ALL THE THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

As a buying frenzy takes over and we are inundated with messages to buy, buy, and buy some more, I look back fondly at a time that might be seen by some as a time of deprivation.

A time when neighbours used to pop over to borrow a bowl of sugar.

A neighbour in India would dispatch her husband to run across and borrow besan when she was making pakoras.

He’d be back in a few minutes, did we have a spare jug of cooking oil? And some onions?

When I grumbled that it might be easier on the poor chap if we just made the darn pakoras and sent them across, I was shushed by my parents.

That’s not how one behaved with neighbours. Our neighbourliness was rewarded with a plate of pakoras the lady sent across.

As a newcomer in Canada, I borrowed gardening tools from my neighbour Dorothy so often that she used to refer to her collection as “our” tools.

But now everyone is self-contained and increasingly, those are things of the quaint past, relegated to comic strips. Dagwood and his angst with his neighbour who borrows but never returns tools.

Thus I was delighted when I spotted my neighbour W marching down the street with a carton of milk.

“I ran out of milk for my coffee so I borrowed some from K,” she explained with a grin.

Neighbourliness is also alive and well in small town Canada, as my husband and I experienced during a brief break last year on the shores of Lake Steenburg. In late September we had the lake almost to ourselves.

We’d pass someone on the trails near the cottage we were renting, and we’d stop to chat about the weather or life in the busy city compared to the serenity of our surroundings. Or we’d exchange a wave with someone fishing on the lake at a distance. That was about the level of interaction. Until we began getting alerts from the owner of the cottage about a big storm that was approaching. As her messages grew more urgent, telling us where to find candles in the cottage or cautioning us not to use the washroom in case of a power outage and requesting that we use the outhouse instead, my concern grew exponentially. I didn’t fancy trekking to an outhouse in the middle of a storm. I was also aware of the devastation caused by a storm in May that had felled numerous trees in the area. We’d passed many on our walk, uprooted and lying with giant rootballs exposed.

That afternoon, a man we’d met on our walks came over to ask if the cottage had a generator. On learning that it didn’t, he invited us over to his cottage. To use the toilet, for a hot cup of coffee, or to stay the night if the power didn’t come back.

He was extending this kindness to people he didn’t know, and would likely never see again.

This is what neighbours do. Help each other, lend support, share stuff. And in a good community, that support extends to those beyond one’s immediate circle.

A few newish initiatives take this concept further.

Along with borrowing books, a program in partnership with the Newmarket Public Library allows residents to check out a bike for two weeks.

Newmarket Cycles, a community cycling hub running out of a storage container at NewMakeIt, launched its bike-lending library last summer.

Using a Newmarket Public Library card, borrowers can sign out a bike and a helmet. According to a report in Newmarket Today, 14 bikes were available for borrowing, including some e-bikes, an adult tricycle, two youth-size bikes, and a smaller, adult-size bike. 

Program co-ordinator Mathew Varela was quoted as saying they were going to add locks, baby carriers, and half-bicycles for towing small children.

“One of the biggest barriers to cycling we see is financial,” he said. So, if you can get a really nice bike for two weeks for absolutely free, zero dollars, then I think a lot of people will give it a try and, hopefully, adopt cycling into their life.”

The hub also holds DIY repair days when people can bring their bicycles to do some small repairs, get help from the volunteers there, or learn how to make fixes.

Vaughan Public Libraries opened a Lendery at the Pierre Berton Resource Library, supporting the region’s waste management SM4RT Living Plan, which envisions “a world where nothing goes to waste”.

People can borrow tools, kitchen equipment, sporting gear and more. It can help save money, space and time because it allows you to use an item you don’t necessarily need or want to own but rather use once and return. This also helps reduce the number of items thrown away, helping foster social and cultural change that can lead to waste reduction.

The library was also accepting donations and developing acceptance guidelines to build Lendery inventory. 

“Libraries are one of the original components of the ‘sharing economy’,” said Margie Singleton, CEO of Vaughan Public Libraries. “Libraries are where you can access a wealth of resources and return them so others can enjoy them. The Lendery is a natural fit with this ethos, and we believe that it will help reduce waste in the City – we would rather have these items flying off our shelves than collecting dust on yours.”

The Library of Things at Brampton Library provides free access to equipment, tools, technologies, and experiences that foster learning, create opportunity, and connect communities. Among them, bird kits, board games, memory care kits, seasonal activity kits and... a GoPro Hero 11 camera, available to borrow for free with a library card!

We hear much about the Internet of Things. The Library of Things is something I give an enthusiastic thumbs up to!