Community and Culture

Le Chateau top (c/o) (similar)
Aritzia culottes (similar)
Oak + Fort mules (similar)
Sezane bag
Vintage belt (via Mom) (similar)
Mango sunglasses
Elizabeth Lyn Jewelry necklace (c/o)
Muru Jewellery necklace (c/o)
Delphine Pariente ring (similar)
Madewell rings
Mango earrings
Location: Grain Exchange Building – Minneapolis, Minnesota

Why are the most beautiful buildings always placed in the most awkward spots, with narrow sidewalks in front of them and traffic on all sides? That question is entirely rhetorical. Most of the buildings I love pre-date significant car traffic, including this stunner that we discovered on our recent trip to Minneapolis, which explains it. They were built with function in mind, not fashion editorials. The vintage architecture in downtown Minneapolis is breathtaking. Photo opportunities surrounded us on all sides – as did people who felt within their rights to share their thoughts on our photography with us.

One of the things I loved about living in Vancouver was the anonymity of it. The city is full of people from other places, with no roots and no attachments. Ties to community are, at best, loose. People live and let live, because why not? There is something wonderful about going about your life exactly as you see fit in a place where no one will ask questions, or even give a sign that they notice. But that lack of community investment is a double-edged sword because developing a support network as an adult in a place where no one seems to feel a sense of permanence or obligation is a major challenge. Add in the fact that everyone is constantly focussed on the unabating financial pressure they live under and it becomes next to impossible.

Returning to the prairies meant a return to living in a true community, with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with it. My days of avoiding the question, “Do you have kids?” came to an immediate end when we got back. Prairie cities do not, in general, attract large swathes of outsiders looking for new opportunities. Everyone I meet in Winnipeg knows someone I already know, and probably a lot of other people I already know, too. With that level of connection comes an immediate network – introductions, invitations and, inevitably, questions. Judgement. Living in a community means being part of it, reluctantly or otherwise. The investment people make in a community gives them the impression they have certain rights over it.

The funny thing is, this isn’t about Winnipeg at all. But there are significant similarities between Winnipeg and Minneapolis, the two biggest cities in arguably small places. We saw them instantly, when we landed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. And yet, those similarities were never more acute than in the twenty minutes we spent taking these photos in front of the Grain Exchange building. Across the street at a bus stop sat a local man. And while waiting for his bus, he watched us; the street was quiet, with few cars actually passing by. He had no book with him, so I presume he had nothing else to do.

To get these shots, Ian needed to move in and out of the road. It was hardly the first time he’s captured an outfit from the street, despite the possibility of cars. When we first met, and in particular on our first trip to Paris together, he was always leaping into the road to capture the perfect shot. He scared me to death a couple of the times doing it on the crowded Champs-Elysees, if I’m honest. But he was a photographer before we met, long before Coco & Vera. And he knows exactly the kind of risks he’s willing to take to get the shot.

The man at the bus stop knew none of that. Nor, I suspect, did he care to. He is part of the Minneapolis community and, in his mind, that gave him certain rights – including the right to dictate correct behaviour. “Being an Instagram boyfriend isn’t worth dying for!” he shouted at us quite out of the blue, apparently hoping to save Ian from the dangerous demands I was making of him. The comment served to alter nothing in our behaviour. We took photos, with Ian stepping in and out of traffic, until we got the shots. But I can still hear it; the derision, and the presumption in it, the way the individual who offered was convinced he knew the right thing when in reality, he knew nothing at all.

People need community. Living in Vancouver, for me, very often felt like waiting for life to begin because there were no ties to bind us to anything. But living in a strong community, and bearing witness to the way that it can validate negative behaviour as much as it supports and buoys people when they need it, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a middle ground to be found somewhere… Or if we all have to find that middle ground for ourselves, setting the boundaries of what we will tolerate in order to be part of the whole and what we will ignore for the sake of our own sanity.

Suffice it to say that no hastily offered words of judgement stand between me and the perfect photo.

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