For my final walking project I decided to do a walk with my mom. My family is from Sarnia and I have lived there since I was a baby. When I was about 10 my parents split up and I have been moving pretty frequently ever since. Eight times to be exact. My mom has just found a house and has said that this will be her last move. With this in mind I decided that I would like to do ‘a walk through time’ from my childhood house to each house, in order, to this new house that my mom has bought. In total this walk was almost 40kms and it took us about 10 hours to complete. My mom and I aren’t exactly the athletic types so I knew that this would be a big and difficult task to overcome for the day. As it turns out it was more than I even expected. I told my mom about a week before what my idea was and convinced her that she should come along. As soon as she said yes, she obviously regretted it and basically complained about it every time I talked to her until the day of. This didn’t give me much hope for the walk. We drove to my first house growing up, parked and got out to start the walk. The energy was high at the beginning and we had some interesting conversations about the neighbourhood and how it has changed. This was my house growing up. It was the only house of the eight that my parents lived in together. It was also the first time that my mom and I have been back in that neighbourhood since she left my dad. It was a strange feeling being back there with her and we both commented on it. We walked to the rest of the houses in order stopping every once and a while but for the most part trying to keep a good pace to get it finished by dark. There were many ups and downs throughout the walk and there were even times when I had no choice but to turn off the microphone because my mom was not happy. When we finally got to Corunna (the small town outside of Sarnia where my mom’s new house is) the mood lifted. We were hurting and exhausted but we were almost there. We looked around at the new place and talked about our excitement with the new house and new beginning. For the great finale as we were walking up to the driveway my mom started crying and said that we were ‘home’ (she’s embarrassed about this now). This was a big deal because she was worried about moving there and if it was the right decision, over the course of that weekend, she decided that she was sure of her decision and that day, during the walk she got the call from the real estate agent that her offer had been accepted. The journey had more meaning to my mom and I than I could have ever planned for.

Now for the technical stuff:
I filmed the whole walk using the Ipad app that Nathan found for me to make videos out of stills. I also recorded most of the conversations that my mom and I had on the walk. I have a few ideas for what to do with this and anyone reading if they’d like to give me feedback I would appreciate it!
The video jolts back and forth and makes you feel a bit dizzy. It’s, in my opinion, almost dreamlike. My original plan was to record some of my thoughts separately and add them in with some of my mom’s comments. Sort of like she is talking through the walk and I am thinking but not saying things. The video is shot from my perspective and only shows what I see. I am wondering if I should be focusing more on the experience of the actual walk itself of my feelings towards what the walk means and memories. Or, I could combine the two. I also wonder if anyone has a suggestion of how I could add my thoughts without it sounding too negative. I’m somewhat torn. The problem is that I have grown through most of the tough times that I revisited on this walk and I am happy and have an amazing relationship with my mom but, in revisiting these things my thoughts are somewhat negative and I don’t know how to convey this while still showing that I’m in a better place now and I am thankful to my mom for doing the walk with me. Any input would be appreciated! It was definitely an interesting and growing experience so far for my mom and I.

I must say that at the start of the day at the Pacific Mall I was skeptical about the whole idea. We got to this overwhelming and strange mall and I found myself looking around wondering what the heck I would do. As the day went on though, my attitude changed. Instead of letting the feeling of being a tourist work against me I decided to work with it and explore the area and the culture. I started thinking about ideas of tourism and relating it to my own past experience and my feelings being there. I also wanted to consider the items being sold and their significance as there seemed to be so many repeats. Lastly, I thought it was important to consider the space and the unique way in which it was organized.

Collection:
For the collection portion of the project I decided that I would take pictures of the signage on the storefronts. This proved to be somewhat difficult because of the issues with taking pictures but I was able to come up with an interesting collection. In my travels I have always found it funny how the English language is used in non-English speaking countries. For example I always found it funny when I was living in France how they used English words in a lot of the store names and advertisements. It seems that whenever they wanted to give the ‘cool’ image or appeal to the younger generation they would throw in English words. Often they would not be used in the proper way and would sound awkward. I have also found it interesting in my travels to be reminded of the power of the English language. I think that we often forget what this means being in a country where most people speak English. What has amazed me (for the most part) is how bombarded other countries are with the English language. It is often not hard to find someone close by in a non-English speaking country who either knows English or knows enough to get by. Living in France the thing that struck me the most was music and movies. Almost all of the popular music on the radio was English. It also wasn’t censored because as anyone who speaks another language may have found (hopefully not the hard way) swearwords just don’t have the same impact in a second language. I also found it interesting that the bulk of the movies hadn’t been dubbed, they were often still in English with subtitles. These are all things that I hadn’t considered and I imagine most might not consider being an English speaking person from a largely English speaking country. I find it fascinating how other cultures speaking different languages handle the English language.


Walking against the plan:

By now I had spent a few hours in the mall and began seeing many items that were repeated frequently around the mall in different stores. I wonder if they must be culturally significant in some way or if it is somehow a reflection of the Canadian culture as well as far as what is in demand. I decided to choose several different objects and wander until I found them in the storefront window. Some of the objects that I chose were a glittery cell phone cover, anything with Hello Kitty on it and a waving cat figurine. I chose to represent the walks with a simple line drawing showing the route that I took until I found that item. It seems that in almost all of the cases, that item was never far.

Larger gesture with a partner:

For our last walk Laura and I collaborated. As we wandered around the mall we found some little coloured trinkets that were supposedly lucky charms. They didn’t seem to have any other use than as a charm. We decided to purchase 10 of them and we walked around to different clothing stores putting them in the pockets of pants for others to find. It proved to be a very interesting experience for the both of us. By this time our group had caused enough of a scene that we were being watched very closely. We had to try the pants on (which of course had no chance of fitting us – I even had a girl tell me this) and in the change room we would put the charm in the pocket and take a picture. It seems strange that Laura and I were so nervous about doing this. In reality we were giving a gift to the store or to whoever was going to find the charm, but in practice it felt like we were doing something wrong.

Mushroom Foray!

When Diane said that we would be doing a Mushroom Foray to be honest, I wasn’t even sure what that meant. I love to eat mushrooms but, for the most part, I hadn’t given them a whole lot of consideration outside of the supermarket or on my dinner plate. Well, this is almost completely true. When I was about 5 a friend and I apparently got hungry while playing in the yard at the babysitter’s house and ate the mushrooms in the grass. Until doing this foray I never understood why she was so upset and worried about us. I don’t remember much about the whole experience but I do know that were both pretty sick and had our stomachs pumped. Had they been poisonous mushrooms, it sounds like I’m lucky to be around. Anyway, back to the foray. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew I was excited about it. I grew up in the city but almost my whole extended family lives on farms. Every year growing up my uncle took my brother and I on adventures in the woods looking for wild flowers to move to his garden. I must say that there were all sorts of flowers and things to be discovered in those woods but I never remember any mushrooms! I find it interesting to think about all of the things that people miss on their daily walks because their attention is directed at other things. After doing this mushroom foray with the class there is no doubt in my mind that there would have been all sorts of mushrooms in that forest, but I was so focused on flowers I don’t remember ever seeing any. The foray with the class brought me back to these days. I felt like a giddy kid again running around in the forest looking for treasures. It amazed me how many different types of mushrooms there are. I had no idea that that many existed or that they could be found right here in Guelph. Some of the noteworthy finds that Laura and I collected were the stinkhorn ball and the chewing gum pink slime. I’m glad that I was able to have this experience that I otherwise might never have had. I think I’m hooked, I’ve noticed mushrooms everywhere I go ever since.

Les Flaneurs

Over the years it seems that Paris has undergone many changes and has slowly evolved into the city that it is today. Despite these changes such as an increase in population and the notable changes that Baron Haussmann made from 1853 – 1870, one thing has remained the same - Paris is an intricate and interesting city, explored by many. As I do my research about the Flaneurs, I can’t help but relate my findings to my own experiences. Recently I spent four months abroad living and working in Northern France at a Canadian War Memorial. During this time I came to better understand and appreciate the French culture and their way of life. At work I would often have locals coming in and trying to explain their way of life to me. The term “la joie de vivre” (the joy of living) would often come up in these conversations. As I spent more and more time, meeting new French people every day and adapting to the French way of life (as best as I could) I started to truly understand what this means. In many ways I didn’t find the French culture to be all that different from my own. Yet, it seems to be portrayed as very different. As time went on though, these little differences in day-to-day life became apparent to me. “La joie de vivre” really is a great term to explain this. It seems that on a daily basis the French culture is much better than us at taking moments to appreciate their surroundings or what it is that they are doing. There, I found myself slowing down and really taking in my experiences and surroundings - something that doesn’t seem to happen as often for me back at home. I believe a lot of this is to do with walking. I cant speak in general terms because I don’t have the experience of living all over France but in my personal experience of the area that I lived I found that for the most part, it seems that more people walk to their destinations compared to here where driving seems to be a popular option. This is for a number of reasons of course but what I would like to emphasize is that walking was a large part of my experience of living in France. In the readings about the Flaneurs it mentions that it is saying something about the life there, that they would have developed a term like Flaneurie or les Flaneurs – meaning to stroll, loiter or to fritter away time. Pg 198 Walking in France, to me, seems to play into the idea of “la joie de vivre”. It is a common activity in their daily lives that is often done even for fun. When I was there I often found myself wanting to set out and wander for no reason other than to explore and to experience the city. There were so many things to see and every street is beautiful and unique. There are also beautiful shops, cafes and boulangeries to discover around every corner. In France, walking doesn’t seem to just be something to get a person from point A to point B. It is part of the experience of the city. The article mentions a quote “now a landscape, now a room” Pg 196. This may seem strange to anyone who has not experienced this, but it is very true. In the streets, everywhere you look there is something beautiful or interesting. This is the same for the cafes and boutiques that line them. There is a blending of indoor and outdoor spaces with the cafes who’s doors stay open and tables and chairs spill out onto the streets as well as the streets which are so decorated that they sometimes give you the feeling of being inside. All of these things can only truly be experienced by walking. I once had a summer job where I was to go around my town looking at heritage houses and describing their architectural features to be catalogued. After a few weeks of going past these houses and writing about them, my boss told me that I was not giving enough detail of the house. I wasn’t capturing the whole scene and feeling of the area nor was I giving enough detail about the features. I couldn’t understand why he would say that because I thought I was doing a great job of describing all of the tiny details of these buildings. He then told me that the only way to truly see these homes was to slow down and walk through the neighbourhoods (rather than drive and stop) and really take in all of the details and the whole feeling of experience. I of course listened to my boss and tried this tactic and it made a world of difference. But, I digress. The point is, to truly experience a city or your surroundings, I strongly believe that it has to be done at a slower pace and thus, by walking. I also really believe that this is something that the French culture has figured out versus the North American culture, which jumps from place to place in the hustle and bustle of everyday life without ever really seeing, or feeling the area. Sometimes we forget to experience “la joie de vivre”!

I was lucky enough to live about 40 minutes and 15 Euros away from Paris by train. So, as anyone would (I hope), I took full advantage of how accessible the city was. I spent time in Paris just about every week. Thankfully, because of the time I had to explore I was able to slow down and really see the city. I had travelled to Paris once before and had about 48 hours to cram in everything I possibly could while I was there. I was literally running down the street at times so that I could get to the next attraction. The problem is that while I was running to see things, I really didn’t see much at all. This time around, my experience was quite different. I went to the city each time with the exact same plan – none. Each time we would stay in different areas and we were free to explore these areas without any particular goal in mind. In a sense, I myself was a sort of Flaneur. There are certain snippets of my memories that really stick out to me. As I consider these memories and why they were significant to me, it seems that the common ground between all of them is that they weren’t planned. Instead they were experiences that I had because I just happened to fall into them while wandering. One of the nights that I spent there, we set off walking outside of our hostel. Eventually we walked down a really interesting and somewhat claustrophobic narrow street lined with international food restaurants, one of a kind furniture shops, art galleries, a boutique full of scarves, and a couple cafes. It was such a strange little mishmash of boutiques and restaurants on this tiny little street that was seemingly forgotten. We continued on exploring the tight and amazing streets. I should mention that one thing that working day in and day out with people from France taught me was confidence in my French speaking abilities as well as enough confidence in my knowledge of the culture that I could comfortably walk around and not feel too ‘touristy’. It seems that my confidence coupled with the fact that I was actually still on vacation and had time to spend exploring lead me to almost naturally (and unknowingly at the time) adopt some of the behaviours of a Flaneur. Much like the Flaneurs would do, I found myself comfortably wedging my body into the crowds while still being able to casually stroll and take in the scene with no real sense of urgency or need to get to some sort of destination. On this particular walk after getting lost probably several times over without even realizing it, I eventually ended up (to my surprise) out front of Notre Dame de Paris with hundreds of people walking and talking and taking pictures. This experience was one of the most memorable I had in Paris. I should probably also mention that we were terribly exhausted and sick of talking and in a bit of a zombie trance so we parted ways in the open space outside of the cathedral for a bit to explore. Alone, I decided to wander around and take in the beauty of the church. What really struck me though as I walked through this area were the crowds of people standing shoulder to shoulder. Having seen this cathedral already many times, I was then able to detach from the touristy desires to take pictures of the building and really take in all of my surroundings. I noticed things about the area that I had never seen before and I was able to really lose myself in the people around me as I imagined the stories of some of the people in this incredibly diverse group.
Another time in Paris, I found myself in the Latin Quarter, again, with nothing to do and nowhere to be. I wandered the streets for a while in what I’m pretty sure were circles and then ended up somewhere at the edge of the Siene River. There were people everywhere and I could hear a brass band playing in the background. In front of me were some stairs so I decided to go down them to see where they led. The stairs led to a passageway about a foot and a half wide which was snug against the large wall of the bank of the Seine. I decided to walk down it while getting splashed by the water and ending up in ankle deep puddles at times (the water is not nice for the record) and then, all of a sudden, I was standing in front of the brass band that I could hear from the top of the stairs. They were too loud to stand right beside so I decided to go up another shorter set of stairs which led me to what seemed like a small island in the middle of the river. The island was absolutely beautiful with flowers, trees and benches everywhere. The band was playing in the background and it was a beautiful sunny day. I sat on a bench and people watched. The park was quite busy and people would come and go quite often. Before I knew it, again I had been lost in thought while watching the scene around me, 3 hours had past.

These experiences were not the only ones that I had like this in Paris, where I was able to aimlessly explore, but they were some notable ones. As I read about the idea of the Flaneur and what they did in Paris, I do feel like I had an experience similar to that in some ways. They speak of the Flaneur as an ideal. They seem to be a person who doesn’t really exist. Realistically I can understand this, because there aren’t many people out there who have no attachments to anything/anyone in Paris, with the time and money to wander around with no real aim. The average person in Paris I would assume is either a tourist looking to rush around and see all they can, or a resident with responsibilities and places to be. I was lucky enough to fall into a bit of a grey area where I wasn’t quite a typical tourist and I wasn’t quite a resident with responsibilities. I must say, that although I have tried, it is very hard to articulate the feelings that I have when I think about my time in Paris. I can never really explain all of the weird and wonderful people and places I saw in my time there, nor will I ever forget them. One thing for sure is that even without having any real concrete connections, I still feel a strange connection to the city that I know became stronger every time I wandered the streets.

Here is an example of one of Baudelaire's poems it is one of the poems from Les Fleurs du Mal and is a good example of a Flaneur poem and how it relates the Flaneur/walker to the city.

http://www.thelemming.com/lemming/dissertation-web/home/a-une-passante.html

Virtual Flaneur!
Simply pick the city and start exploring!

http://robotflaneur.com/

As I begin my final year here at the University of Guelph it seems fitting that I would spend my first days back wandering and exploring new territories and speaking to new people within this city that I will once again be calling home for the next eight months. In the time leading up to now, my life in Guelph hasn’t changed a whole lot from year to year. For the most part I have kept my same group of close friends and I have lived in the same apartment. I have developed my own rhythm and habits here. This year however things have changed. I have spent the last 8 months living and working in France and Prince Edward Island. Now, coming back to Guelph, everything feels new. I live in a new house with new surroundings and many of the familiar faces that I would normally see are no longer here. Having this chance to step back from school has allowed me to reflect on my experience thus far and to decide what I would like to accomplish in my final time here. And so, with this in mind, I was able to explore two new places in my first days back in Guelph. First, I would walk the route to school from my house for the first time. Second, I would take a walk through the arboretum, something I have always meant to do in Guelph but have never taken the time to do so. For each walk I would begin at my two planned starting points (my house and the entrance to the arboretum) and walk until I found a person to speak to. At that point, if they agreed, I would continue my walk with them and allow them to dictate where we would go next. I would bring along several balls of yarn and have them unravel the yarn of their choice along the way. This would leave an obvious trace of the walk since it would be out of place in both environments. It would also give some clues about the walk in terms of direction, pace (tension of yarn) as well as colour preference of the walker.

Originally I wanted to take photos of the people that I encountered. However, I found that the presence of a camera made the first few people that I met uncomfortable and seemed to raise too many questions about what exactly I was doing. I wanted to keep the atmosphere as comfortable and casual as possible where natural conversations happen rather than having it turn into a situation where they are focused on helping me with an ‘art project’. Instead I would document the trace left by the yarn in the environment after I had said goodbye to the walkers. After speaking with several people though, I was amazed at how open they were and what they actually told me. After completing each walk I jotted down notes of what each person said as well as some things I noticed about each person. The notes have become an unexpected part of the project. I had only planned to present these walks through pictures and maps but it seems that the stories, although I am undecided of whether they work best together or separate from the pictures, are an important part of the experience of these walks we have taken together.

Walk Route Number One:

The New Walk to School

About three quarters of the way through my walk to school I met Bill. I found him just up the road from his house at the start of his walk for the day. I asked him if I could join and he didn’t seem to mind.

Bill is newly retired and lives with his wife in Guelph.

He has one son who lives in B.C.

He is happy about the weather warming up again after the few cold days that Guelph had a few weeks ago

He plans to go golfing as much as possible while it is still nice outside

He is eagerly waiting for his wife to retire too (next year) so that they can join their son, his wife and their young granddaughter in B.C.

He was wearing a dark blue ball cap

After his walk Bill was going to go home and have a Bud Light and cut the lawn

Walk Route Number Two:

Explore the arboretum

Here I met Marie, a woman who looked about 70. She had already been walking a bit and was taking a break in a shady part of the

trail. I stopped with her for a minute to say hi and asked if I could continue with her when she was ready.

Marie loves coming to the arboretum because of her love for nature – especially birds.

She grew up on a farm.

Her late husband was a dairy farmer in the London area.

None of her family lives near Guelph

She is a proud grandmother and speaks very highly of her grand kids. I counted six.

She spends lots of time with the family next door who are very good to her

She has white-blonde curly hair and wears red nail polish

She wears the same beige shoes that my Nana wore every day

She has “bad legs” which looked like varicose veins and she alluded to heart problems

To my knowledge, varicose veins are painful and make walking difficult

We walked at a slow pace and she even held my arm at some of the tougher points of the walk

We ran out of yarn

I chose not to take photos of the people themselves and rather let the words that they said and the physical attributes that stuck in my mind produce an image of that person. For each walk I asked the person if they would be ok with me joining them. I also told them that I was interested in leaving a trace of our time spent together with the yarn and asked if they would unravel it as we walked. The reaction was confusion across the board but yet neither of them seemed to have a problem with it. The yarn also had an unexpected role. It seemed to be a good object to fiddle with and keep their hands busy. Although I was lucky enough to find some people open to speaking to me, there was still some awkwardness at times.