WEEK     JOB: MAYOR

LOCATION: PORT MOODY, BRITISH COLUMBIA

FOR THE FIRST time there was no pressure to have a job lined up, make travel plans, or worry if I’d have a roof over my head the following week. This was it. Week 52.

In a full suit and tie, I marched toward Port Moody City Hall, a contemporary building with steel arches and a glass galleria inspired by a traditional European train station. The roundabout leading up to the front entrance was lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom offering a picturesque setting for this significant day.

I opened the front door, followed by Ian with the camera. It was a familiar environment. I glanced to my right, acknowledged the attached library, and took a deliberate moment of reflection. It was in there at the desk in the dimly lit back corner that it all began. It was where I’d spent most of my time leading up to Week 1, busily preparing content for the website even though I wasn’t sure that I’d go through with it.

I’d come a long way.

I turned and walked toward the offices of city staff. They were expecting me. The mayor of Port Moody, Joe Trasolini, greeted me with a big smile.

“Welcome home, Sean,” he said.

Joe had lived in Port Moody for fourteen years and had held the position of mayor for the previous nine. His family emigrated from Italy when he was young. He still carried a slight accent, and he walked with a smooth swagger. He was a politician, but as I found out throughout the week, he was sincere.

We shook hands, and Joe led me into his office. It was spacious, with a large window that offered a view of the city’s recreation complex, and a table and chairs neatly arranged in one corner for visits from members of the community. Various plaques and pictures of people in business suits hung on the wall, alongside a glass cabinet that housed the Chain of Office, a long necklace made up of a series of attached gold medallions, from which one larger medallion hung. Joe reached to the cabinet, opened its doors, and carefully pulled it out.

“Have a seat, Sean,” he said, motioning toward his big, comfy-looking leather chair.

He stepped behind me, then placed the Chain of Office over my head. “Congratulations, Sean,” he said. “You’re now the mayor of Port Moody.”

It was only fitting that my journey ended here. I’d lived my whole life in Port Moody, a town of about thirty thousand located sixteen miles east of Vancouver. Surrounding an inlet, it has a mountainous landscape with large old-growth forests and nearby lakes.

It was a busy week in the mayor’s office. A few committee meetings, an art unveiling, a visit with the Port Moody Scouts, a presentation for newly appointed police constables, an exhibition/reception for delegates from China, and the opening ceremony for the Port Moody Festival of the Arts.

Our first engagement was at the police department, where the presentation for the newly appointed officers was held in the upstairs boardroom. The room was filled with people milling around a large conference table. The two officers being sworn in were noticeably excited. They’d worked hard for this moment. Other police officers were dressed in special-occasion uniforms. Everyone mingled, picking away at the snacks on the table, and waited for the formal ceremony to begin.

In many of these situations, the mayor is faced with a tough crowd. He is there to recognize the significant role the police force plays in the community, and to show the city’s support, however, he also must contend with people’s skepticism, the belief that he’s merely making an appearance to win some votes.

I shook some hands, spoke with some residents, had some snacks, then it was off to the next engagement at the local scouts chapter.

All the kids were seated in a semicircle around me and Joe. I’d just finished explaining One-Week Job and the importance of doing something you love. Immediately a kid’s arm shot up. “Did you get to blow anything up?”

Then another one. “Did you meet any girls?”

I was relieved that I could at least answer yes to both questions.

I learned how the mayor and city council members control the overall direction of the city—they’re the decision makers behind it all. The goal is to make these decisions based on the wants, needs, and best interests of the citizens. It’s a big role, and after seeing it from an inside perspective, I wished more citizens would get involved and voice an opinion. There’s so much that goes on in a city that the majority have no idea about. We see buildings go up, people move in, and landscapes change, and we wonder how it all happened.

“You can’t please everyone, and you have to make tough decisions,” said Joe. “Many times a lot of people resent what you’re doing and they don’t care that democracy is based on the majority carrying the day.”

I take a lot of pride in Port Moody. It’s a beautiful place and I’ve seen it grow tremendously since I was a kid. I enjoyed participating in various committee meetings and discussions that would impact its future growth. After spending my whole life here, I finally felt like I was “in the know.”

But it wasn’t all smiles and handshakes. It seemed that in every conversation I had this week, I was asked for something. Most often it was a request that more of the budget be allocated to an interest group. We’d discuss my past year, my week as mayor, then whoever I was talking to would try to persuade me of the importance of a program they were involved with, and that when I had the opportunity I should speak with Joe about it.

“Many people think the mayor has the final decision in all that goes on in the city,” said Joe. “But I only have one vote, just like the other members of City Council. Yet if things go wrong, the mayor typically gets the blame in the newspapers.”

When we place ourselves in a highly visible position, we open ourselves up to criticism. At times I’d experienced this during the past year. I commented on it in a blog post and subsequently received some advice from Eric in an email: “In anything that you do, there will always be critics—a third of people are going to love what you do, a third will hate it, and another third won’t care.”

In an elected position, I guess you can only hope that a third will be enough for you to receive the majority vote.

A sense of adventure was instilled in Joe from a young age, and he was passionate about preparing youth to take over in the future.

“When I was sixteen I emigrated from Rome with my family, and that experience taught me that change can be good,” he said. “You don’t have to be born, raised, and die in the same town. You don’t have to choose one job and that’s the end of it. You can explore, take chances. I want young people to give themselves the freedom and the courage to say, ‘I’m embarking on a career—and if I find that it doesn’t agree with me, then I give myself the opportunity to try something different.’

“How many people do we meet on a daily basis who hate their jobs?” he continued. “Do they really have to put themselves through that? There may be opportunities to make a change. We always fear change. We put up with all sorts of things in our career because we’re scared of losing that security. But there really is no security. In the old days, you found a career, you raised your family, and then you were pensioned out at the end—with basically one career. Not anymore. We have a lot of freedoms, a lot of opportunities, but many folks don’t take advantage of those opportunities.”

One day it will be my turn to pass the lessons I’ve learned throughout my life on to the next generation. When that time comes and I reflect back on my life, I don’t want my lessons to be rooted in regret. Lessons from failed dreams that I never found the courage to pursue. Lessons from years of settling just short of what I really wanted. Or lessons from not taking the time to learn about myself and what it is that I needed to be happy.

Right now I have the opportunity to take the advice that so many shared with me and put it into practice. I want to be able to say, “Look, kid, I had the chance to learn from my parents’ generation who had done this whole ‘life’ thing before. They gave me some pretty great advice when I was young, and even though I thought I knew everything, I took that advice, trusted in their experiences, and that has allowed me to live a more fulfilling life. Now I want to share with you those lessons and a few others I picked up along the way. Then, how you move forward is your choice.”

On Thursday night, Ian and I walked home from City Hall, stopping long enough to pick up a six-pack of beer. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, but the blue glow of the evening would hover for a while longer.

When we reached the playground of Mountain Meadows, our old elementary school, Ian cracked a can and passed it over.

“Your Worship,” he said. It was the official title of the mayor, a perk I admittedly enjoyed. And I was still dressed in my suit from the day’s work.

I sipped the beer, the cold liquid welcome. Ian cracked his own, and we sat on the steps leading up to our old gym. It was here that we’d played basketball as kids, losing every game to the older teams in the league. It was quiet for a time, punctuated only by the noise of an occasional car, its headlights appearing in the distance, then faded quickly to darkness.

“So tomorrow’s the last day,” Ian finally stated.

“Yep,” I replied, feeling a bit like Chet the cowboy.

“It’s been a long time. I can barely remember last year when you came over and we made the website.”

“I know.”

I felt I should say something to Ian. I wanted to tell him the difference it made to have him on the road as I started a new job each week, meeting new people, making new friends. Every time I doubted whether I’d be able to do it one more time, I’d look over, see my best friend watching intently from behind the camera lens, and shrug off my fears.

But I didn’t know how to convey the true meaning of the message. It was too big to cram into an awkward few sentences. Besides, he knew I appreciated him.

It was Ian who spoke first. “Hey, man, I wanted to say thanks.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah. You know, last year when I quit my job. Part of that was because of this One-Week Job thing taking off. It gave me a reason to leave. I mean, I would have quit eventually, but I couldn’t let you do this by yourself. It’d seemed too fun.” Ian laughed and took another sip of beer. “Thanks for taking me along for the ride.”

“You’re welcome.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Nothing else needed to be said.

I held up my beer and we tapped the cans together. It was another hour before we finished the rest of the six-pack and headed back to my house.

Back at City Hall on Friday evening, it was time for my last function as mayor—the opening ceremony for the Port Moody Festival of the Arts. Many people I’d met during the week at various functions or committee meetings were in attendance—delegates, council members, residents, business-interest execs. Some congratulated me, knowing that it was my final day of the year. Others exercised their last chance to ask me for more money. Ian and I soaked it all in.

Joe stepped onstage and began the ceremony. “Excuse me, can I have everyone’s attention,” he said, adjusting the microphone. A silencing “shh” spilled to the back of the crowd.

He thanked all those in attendance and then spoke about One-Week Job. “This young man embarked on an interesting journey about this time last year. Sean Aiken has been traveling the world, trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up. He has performed fifty-two jobs in fifty-two weeks. His final job has been here, in his hometown.”

I remember it had been just over a year earlier that I stood at the edge of the bridge staring down at the river 160 feet below—a countdown urging me to jump. I knew the cord was attached properly, that my harness was securely fastened, and that many before me had taken that same leap. Rationally I knew that everything would be okay. But when it came time to jump, I hestitated. I had to consciously take the next step, to trust myself.

Joe continued. “And now I’d like to invite your mayor for the week up onstage.” He motioned toward me. “Come on up here, Sean.”

The audience clapped, I stepped onstage, and Joe presented me with some nifty City of Port Moody gear—a hat, a shirt, and some coasters. With the bright spotlight on me, I gazed out into the shadows of the crowd. They couldn’t possibly understand the feeling that I had. What this meant to me.

They weren’t there when preschool kids referred to me as Mr. Sean. When I lost $1,000 in the stock market, shopped for multimillion-dollar homes in Beverly Hills, or suited up as the mascot of an NHL team and stepped onto center ice.

Nor were they there when Danna and I watched our first sunrise in Quebec City. When I’d forgotten why I started this project and wanted to give up. Or when time and again complete strangers on Monday morning became close friends by Friday afternoon.

To them, I was a five-minute interlude. A nice story to kick off the formal proceedings. To them, my project was over. But for me, the journey had just begun.

A few minutes later, Ian and I said our final goodbyes to Joe and the rest of the city staff. I shook Joe’s hand. “Thanks, Joe. I really appreciate everything.”

“It was a pleasure, Sean,” he said. “It’s an impressive thing you guys have done.”

Ian and Joe shook hands.

Then Joe looked at both me and Ian and added, “You guys are very lucky to have the friendship you have.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We are.”

Five minutes later, we were standing outside my house, where inside both our families eagerly waited to greet us.

I opened the front door. Heads turned our way. Smiles. Claps. Danna was there, along with my sister, brother-in-law, grandma, Ian’s parents and siblings, Karen. My dad approached. He’s a good man. We communicated in silence as we always have. I gave him an apologetic hug, even though I knew he couldn’t possibly understand the meaning behind my prolonged clutch. My mom stood close by. Her cancer treatments had had encouraging results, and she appeared strong. Joyful tears filled her eyes. I stood, appreciating the familiar scent of the house I grew up in. No longer my home. But always a part of me.

I stepped inside, then closed the door behind me.