Communication is complicated.
Each generation becomes more connected than the next, but it seems we all share the same tendency to see those connections as more burdensome than blessed.
Ignored letters became ignored telegrams, which became ignored phone calls that led us to ignored pages, then emails, then Facebook messages.
My oldest kid is three, who knows what communication methods he’ll curse when old acquaintances reach out to him?
We all have at least one person in our lives whom we once held dear, but now don’t talk to due to an inability to break a silence we can’t remember coming into existence.
It’s nobody’s fault, and it’s often a case of two parties waiting for the other to break the silence. It spreads like a mold and quickly becomes impossible to kill.
A day of silence between friends becomes a week and then a month and then a year.
I’m not quick to friend, but my Facebook list is still full of people I haven’t talked to in years. I reached out to one while writing this to see what would happen. Colour me socially experimental.
“Rey Sanchez struck out 17 times in 1992,” I wrote, accurately—my desk is a venerable treasure trove of baseball cards making me a venerable treasure trove of random baseball facts when I’m sitting at it.
“So did I,” he responded, dishonestly.
That led to a conversation. I found out he’s been living on the same Island as me for the past two years.
Plans were made.
A reconnection was established.
It took maybe five minutes.
I encourage you to try it. I’ll even lend you a baseball card you can use as a hammer to break the ice.
Silence can be obnoxiously uncomfortable to fight your way out of, but it’s a foe worth going to war with. You’ll never know how beautiful the rekindled flame could be until you light the spark.
Scott Fraser shouldn’t need ice-breakers, but apparently he’s got some ice to break.
“Our current MLA has done zero to reach out to this current council,” were not words I was expecting to write last week. Nor were they words you expected to hear. They came from Ucluelet Coun. Mayco Noel and were backed up, to a much softer degree, by both Mayor Dianne St. Jacques and Coun. Sally Mole who each suggested our MLA has room to improve when it comes to communication.
I like Fraser a lot. He’s a high energy guy who talks a good game and has me convinced that he cares. I like Ucluelet’s council too though, and they’re not so sure he does.
I was disappointed to hear they’re hearing a deafening silence from him.
It’s anyone’s guess when it started, or who started it, but it’s got to stop.
MLA’s have busy jobs, but their busyness comes from reaching out to the local governments in their constituencies to figure out what fights need fighting.
Housing tops our list, but we also need a safer highway, seismically sound schools, the right to keep our cops and for the Resort Municipality Initiative program to be extended.
Who knows what kind of beautiful tools we could cast if we lit a collaborative spark?
You’ve got to be awfully handsome to pull of an ‘Ask not what your province can do for you, but what you can do for your province,’ type line and Fraser’s never seemed to me to be the kind of guy who’d try any buck-passing.
I think he cares, but communication is complicated. I don’t believe he’s ignoring any calls, but I do believe he needs to start making some.
Just like we expect our councils to engage with us, tell us what’s going on and care about how we’re feeling about the direction our community is headed, they expect their MLA to engage with them.
Ucluelet’s got a lot of exciting stuff going on that could be used as a hammer to break the ice and I could always lend Fraser a baseball card if he needs one.