Passions, not pastimes

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This article was published 25/04/2021 (1621 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made our lives narrower, but our hobbies wider.

More than a year ago, when the pandemic arrived and the province went into its first lockdown, many Manitobans found themselves with a lot more time on their hands. After they realized there’s only so much Netflix you can watch before the shows start to blend together, they used those hands to try new hobbies.

Some pastimes taken up were passing fancies. However, for every Winnipegger who let their sourdough starter die after a month or whose running shoes haven’t pounded the pavement since last July, there are many others still going strong in their COVID-discovered hobbies to this day.

This is the first in a two-part series about just some of those Winnipeggers.

For recent Winnipeg transplant Roberto Mazzeo, lockdown meant pouring himself into abstract art.

Mazzeo arrived from Buenos Aires in January 2020 for work. He had only two months to get to know the city before the first lockdown.

A user-experience designer, Mazzeo dabbled in some calligraphy and illustration in the past, and also took some drawing classes “to understand the human figure” but said it wasn’t his thing. Last spring, he started to do abstract art on a tablet.

During the second wave last fall — when cases spiked and Manitoba was under severe restrictions — he decided to start some doing bigger pieces on canvas and paper using India ink. He uses textured, free-form, and experimental lines and shapes to create striking black-and-white works of art.

“For me, it is very therapeutic and I feel very well after finishing one of my pieces, especially the larger ones,” Mazzeo said, adding he never approaches a piece with a specific plan.

“I really enjoy the process and the discovery,” he said. “I let it grow organically from the lines themselves, so watching it grow by following my own logic for it is really fun. Honestly, I never know where I will end up when I start one of my paintings, but I’m always very happy with the result.”

Mazzeo said his art has improved, as he “started with sketches and very timid lines in a small notebook” but has now finished a 30-by-60-inch canvas painting of which he’s very proud.

Meanwhile, Derrick Donovan found an active hobby that’s become a family affair.

It’s hard to believe Donovan has time for any hobbies at all — he’s a night-shift paramedic in the private sector, a first-aid instructor and a security guard — but he, his wife Annalyn, and his three children have taken to hiking every second weekend.

COVID-19 put the kibosh on most of the things he, Annalyn, and boys Braydin, 12, Kaydin, 7, and Zaiden, 3, would do on the weekends, such as visiting the Steinbach Aquatic Centre or eating out.

“We wanted to do something safe, so, hiking! It’s outside, in the open, and everyone seems really nice and follows safe distancing.”– Derrick Donovan

“We wanted to do something safe, so, hiking!” he said. “It’s outside, in the open, and everyone seems really nice and follows safe distancing.”

The group has taken to Spirit Sands in Spruce Woods Provincial Park three times — that’s the most beautiful hike they’ve done, Donovan said — the Pinawa Heritage Suspension Bridge, the Black’s Point Interpretive Loop north of Hecla-Grindstone Provincial Park, and other trails.

“All three kids start at a run and eventually the baby starts tiring out and asks to be carried for 10 to 15 minutes,” Donovan said. “And then, of course, runs off again.”

Donovan said the Facebook group Hiking Manitoba has been an invaluable resource, as has the AllTrails app, which has detailed trail maps. The Facebook page often dictates the trails they take.

“On the Facebook group, people post beautiful pictures and my wife and I look and decide ‘That’s the best target’ then we go do it,” he said.

While Donovan has taken to the outdoors, Bren Dixon has taken to the kitchen for something he and his partner James Dixon call “quaran-dine.”

The cheekily named event is a fancy theme meal Bren and James — married for nine years now — enjoy together every Friday night.

Bren makes as much of the food from scratch as possible, including breads, dressings and sauces. Perhaps even more impressively, all his cooking is completely vegetarian. You can drool over his sumptuous dishes on his Instagram @bren_dixon.

Each meal has main course dishes, dessert and a drink that all ties together, Bren explained. The theme is sometimes broad, other times specific.

Examples include “Winnipeg night” (fat boy burgers, Mitzi’s-style chicken fingers and honey dill sauce, caesars to drink and Schmoo cake) “Ikea, but make it fancy” (homemade meatballs, brunkål cabbage, lingonberry cocktails, and princess cake) and “elevated childhood” (sourdough “pizza pops” stuffed with Beyond Sausage, caramelized onions and mushrooms, caesar salad with croutons made from home-baked bread, and upscale Pop-Tarts.)

Bren is a one-person show in the kitchen; James does not cook at all.

“The one time he insisted on making a cake for his friend’s birthday it exploded in the oven,” Bren recounted. “Literally.”

However, plans are in place for James to cook some simpler dishes when Bren has an intensive six weeks of school in May and June (he’s pursuing a degree in social work).

“Quaran-dine” had humble beginnings, Bren said. The idea came during the first lockdown when the couple’s go-to Friday-night dinner and drinks spot, the Yellow Dog Tavern, had to close.

“Suddenly we no longer had that so I decided to make us something once a week to look forward to,” Bren said. “It paused in the summer and then, with the second lockdown, I went full tilt. That’s when we started calling it quaran-dine.”

“We’ve always scheduled our time together around friends and other commitments. The pandemic has changed that. Now our time together is the focus of our relationship… it is a conscious moment of just us two together, breaking bread with no distractions.”– Bren Dixon

“It has brought me and James closer,” Bren said. “We’ve always been good about spending time together, but were also so used to doing our own thing. We’ve always scheduled our time together around friends and other commitments. The pandemic has changed that. Now our time together is the focus of our relationship… it is a conscious moment of just us two together, breaking bread with no distractions.”

The most meaningful menu Bren has cooked so far was during “family recipes” week, when he replicated dishes his grandmother made, including her sweet-and-sour meatballs, using a vegetarian ground beef alternative.

The food brought him to tears.

“I haven’t had this food in 20 years, and I was very close with her,” Bren said. “People talk about how food can feel almost spiritual at times and connect you to your culture. Before this meal, I never fully understood what that meant. The first bite I took of her sweet-and-sour meatballs was a full-body experience in a way I can’t truly put in words — just a flood of memories and connection.”

While Bren has poured himself into the kitchen, Adam Delbridge has poured himself into electronics.

The Red River College carpentry instructor has built a fully functioning arcade cabinet from scratch and has learned to modify retro video game consoles.

Delbridge has always enjoyed tinkering with electronics. With the extra time he had due to RRC shutting down, he fell down a YouTube rabbit hole, learning the ins and outs of retro rigs and how people are reinvigorating them with new modifications.

He got to thinking about the arcades he played in as a youth and thought of buying his own cabinet. But then he realized he had the skills to build one himself.

“I went all out on this build to make it 100 per cent professional,” Delbridge said of the cabinet, which bears a splashy Street Fighter II marquee and theme.

The inside guts are just a small computer that runs a program to emulate arcade games, which allows Delbridge to store tons of titles and change them up at his leisure. The screen is an old Sanyo tube TV he bought on Facebook Marketplace.

The project took months and Delbridge’s partner painted psychedelic planets, canyons and mountains along the sides. Surprisingly, Delbridge said painting the cabinet was the most difficult and time-consuming part of the whole process.

Not surprisingly, though, the most enjoyable part for Delbridge has been heading downstairs and playing games that are just more fun on a real machine — Marvel vs. Capcom, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, and many others.

“The most rewarding part for me is playing the machine with friends, which has been very, very minimal due to COVID restrictions,” he said. “Playing a fighting game like Marvel vs. Capcom with a friend, trying to beat each other, and smacking the joystick and buttons is just so much fun that takes me back to when I was a kid.”

Delbridge also repairs and modifies old consoles for himself and others. He’s “modded” SEGA Dreamcasts, Geneses and Saturns to play burned and region-locked games and have more memory.

“I really enjoy fixing them up,” he said. “I’d say that is my favourite part, but I do play these consoles more than my modern computer games. It is really exciting to play games I have never heard of or games I have always wanted to try.”

He now has a full lineup of custom, modified SEGA consoles. That’s a feather in his cap, since his family didn’t have a lot of money when he was growing up, making the “latest and greatest” consoles unattainable for him as a lad.

All three hobbyists expressed how the outlets have helped their mental health in addition to helping pass the time.

Dixon, the cook, said the weekly meal has been “amazing” for his.

“It’s something to look forward to throughout the week,” he said. “Building the menu, recipes, and mapping out how to make it happen around my school and work schedule keep me very focused away from the pandemic. I love reading about food and learning bits of the history of what I am making, or tracking down ingredients in Winnipeg.”

The artist Mazzeo said it is great to be able to focus on something other than work and his personal life.

“I do play video games and watch some TV, but it is not the same as creating something from scratch and seeing it grow before my eyes,” he said.

Console-fixer-upper Delbridge said, “It brings me much joy that I can bring these (game systems) back to life in my basement, while I am isolating from the world due to the pandemic.”

They all said they fully intend to keep up with their hobbies even after the pandemic is finally over.

Mazzeo has big plans and said he could even see himself “transitioning into making this (his) full-time work.” He is going to design a website and online shop so he can start selling prints or even original pieces.

For now, though, he’s going to continue to work on his Instagram account (@robertomazzeo.ca) and focus on discovery and creation.

Donovan said he’s 100 per cent committed to hiking at least every second weekend going forward, even though he’s also starting a psychiatric nursing course at Brandon University’s Winnipeg campus in the fall.

He also reported that the quality time together hiking has helped the boys get along better.

“For the first few months of COVID, they were busy fighting over sharing the computer, etcetera, because we were stuck inside. Now every weekend they literally just ask to go to (Spirit Sands) and don’t nearly fight as much as before.”– Derrick Donovan speaking how quality time during the family hikes has helped his sons.

“For the first few months of COVID, they were busy fighting over sharing the computer, etcetera, because we were stuck inside,” he said. “Now every weekend they literally just ask to go to (Spirit Sands) and don’t nearly fight as much as before.

“After the hikes they are simply falling asleep,” he laughed.

Dixon said he plans to continue cooking fancy meals, as he loves the focus it’s brought him. He looks forward to the prospect of hosting friends when it’s safe to do so.

“We’ve talked about what (quaran-dine) might look like after, and I think we will continue to do a monthly meal,” he said. “Sometimes just us, and sometimes with friends. It’s funny, as someone who loves to cook, I’ve never been someone to host dinners, so I think that would be a great way to share my love of food more with the people I love while continuing to challenge myself in the kitchen.”

As for Delbridge, he said he’s not likely to make another full cabinet — the computer inside allows him to play as many games as he wants and another one would take up too much space. But he’s going to keep modifying and fixing consoles.

“It’s a great way of making a little extra money and I love the challenges it brings me,” he said. “The troubleshooting, diagnosing, fixing, and cleaning is the part I enjoy the most — the process. There are many other consoles I have not even opened up yet so there is still a lot to learn and do and I am excited about that.”

● ● ●

More than 100 eager people responded to a Reddit thread seeking interview subjects for this article. Their hobbies were vast and varied and included, in alphabetical order (ready for this?):

Acrylic-pouring, auto mechanics, banjoing, birdwatching, chess, crocheting, disc golf, drone photography, gardening, grilling, golfing, home-brewing, knitting, language-learning, mask-making, meat-smoking, pizza-dough production, podcasting, quilting, screenwriting, taxidermy, virtual Dungeons & Dragons, watercolour painting, wooden-ship building, YouTube content creation, and more.

We’re already looking forward to writing the second part of this series, in which we’ll feature a few more folks engaged in some of the hobbies listed above.

declan.schroeder@freepress.mb.ca