Posts by Bruce Grierson
The Walden Pond Chicken Project
The other day I stumbled upon an early pitch for this project. My agent, Sam, was going to try to sell OBD as a book. I’d forgotten that it had a different title then. I wasn’t calling it One Big Day. It was The Walden Pond Chicken Project. That title came from Henry David Thoreau’s…
Read MoreHow to measure out your life
brooke campbell / unsplash I’m often asked: Why Big Days and not, you know … something else. Big Hours. Or Big Months. Why this particular unit of time? Is there something especially significant, something magical, about the period of 24 hours? Are we Homo Diem creatures at our core? I have a few answers to…
Read MoreBig Democracy Day
Working the BC Election, en famille October 19, 2024, 5 am The eggs crack before dawn does. Omelettes all around. Because protein. Protein is the foundation of democracy. It’s election day in British Columbia. Every election – local, provincial or national – requires citizen participation, and lots of it. There’s a variety of jobs to…
Read MoreComox Valley Turf ‘n Surf
We were trudging up toward the summit of Mt. Becher, sweating like mules on the Erie Canal, the whole lush Comox Valley and the islands of the Salish Sea spread below us, when we ran into another hiker. She meant business: had the poles, had the layers of fancy apparel and the hey-Martha boots. We…
Read MoreThe King of the Fells
New York Times photo. In early July, hundreds of “fell runners” attended the funeral of Joss Naylor, running eight miles up the valley from his home in Cumbria, England in his honour. Naylor, their quiet king, had died at age 88. Fells are what the Britons call hills and small mountains. Hoofing up and down…
Read MoreLast Night in the diner at the end of the world
This week the NPR show This American Life rebroadcast a classic episode called “24 hours at the Golden Apple.” It’s set in a greasy spoon in Chicago, one of those always-open joints that becomes a neighbourhood’s centre of gravity. Working in shifts, the show’s producers and reporters went full-court press on the place, from 5am…
Read MoreWhat does a good day look like?
Atul Gawande has changed the way he thinks about his job, and that has made all the difference to his impact on the world. He has helped change the way we think about health care at the end of life. The physician and author used to believe that a doctor’s obligation was to fight like…
Read MoreThe mayfly: patron bug of Carpe Diem
. “Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.” — Thich Nhat Hanh * Lila has a high-school teacher I’ve been a bit conflicted about. He teaches environmental science. There’s rarely any homework and the curriculum, a lot of times, seems to consist of going for walks in the woods.…
Read MoreBig Eclipse Day
The first wish-list I ever made for OBD, ten years ago, included this candidate item: “chase a solar eclipse.” I even wrote the date in the calendar: April 8, 2024. That’s today. Alas, two factors have conspired to dilute the dream. One, I’m in Vancouver, which is not in the so-called “path of totality.” And…
Read MoreDo you want to experience your life, or remember it?
[greg rakozy photo] Here’s a conundrum that has emerged for me: Big Days that are fun to do — or useful to do—are not always interesting to write about. Imagine you’ve been working your butt off day and night. A Big Sleep Day to follow? Righteous! But nobody wants to hear about it. Makes me…
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