Something weather-related

 "We had the worst weather today!" I tell this to my sister as we greet each other on the virtual call that makes 800+km of distance shrink down to mere milliseconds in cyberspace.

"Let me guess," she says, "Three inches of ice and you can't get into your car?"

"YES!  And there was a THUNDERSTORM AT THE SAME TIME!!!!"

"........ wow."

I'm glad I don't have to drive anywhere this morning...

I feel like by posting this picture I'm inviting other Canadians to join me in a weather measuring contest of "my weather is worse than yours!" Take exhibit A, sent to me by a friend this morning:

She told me she couldn't get out of the driveway this morning.

Or exhibit B, taken from my Facebook feed:

Years ago, when I was travelling across the Canada I remember overhearing someone comment that "Canadians sure like to talk about the weather."   

 "....Yeah, because we have a lot of it!" Was the reply.  

I also once heard a statistic that Canada has more weather channels than pretty much any other country on earth.  Indeed, the first lesson for small talk 101 in Canada is "If you have nothing else to talk about then talk about the weather!"

So all that said, I don't know if this blog entry has anything significant to say other than to talk about the weather.  Like, last year we got a crazy windstorm in Ottawa that knocked power out at my home for a week. The local trails were untraversable for the rest of the summer due to the number of knocked down trees blocking the paths.

I exaggerate not.  This is a tame example.  I didn't even capture a photo of the tree that fell on a house down the street.

I wasn't even surprised this morning when I arrived at the local coffee shop to receive the inquiry from the owner that she has repeated to every person who has come in since, "Do you have power?"  The truth is that we lost power at our house only for 10 minutes last night at 8:30pm, but apparently the people down the street have lost power overnight and still have no power this morning.  Somehow, after last year's experience of losing power for a week, I fail to be shocked.

I guess the small silver lining that may go unappreciated amidst our crazy Canadian weather is that it gives us something in common, almost akin to a national identity.  It is something we can talk about, something that unites us in experience, and builds the sense of community, of fighting against a common foe.  With all the war and political drama around us, I'd definitely prefer if weather was the only source of conflict, instead of each other.

Something not so imaginary

  

Imagination is a wonderful thing.  It makes real-life mundane situations way more exciting than they actually are.  Take the picture above, for example. The purpose of taking this picture was to tell a story that was not even happening.   The setting invokes a sense of desolation, isolation and danger.  My posture in the picture suggests that  I am being hunted  and am on the run, or am lost and confused, or was taking an innocent walk when a forest of dead trees suddenly surrounded me, invoked by the dread warlock Horrifus.  In this moment I must gather my resources and wits to secure my survival. I must choose between fight or flight - else all might be lost!

 

Alas, reality was not so interesting.

 

The truth is, I was taking an innocent walk, but with a group of people on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  We were on the Middlehead trail, taking in fantastic views of the Atlantic ocean when we came upon this forest of dead kindling along our path.  Our steps faltered for a moment as my friend spoke what was on all of our minds, "Now, this is spooky."  Inspired by his statement, I quickly set up my camera, shoved it into his hands and told him to take a picture of me in the trees.  Voila!  Setting captured, story told!

 

Sometimes it makes me sad that reality is not as exciting as our imaginations can be.  That walk we took along Middlehead trail was very pleasant and enjoyable, but nothing as stimulating as being attacked by the dread warlock Horrifus happened on that journey.  Then again, I should be grateful that is the case.  This past week the people of Paris, France went through a situation that I am sure they wish was imaginary - the fodder for action-adventure movies or evocative photographs telling a fictional story.  Seven coordinated terror attacks on French civilians in public places killing 129 people.  Suddenly what was always considered safe was no longer so.  The stories that had been read in news about other people in places like Syria, had suddenly become the people of France's own reality.  The imaginary had come to life.

 

The worst thing about the imaginary becoming real is that the sense of control we had when the event was solely confined to the imagination is lost.  No longer are we able to be fit and mould events into a narrative that leaves us as the heroes of the story.  When the imaginary becomes real, instead of being the heroes, we fall into the role of victims.  Worse, we no longer know what to define as reality, so we begin to accuse innocent people, who are trying to flee a similar terror, of being the same as the terrorists who attacked us.  We try to take control of the story by initiating a counter-attack, becoming aggressors in our own right.  This is not a video game though.  Here counter-attacking means the loss of real lives, sometimes innocent lives.  Even as we take up arms to be the heroes in our own eyes, we become the villans in others.  Reality is not as simple as the imagination and there is no game guide to get us through it. 

 

In our reality the fight or flight response is the natural human reaction to a situation like this.  It takes a lot more imagination to find a positive alternative for our historical narrative. What irony that it is when we can no longer separate the imaginary from reality that we need our collective imaginations more than ever!  This is the time when we all need to individually ask ourselves this question: how do we as a people take control and start shaping a narrative that is actually heroic, where aggression that breeds aggression is no longer a dominant theme in the world story we are telling? 

Something about the Canadian dream

"There is no Canadian dream." I read this statement yesterday in an article quoting Ben Carson as he praised American exceptionalism in his bid for Republican presidential nomination in the States.  I almost snorted out loud in the coffee shop where I was perusing my facebook page.  What ignorance!  Anyone who makes that sort of statement obviously does not know Canadians very well.  This sort of person makes the assumption that Canadians prefer mediocrity, when the fact is the Canadians just happen to value modesty as much as we also value our own awesomeness.  Canadians have a lot of pride and a lot of aspirations - we just don't talk about or flaunt them as the Americans do.  There is a Canadian dream, but it is not something advertised or blown out of proportion.  It is something lived and something that is an innate part of us.  Anyone who spends any time living with Canadians will begin to get the sense of how this dream permeates our society.

In fact, recently in a write-up for a women's conference that was discussing the different experiences a woman faces through the decades of her life, I took a moment to ponder the Canadian dream:

"When I was a teenager I put a lot of thought into my 20s. To me they were golden years of opportunity where I would be able to figure out the mysteries of life, the universe and everything. I would decide what I wanted to do as a career, get a college or university education then use that as the foundation to launch the rest of my life. I figured I would get into a serious relationship around the age of 21, maybe get married at 23 or 25. I would graduate from university in my early 20s, be set for life and start raising a family. It was the typical all-Canadian dream."

The thing that stands out for me in my summary of what the typical all-Canadian dream looks like, is that it focuses on education, on family and on finding a productive and meaningful place in society.  These focuses differ some from the American dream, and these differences become apparent when one starts to compare prevalent political ideologies between the two nations.  Proud socialists, Canadians value education - which is why we promote and fund our public schools and Colleges better than the States. We value family which is why we have universal health care, subsidies for parents with children, and paid maternity leave.  We value finding a productive and meaningful place in society, which is why topics like environment & climate change, science, and social justice have been such huge themes in our recent elections.  American politics, and consequently the American dream, focuses more on capitalism - the opportunity to gain wealth through free enterprise.  Canadians value this too, but possessions and financial success are often mere by-products of our larger dream.  And this approach has worked for us, as this article from 2014 bluntly states.

So, Mr. Carson, I am afraid you are dearly wrong.  Canadians have a dream.  It is a wonderful dream and it is a modest dream. It is a dynamic dream that we are not afraid to shape our society around.