the

 

itherpress >>> OPINIONS

Suburban Graffiti

Dawn-Louise Mcleod
OP Columnist

Wow, my own column, | thought. And | can
write about anything.

Then my editor utters the words of doom.

"Just be yourself," he says.

Be myself? Yikes. Anything but that.

Suddenly | have no time to
write. | rediscover my dormant
powers of procrastination,
taking refuge in domestic
drudgery. Knitting, cleaning
toilets, even tidying my kids’
rooms fascinates me.
Anything to avoid public reve-
lation.

At the eleventh hour before
deadline, the invocation to "Be yourself" is
reverberating in my brain like a ghostly
mantra from a B grade Disney movie. |
retreat to the woods for a solitary hike,
hoping to find a way out of my predicament.
What the heck, it worked for Trudeau.

But | don’t find enlightenment, or even a
bear. Unexpectedly, | come to grips with
ordinariness—my own.

Thanks to my suburban upbringing, | once
considered myself daring, creative, and a

a sin) won y 2 ve

    

 

bit weird. During my walk in the woods, |
admit to myself that | am really quite
ordinary, and possibly boring.

After all, who am |? A middle-class subur-
banite with nothing more than a large Visa

bill and a habit of independent and open-
minded thinking. Considered by some to be
antisocial, this way of thinking is actually a
survival strategy: a bear would terrify me,
but life alone on a desert island would not
(unless the island was inhabited by bears.)
| will even go so far to say that a desert
island is my idea of Club Med.

Realizing my ordinariness is truly deflat-
ing. I’m encouraged by the thought,
however, th

i o pee zy rr aac

  

at most people are ordinary and

rather than admit it will go to great lengths
to escape their ordinariness.

Which leads me back to the name and the
subject of this column.

Like many other words, both "suburban"
and "graffiti" imply more than their diction-
ary definitions and elicit certain labels and
preconceptions.

Think "suburban". It means, "Relating to a
residential community on the outskirts of a
city." Other words not included in that
definition are implied, however: sheltered,
conventional, staid, provincial, conserva-
tive, mediocre, and—yes—ordinary and
boring.

Now think "graffiti." Definition: "Drawings
or inscriptions made on a wall or other
surface." But the images that spring to mind
are of inner city gang warfare and
spraycan-wielding hooligans.

| see myself as a suburban graffiti artist,
willing to escape ordinary by fessing up to
it, by taking my attitude to press and say
that boring and ordinary have been given a
bad rap. Here you’ll find a closer look at the
ways we trade adventure for the illusion of
security, how we exchange safety for self-

expression. In "Suburban
explore both,

“After all, who am |? A middle-<&2"". . be through a
class suburbanite with nothing
more than a large Visa bill”

housewife hanging out with
rapsters, or a performance
artist shopping for lawnmow-
ers at Canadian Tire.

Look for forays into the
strange and the familiar, the
juxtaposition of diverse and
perverse elements of ordinary life. Check
out the wayward scribbling of a foolhardy
mind bent on a quest for accidental enlight-
enment.

Because here, separate or in tandem,
you'll find the suburban and the sublime.

How far will you go to escape your
ordinariness? Send your comments to:
subgraf @ otherpress.com