi-coloured wonder of our community garden. Our building is made whole by an amazing staff, who always remind me of the community centre’s positive presence in Mid-Sun.
I have ventured to a lot of different halls for meetings in the last few years, and while each of them has unique charms and different features than ours, I always return from these voyages appreciating what we have.
The longer answer to what we do is, whatever the community needs, which can vary widely. For example, we take an active role in city planning. While we don’t approve development permits or traffic changes, we have the privilege of previewing them and suggesting changes from a local perspective, something I have always savoured. We have also advocated for and sponsored reforms on busy roads, developed social media pages for the community, and started the revitalization of our overlooked community playgrounds.
The fence art on Sun Valley Boulevard was a way of improving the community that I am very proud of. It still looks good, and with regular spring cleanings, it will stay up indefinitely, and perhaps be expanded in the future. I’d like to see more art here. With the exterior project finished at the building, perhaps something could go up there? I know the top of our entrance looks empty without its old, signature triangle. Maybe that could be a spot for some sort of display?
Regardless of the direction the CA takes in the next few years, my simple advice for future directors is to look after the building, and care about the community.
There are things from these past few years I regret as well. Missed opportunities, people who showed an interest in joining us but couldn’t find their way, a shortcoming of ours that I hope has been improved through clearer roles, better explanations of the board’s inner working, and simply building stronger connections with volunteers. The gradual decay of the old Midnapore schoolhouse, by Rona, still depresses me every time I pass by it. I appreciate the support I have gotten from residents in potentially restoring it, but the CBE’s inaction and lack of flexibility on their historic buildings has made it tremendously difficult to do anything. I also hoped that we would be able to collect more old Mid-Sun Messages from the community, and I wish I had really had time to pursue restoring our community entrance signs.
I still miss Kim Taylor, our wonderful fellow director who passed away last March. If things had turned out differently, she would have been president, and I am convinced she would have been amazing at it. It is heartwarming to meet people in the neighbourhood who knew her and see the sparks she left behind. I know Heaven is a brighter place with her in it.
This community association has meant a lot to me. When I first joined, back in 2014, I was at a crossroads in my life. I had just graduated from university, with no plans of working in my field of psychology. Mostly, I was working on music and my burgeoning project of capturing the history of our area. At night, I was cleaning offices at Midnapore Mall, which was good in that it left my days open for these other projects but left me feeling in a rut. As lost feelings of depression took over, I knew I needed a change.
Back then, I was so driven by trying to know what our area used to be like, that I would be kept awake at night trying to place all the old buildings on a mental map. As the history project became increasingly important to me, it only made sense to reach out to others with a common interest in our area. With that, I joined the board and began to dig myself out of the hole I was in.
My life is much better than it was five years ago, and so much of that is due to giving my time and energy to the community, something bigger than myself. As I look at many of my friends, who seem to be in that same miserable state I used to be in, I have to think of volunteering, simply getting out and accomplishing something, as an activity and a mindset that my generation, and society in general, is sorely lacking.
Thanks to these experiences, I can leave the board in gratitude, and love, which is a hard thing to do, especially since it invites the question “why leave at all?” And I have a lot to say there.
Part of my decision to resign is the sense that my experience on the board was like an alternative to getting a master’s degree. And just like how you finish your time at school and must graduate, I have come to feel that I have accomplished what I could here, and need to move on. We used to have two-year term-limits for the president, and as I moved into my second year, I started to really understand why. It’s not just about giving someone else a shot- it takes a lot of energy to lead an organization, especially when you are the kind of person who naturally takes on a lot, and it was simply getting too hard to commit to the board while doing everything else life demanded of me.
I also don’t know if I will stay in the area. I don’t own a house here, and don’t know if I ever will (the last thing the world needs is another millennial complaining about housing prices, but the problem remains). Certainly, Mid-Sun is a great area, and I mean all of it.
Midnapore has been my home for most of my life. It is full of amazing trees, beautiful streets, and those great dwellings designed by E.V. Keith’s team. It also has the historical area and name, that I am obviously drawn to (even if only about 40% of the historical Midnapore hamlet was in the present-day community, the rest split between neighbouring communities and Fish Creek Park. That historic area, west of 1st Street and north of 153 Ave, is also only small a sliver of the community today). But Sundance is an incredible community as well, from the familiar homes in the north, to the majesty of the neighbourhoods around the lake, and the great parks in the south. And western Sundance, packed with townhomes, bungalows, and two-stories in its winding streets, might be the comfiest neighbourhood I have ever seen.
This area has meant everything to me: family, school, friends, work, volunteering, creative muse, hobbies. Love. Life. That makes it full of good memories, but there are a lot of scars too. Getting some distance could be valuable, and perhaps make me truly appreciate it again (maybe not too much distance, though- my girlfriend keeps assuring me we aren’t settling down in Brentwood).
I am reminded of my favourite show, Seinfeld. When it wrapped up after 9 seasons in 1998, it was the #1 show on television and still highly acclaimed. The network offered star and co-creator Jerry Seinfeld a boatload of money to keep going, but he decided to call it quits. He has reflected on this decision many times over the years, but my favourite explanation is that it’s like a nice meal- you enjoyed eating it, but once you are full, you don’t keep eating. And after all these years, I feel full.
But what do you do next?
In Jerry’s case, he went back to his first love, stand-up comedy. And maybe I will go back to the history-keeping that originally motivated me to join the board. The CA certainly helped me make connections and develop history-related projects, such as photo displays and Jane’s Walks, all of which I am proud of. Still, it became harder to find the time to work on history after I joined the board, and especially after I became president.
Maybe I will go back to working on my personal website, www.thedeepsouth.ca, which has been largely neglected the past two years, and keep providing small snippets of history in Mid-Sun Messages, something so many of you have enjoyed. I would also like to make more of an effort to save the old schoolhouse. But I also know I am getting more satisfied with what I have done for local history; I don’t stay awake at night thinking of old Midnapore too much anymore. More importantly, other things in my life are taking priority.
I think of local band the Nix Dicksons. I’ve always been a very casual fan of Calgary’s music scene, but they were one group that I knew and liked. Maybe it was because they played so many shows, or maybe it was their association with Deluge (another great local band I knew since it was actually formed by some guys from Sundance), but it seemed like they would be around forever. So, I was surprised back in 2012 when I read they were breaking up. Their reasoning was that they had taken a hobby band as far as it could go, something which hit me surprisingly hard. Part of this reaction was because I was wondering about my own musical ambitions, which drove me so much in my youth- was I getting too old for hours of songwriting and practicing with little to show for it? (Maybe, though that interest eventually got me a great job in a music store, albeit on the other side of the city.) More generally, I realized you eventually outgrow your ambitions.
Years ago, my ambitions were art, community, and creating meaning, and I am proud of what I have accomplished. Now, my focus is increasingly on family, and building my future.
“Sayonara”
When I have left things in the past, it always seemed to be with a strong finality, drenched in some romantic thoughts like what I described at the beginning of all this, echoes of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” ringing in my head (“knowing how way leads on to way/ I doubted if I should ever come back”). As I have gotten older, I rarely expect things to turn out this way. That is especially true here- I can’t say what the future will bring, but I would not be opposed to returning to the board someday.
I want to leave you with a story from my experience studying Japanese. When I was first learning the language back in high school, I recognized all the words we used in English that were Japanese in origin: sushi, futon, karaoke, sayonara, etc. That last one stood out when one of my sensei corrected my usage of it- she indicated that you could use it to say goodbye, but other phrases were preferable, since “sayonara” had a sense of finality, more like “farewell.” It indicated that you may not see the person again, or at least not until you were in another stage of life. Perhaps, fittingly, I would eventually say sayonara to Japanese for roughly six years, until I developed a new appreciation for Japanese culture, and music especially. The language remains a quiet hobby for me, and one I never expected to reconnect with.
Things change, life changes. The Nix Dicksons even reunited after a few years, albeit sporadically. I will still be around and would like to submit some more local history articles. Still, I can’t say when or if I will return to the board, or to the president’s role and this column, but I know I will be in a very different place if I do.
Until then, I must bid you farewell, adieu, and sayonara.
Mark Schmidt
President, Mid-Sun Community Association
