Parallel Universes

The Waterfront
Kelowna, British Columbia


I have often been mesmerized by those 3-D graphics that were popular twenty years ago. One looks at an apparently random array of color splotches and sees nothing specific. After staring for a while and holding one’s mouth right, suddenly the image transforms into a three-dimensional world that is compelling in its depth. One wonders how it was possible to have missed the image in the first place.

So it can be when traveling. Tourists see the world through rosy colored glasses. All-inclusive resorts in the tropics have high walls surrounding them to make sure the three dimensional world of poverty remains invisible. Tour guides have an uncanny ability to take travelers from one oasis to the next without getting sand in their shoes.

My experiences here in Kelowna have been exactly the same as looking at the garish graphic art. I basked in a tourist image of a magnificent city, one devoid of the challenges that plague America cities – homelessness, drugs, poverty, litter, and crime. I have spent days photographing yacht clubs and high rise towers of luxury, gazing at expensive paintings under tensor lights, enjoying the beach at a upscale resort. After staring at these uplifting images here for eleven days, suddenly another world has come into clear focus. It is not one that shows up in the travel brochures.

One afternoon after returning from a happy outing, I was summoned to the front of the house to see what a man out in the front yard was doing. Discrete use of a zoom camera revealed him to be shooting up heroin. Something was starting to clarify in my head and it was not artsy. The next day Barbara came to tell me she had just found a bag of used syringes and needles in the back yard. Suddenly, I understood why there is such a religious discipline given to keeping things locked up around here. Two days ago another couple of guys were seen on the street injecting themselves with certain death.

Today I went out to ride my bike to the top of Knox Mountain. My route takes me through several city parks. On Saturday these same parks were filled with tanned blond people living out happy days in the sun. The annual Dragon boat races were on and thousands of spectators were enjoying the cafes and festivities. Today the parks seemed empty until I started looking closer. In the bushes and trees one could see homeless men beginning to thaw out from the stiffening cold of the night air. They slowly unwrapped themselves from tree roots in a bid to capture the first nascent warmth from the rising sun. I found myself sharing the bike path with old people pushing grocery carts filled with their belongings. Suddenly, the images of tanned beauties on their roller blades and Cannondale bikes were supplanted by images of the disenfranchised living on the frayed edges of dreams that never came to pass. A very different world was in clear focus.

I left the necklace of waterfront parks, heading to Knox Mountain, wondering what a compassionate response should be to what I have seen in this very real shadow world. I simply prayed all the way up the mountain, asking for wisdom to do the next right thing. I sure didn’t feel like taking pictures today.