3.7 Breath with Curniss McGoldrick

Script I brought into my recording space, and questions I shared with Curniss before our conversation.

Welcome to Something Different This Way Comes. This season I am imagining the Kindness Economy and today joining me to kick that idea around, to add her perspective and insight is Curniss McGoldrick. Today’s conversation is a welcome home of an unwinding and invitation to be yourself

A deep breath

Chorus

 I met Curniss McGoldrick a few years ago when we both sat on the city’s Climate Action task force, me as a volunteer citizen, and Curniss as a municipal employee, the City’s Climate Adaptation Coordinator. https://www.thunderbay.ca/en/city-hall/resources/Documents/EarthCare/Thunder-Bay_Net-Zero-Strategy_WEB-VERSION_Accessible.pdf
That was a while ago, and our paths have crossed pretty often ever since. She has changed roles,
she worked for the Province as their Great Lakes Advisor for a few years, and now she works for Local Governments for Sustainability Canada. 

https://icleicanada.org/#:~:text=Canadian%20ICLEI%20members%20are%20part,equitable%2C%20resilient%20and%20circular%20development.

I reached out to ask her about the Liveable Cities forum they host annually, then saw her a few days later at the Strong Towns presentation the City hosted at the Italian Hall. I was the first one to ask a question after the presentation and Curniss was the second. Before we left that community gathering she agreed to this conversation. Once we finally organized a time to have it, she suggested we have it at the Habit.

Now before I play you my recording of that conversation (held last Tuesday night as the sky softened into late evening outside) I want to tell you a bit about the Habit. It is a coffeeshop in a church turned Abbey at the corner of Algoma and Red River Road in the historic downtown core of Thunder Bay’s north end, which was before amalgamation in the 1970s Port Arthur. It’s at a high point from which Red River Road spills down towards the Bay, The marina at its feet, the water and the Sleeping Giant peninsula right there.

I met some of the people who were behind turning this old Baptist church into an Abbey before that specific plan was hatched. They were devoted Christians haunted by the homelessness and hunger in our City and when I met them, at a party at which we were all guests, they talked at length about their efforts to find some way to turn heated, insured, sturdy buildings empty most or all of the time and right down in our City Cores into shelter, refuges and places of welcome for those among us most in need of those basic dignities. My understanding is they got this Church transformed from unused to bustling.

On the Tuesday night we met the Thunder Bay Traditional Music group TBay Trad  was gathering downstairs for an informal rehearsal and sing along. The Abbey also offers free  meals and is a women’s shelter in other parts of the building. We met in the coffeeshop, manned mostly by volunteers, which is resonant as the Church it was built to be. And beautiful, with stain glass windows, soaring ceiling and a hip coffeeshop vibe.

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Q1. Curniss we are going to try and jump over how we get to and through these transformations we are imagining. Though sometimes a bit of context explaining why these differences are welcome is great, we’re going to try to avoid the rabbit holes and stay focused on envisioning a welcome, feasible, could happen pretty quick future Thunder Bay. Sound good?

Okay. Let’s start with where you live. What part of town do you live in? What is the first welcome difference in your neighbourhood you imagine?

What about a place that is another part of your everyday - what is another familiar place you can imagine transformed for the better in the not so distant future?

Let’s talk about water movement through the City. We’ve had incredible rainfall events here that prompted the failure of our water management system and sudden extreme flooding into people’s homes and businesses. Thanks for the climate crisis, extremes are the unpredicable certainly of the next few decades. Changes have been made since then that I think have helped us since, though it is harder to notice when systems work well than when they fail. What springs to your mind as a welcome difference you can imagine in Thunder Bay when it comes to water? 

How about green spaces in Thunder Bay, the ones we share and the way people use the land they own around their homes and businesses. Imagine walking through a specific Thunder Bay neighbourhood that has been made more secure and rich because we manage its green spaces differently than we do today. What do you see? Why is it making a welcome difference?

How about energy efficiency. It is so easy to waste the hard-won energy we need to heat & cool our buildings, power our lights and computers and fridges. What energy conservation measures can you imagine in Thunder Bay that would really make a welcome difference?

Let’s talk about community. Imagine a Thunder Bay that is rich in places for people to build connection with one another, both casual connections like a neighbour you share a smile and a passing chat with, to places you spend time building friendships and memories with close friends and family. What can you imagine noticing in this not so distant future Thunder Bay that is feeding our connections to one another?

How about food? Thunder Bay was autonomous when it came to growing and keeping between harvests the food the people who live here eat until after the Second World War. In the 1940s the population of the City was about half of what it is now, but it was the industry’s move away from sustainable small farms that gutted that sustainability, not the number of mouths to feed. Everyone I talk to who knows these things agrees we have the land and the capacity to feed ourselves. I have been determined to eat as locally as I can manage for a couple of decades now and I am eager to imagine the whole City figuring this one out. When you imagine Thunder Bay with 100% food security, despite the challenges and risks of the extreme and unpredictable weather of the Climate Crisis, what do you see?

How about business. Imagine how business and industry is different in this more secure, resilient and sustainable Thunder Bay of the near future. What is the secret to this success, and what does it look like in our every day?

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Curniss McGoldrick and I met at the Habit coffee and bakeshop in Thunder Bay.

Song - Breath

(a, G, C, E)
Breath (a, G, C, E)
Take a deep breath (a, G, C, E)
A breath (a, G, C, E)
You’re home (a, G, C, E)

(a) You’re home
(G) You’re safe
(C maj) You’re known
(E) You’re home

Let’s (a) build this city
(G) one space, one place
(C maj) at a time
(E) Your home

Chorus

(a) You’re home - show up
(G) You’re safe - speak up
(C maj) You’re known - give it a try
(E) You’re home - give us your why

Let’s (a) make this City
For (G) us and ours
Our (C maj) people’s place
Our (E) Home

Chorus

I loved that conversation. I was prepared for Curniss to include much more visible and tactile changes, like the solar panels, windmills and food gardens throughout the City that Sam has been looking to see sprouting ever since we began this quest to help Thunder Bay realize welcome differences, to see us through this climate and social inclusion crisis. 

But Curniss brought the change home to our hearts, to our courage, to the conversations we have and the changes we push for. She imagines slowing down and embracing the homes we have, the people around us, the power we have to change, to choose, to ask, to expect, to slow down and show up

I’m Heather McLeod

Thank you for joining me for this conversation with Curniss McGoldrick. Find resources we referenced and more at www… Where you can also become a patron of this podcast and contribute a little something to help pay me for my work, as writer, producer, composer, host, editor and buck-stops-here podcaster. Just look for the Go Fund Me button on the home page. The price of a coffee and a cookie at a local shop like the Habit, once a month, would be so welcome. But if you can’t afford to pitch in, that’s okay, the person who can will and we all get a podcast

Theme

Join me next week 

Let’s make our city a breath. Let’s make it a deep breath. Slow down. Notice. Cherish. Persist. Pay attention. Be atuned to what’s going on. How can I show up here? Slow down & show up. Here. Engaging the people the city is built for. Every one of us. The show up and the shut in and the rest.