there is a street light right outside my bedroom window that floods my backyard with artificial light all night long, it’s terrible. it also seems to be affecting plant growth in my yard. so does soil quality. water quality as well. we had our water tested a couple of months ago and it’s as bad as Flint, Michigan. we have a problem with lead poisoning in Montreal, especially the oldest neighbourhoods. buildings in my hood are selling for millions now, displacing renters, and these new millionaire home owners are drinking garbage quality water that is legit making them more stupid.
lead poisoning causes brain damage.
it’s amazing. i am amazed.
and here i am, drinking the kool aid too.
plants do well enough but they don’t thrive in my yard, many of them die. sometimes i feel like E.T. empathically connected to my plants, our health mutually waxing and waning depending on how toxic our environment is. you know?
noise pollution also a problem. and now with COVID restrictions and everyone staying home, cabin fever. this feeling that i can’t walk more than 5 steps in any direction without banging into something or someone.
this is normal. this is to be expected. i’ve been living downtown for 20 years, in an entertainment district that vibrates with music and noise and crowds spilling onto the sidewalk every weekend. a slightly perceptible boom boom boom! in the air around us. i don’t necessarily mind this, the social noises, the loud music so long as it’s not too violent or repetitive, makes no difference to me. it’s all the added layers of noise pollution that grates on my nerves. loud vehicles. rush hour. people screaming at the top of their lungs just to hear themselves and each other. loud drunk people.
at least it’s not as bad as the Vieux Port with that dance club blaring music right off the water like that, so loud that you can both hear and feel the noise pollution along the shore in St-Lambert. i wonder how it affects the fish in the seaway. makes them swim sideways or some shit. like when you shine an artificial light sideways in a fish tank. affects their swim bladder. makes fish swim sideways. i’m not a fish expert but it’s a thing. look it up.
like a lot of other folks i used to mock people on the south shore who complained about noise pollution. but have gone biking along the paths there many times in the summer over the years and the music from across the St-Lawrence is almost always BOOMING, the south shore is inundated with noise pollution from les Terrasses Bonsecours in the Vieux Port. and music festivals on Ile Ste-Helene.
i love music and i love music festivals but if i lived near the lakeshore in St-Lambert, Brossard or Longueuil I’d be pissed as fuck at the noise pollution, especially if i had to get up early in the morning to work on the weekends. should be a better compromise there.
anyway. just an example, that our government or people in Quebec don’t take don’t noise pollution very seriously. that cracking down on noise pollution is an infringement rather than a benefit. even though noise pollution causes heart disease.
weird remnants of a masochistic Catholic culture in Quebec. indulging in self-punishment.
anyway.
i’m an outdoorsy person. i need more space. a recently renovated home. a bigger garden. a workshop. good water and air filtration. sound proofing. i absolutely love my neighbourhood and the folks in it but i need some room to breathe. it’s suffocating. insular. saps my creativity. i feel like i’m caged in…
i need to move to a less densely populated neighbourhood. not the suburbs but not downtown either. urban burbs.
urburbs?
yes indeed.
or something better than this.