LiveCity Yaletown, je t’aime

Remember that 2006 movie, Paris, je t’aime? All the short films about Paris? I sometimes wake up thinking about those films or wonder what their characters would be doing now. Recently I felt like I was actually in one of the movies- the last one on the tape called 14e arrondissement by Alexander Payne. It’s about a middle aged woman who goes and visits Paris by herself. She wears a hipsack, uses French, sightsees, and takes it all in. In the closing scene she sits on a park bench and at once is filled with great joy and great sadness.

Well, LiveCity Yaletown, je’taime. I didn’t have a hipsack but an oversized purse, rain jacket, a map of Olympic venues and the honest intent to really take in the hugeness of the Games, the crowds, the line-ups, pavilions, energy, excitement. Like how some people go to Paris to feel love, I went to LiveCity Yaletown to feel magic.

The thing with magic and love is you’ve got to feel connected to something and usually that something is a someone or a lot of someones.  And like the character in the film, I didn’t. Sure, I talked to a few strangers, shared some cheers, tried to get a few interviews at some pavilions (not allowed), smiled and bobbed from foot to foot in the chilly rain with some super friendly blue-jacket volunteers, but the experience was at once, sad and joyful.  Sad to  not find that “it” I was looking for, joyful to watch the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team come back from the US loss with such a vigour and confidence, such a focus and clarity and speed, it was like James Hetfield sang Ohhyeahh at every flick of a skate’s blade and the team could score on Russia as though their sticks had wings.

What an incredible game. I’m sure we were all there because we wanted that incredible game to be bigger than our little screens at home or just streaming it from our computers at work. We wanted to be a part of it. Why go stand in the pouring rain in the late afternoon, cold and wet, watching a self-conscious good-hearted band from Manitoba play until pre-game if you don’t want something more?

But you can’t make it happen. Woody Allen said 80% is showing up. Yup. But what’s that other 20%? That’s the magic, that’s the feeling of love, that’s transcending whatever your current reality is and watching it turn into something else. That’s the shift, that’s what has made Malcolm Gladwell rich and probably not at all insecure to hang out in any New York City restaurant he pleases.

I forgot myself and where I was everytime Canada scored. A huge cheer went up from the crowd and my hands hit the air like jay z told me to.

But something was missing. Right in the centre of me.

I wanted to go around hugging people, especially the ones with canadian flags as capes, but I didn’t. I walked home with a heavy/ light heart, woohoo’ing pockets of people shouting Go-Canada-Go; high-fiving strangers, taking pictures, cheering at honking cars but not really feeling a part of it. I had tried to get into LiveCity Yaletown a few times and didn’t make it in. So,  I think I stored up my waiting-for-the-Olympics-magic to hit me and unfold within those large blue gates. But instead I got some rain, some friendly nods, some not so friendly nods, some small talk, some smiles and the chance to watch an incredible hockey game on a screen so big I couldn’t fit it all in my camera.  What I got was a sense of life, with its mixed bag of goods and bads.

And I also got this: a sound appreciation for those kids who dressed up and danced.