If there’s one thing that I know for sure, is that I know nothing.
Every so often, it’s easy to lose sight of that fact. When you’re wary and alert to the possibility of missteps, you’re more likely to catch the things that could trip you up, like the deer darting across the road or the pedestrian suddenly popping up in your field of vision. It’s the second you drop your guard and coast along – thinking that you do, in fact, know everything – and move to change the radio station or to look down at your phone, that you’re more likely to hit that obstacle in your way.
Often in a community newspaper, the stories we cover are not too contentious. Who could get riled up about coverage of a Christmas concert, a quilt show or a drama production? It’s one of the reasons I love community news, for its coverage and celebration of the everyday occurrences, of our everyday life, which is no less important than the sudden, unexpected, controversial or tragic twists of fate that dominate our view of what the news is or should be.
But of course, those more conventional news stories happen here too, and we cover them, whether it’s a controversial municipal decision or a family tragedy or a court case. But in doing so, I’m always aware of the multitude of voices and perspectives that can be expressed in a news piece. I know our stories or opinion pieces can only give a fraction of the entire story, and that every person involved in that event may see it differently – so that I could never know it all or never be able to tell the whole entire story.
While I was thinking about that this weekend, I saw all the events I covered through different eyes, thinking how each person must experience it. When I went to a basketball tournament, I could see the player that looked hungry to prove himself, or the player that went down on the bench looking like she was mad at herself. I could see the coach fuelled by adrenaline calling out to the players through the game or the referee chaffing at getting calls questioned. Later at the Filipino Christmas party, I watched the children play, establishing who was who, the female friends smiling and taking selfies and the musician noodling around on his guitar, playing – somewhat to my surprise – Stairway to Heaven. And when I thought about how many voices there were to represent at each event, how to give voice to the thousands of lives I presume to cover, I realized again how very, very little I know.
But I realize too, how little I truly need to know.
On my last event of the weekend on Sunday evening, I took my son – at his insistence - to a hockey game in Saddle Lake. When we finally exited the car, and I hoisted his droopy, sleepy body up, his eyes widened when he finally looked outside to see the snow falling everywhere.
He lifted his face up and said, “It’s an explosion!”
The snow was swirling around us in the light of the arena. We caught a few of those perfect, delicate flakes on our tongue. I stopped for a moment and smiled.
What do I need to know? Right now, catching snowflakes on my tongue, it’s not complicated. It’s not multi-faceted. The most important thing in the world feels pretty simple to me and he’s looking up with wonder and the rest falls away.
