A street party epiphany: Dr. Seuss had it wrong

Here’s what a street party taught us about people, writes Drew Meerveld.

Approaching the eve of his passing, Theodor Geisel sat down at his desk with the same stoic meticulousness that had brought him to that place every day for the previous three-quarters of a century. Having sold 600 million books over an illustrious career, the man they called Dr. Seuss put pen to paper one last time with Oh, the Places You’ll Go. The book would explore the wonder of the unknown that awaited those who were open to living life’s fullest. Seuss, a literary giant for whom humanity’s deepest truths could be uncovered using the simplest of words, delivered yet another masterpiece. There was only one problem: He got the title wrong.

A decade ago, I set out to capture the verve that Seuss and a wanderlusting world offered. Prompted by the excitement of the open road and a commitment to embracing other ways of being, the journey of personal development would be as palpable as the growing pains that accompanied it. What started in the relentless daytime heat of Mumbai slums slowly gave way to West Africa’s lonely village nights. On passed the years and lessons, too. Himalayan monks offered the virtues of slowing down before the bulls of Pamplona and commuters of Tokyo sped life right back up. With each step came a new encounter and ever richer meaning. I followed the roads of the world until those roads led me home to Canada, a new resident of Ottawa.

One could be forgiven for finding such a voyage’s culminating locale anticlimactic. Popular vernacular has always held this city as more than a little uncomfortable with its personal identity. Somewhere between the relaxed ease of the valley towns that dot its periphery and self-assured urban behemoths, Ottawa hides its stories behind white picket fences, leaving many outsiders to conclude the only thing residents are hiding is no story at all.

But that is where this story begins.

For the soul of a traveller, returning home means being deprived of the interpersonal connections that previously awaited around every unknown corner. Craving the virtues this openness affords, a group of people began to plan a street gathering. Its aim would simply be an exchange of goodwill between those who otherwise passed daily without so much as a word. But getting people out of their bubble is difficult on the best of days, so signs were posted with nothing more than the Centretown location and this text:

“There is little doubt the world is a more distant place than it once was. If the unfamiliar breeds the unempathetic then our greatest act of protest is simply to be open. Open to warm greetings and kind smiles, open to stories told and food shared.”

The night of the event arrived with preparations taking due course. Blocks were shut down, community musicians were found and initially sparse attendance left some disillusioned frowns. But as night softly fell on a tiki torchlit street and music hung in the air the way it does on those fleeting summer eves, something special began to happen: people came. Arrivals of ones and twos gave way to dozens and then, in a blink, hundreds. Passersby would change plans, then call friends to do the same. Kids running around reminded parents what it meant to live with an excitement of staying up past bedtime. Strangers, warm handshakes, compassionate hugs. And in all of it even the most callous observer couldn’t help but see the magic in coming together.

There was Ruth, a woman whose diminutive stature was outdone only by her charming meekness. With shoulders hunched as if carrying the world, she shared the suicidal inclinations ruminating in her head that day and a desire to be around others, even if it meant being mighty brave. A hotdog with extra mustard and a couple of introductions had her standing a little lighter, showing off a toothless grin more lovely than the sun-soaked eve itself. How she found out about the gathering from her home in Carlingwood we will never know, but we are sure glad she did.

Over by the crafts table, five-year-old Rose was donating her allowance money to the night’s charitable cause, Minwaashin Women’s Lodge in Vanier. “Sometimes women aren’t treated nice,” she said. “Maybe this could help.” Grownups followed her lead.

Near the ramshackle plywood and cinder-block stage, a middle-aged woman with cerebral palsy was joining a dance circle. On crutches amid the glowsticks and hula hoops, she was soon jiving like she belonged because she did. Hours later, she would be riding off into the night on the back of a clunky scooter with her lover to Elton John’s Rocket Man and the cheers of many.

And it was at this moment that I realized Dr. Seuss was wrong. Because for all those thousands of miles en route to the somewhere, the only thing that could ever matter was the someone. Not Oh, the Places You’ll Go, but oh, the people you’ll meet.

Place is the romanticized approximation we ascribe to a space when we lose sight of the individual stories that comprise its being. The moment we are willing to step outside our comfort zone to meet someone on their terms is the moment this journey becomes worth walking, right here at home. So beyond the barrier of white picket fences, our unifying truth is found in the diversity of journeys that brought us here. It is Ottawa’s multitude of stories that make it worth loving because as a wise doctor once said, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

If the unfamiliar breeds the unempathetic then our greatest act of protest is simply to be open

... to stories told and food shared.