A Trip to Good Convenience: Look Up

I love a good sign.

There used to be a sign on the side of the highway above Burlington, Ontario that said, “Sushi and Breakfast.” It always pleased me to drive past it. That unlikely culinary pairing.

 Yesterday, driving back to Hamilton from dropping my daughter Beatrice at her Toronto house, I was pleased for the umpteenth time by the sign that says, “Cricket Simulator.” Of course I know, logically, that it must be for practicing the sport of cricket. But every time, before reality overrides my mind, I think that it’s a place you can go to hear crickets sing—at odd hours or in the colder months. I imagine the sounds you could conduct. The swell of moving from a cricket solo to a cricket chorus; the joy of experiencing a summer night out of season.

In Hamilton, there’s the sign for “Good Convenience,” on Dundurn Street North. From the look of the things posted in the windows below, Good Convenience is just your average corner store. Perhaps the owners’ name is Good. But I can’t confirm any of that, because I’ve never been inside. I prefer to imagine it as a store where, any time of the day or night, you could be guaranteed to find the thing that would make you feel instantly good. What a place that would be!

The Good Convenience segment is my tribute to that imaginary ideal. A place to gather things that make me happy. Today, it’s writer and journalist Christy-Ann Conlin’s blog post about skies, and the value of looking up. It really is a quick prescription to change my perspective—not just for my work, but for myself. It’s the perfect first trip to Good Convenience. It makes me feel much better. I hope you will too.

And if you get a taste for Christy-Ann's outlook, you can read her follow up post on her skies, and read her many books—a list that she’s adding to even now…