Written in the Car
May. 13th, 2011 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainspiritI'm going to try and stop guilting myself over writing, because when I write, it's usually under some kind of duress. That sentence doesn't make that much sense in the current context, I notice - guilt is a kind of duress after all, and isn't it good when I do write? But writing is a necessary tool, and when I cease to write, it becomes more of a "thing I do because I can" than it is is a "thing I do because I need to get these maddening thoughts out of my head."
I suppose my current situation is one under duress, though in the context of it, I'm quite used to worse situations. We're on the road to Seattle, and what should be a two and a half hour drive is plagued by two traffic jams (so far) and a spat of bureaucratic nonsense at the American border. But we're through, we're here, and my parents and I are on our way (with a friend/coworker from GIFTS in tow.)
It may be an hour or so before we finally get in. I'm more excited about tomorrow, really - I get to see a friend I've known for years, whom I've never met in person. I think back to the things she's told me of her life, of the trials she's gone through and all the times I had wanted to hug her but couldn't, not physically. I may just accidentally squeeze her spine out when I finally meet her, poor woman... hopefully my scary bear physique can be controlled.
The United States as a country frightens me, even though technically its current government is more left-wing than ours at the moment. The sheer madness that runs through its day-to-day culture puts me on edge, and the fears and paranoia of the post 9/11 years hasn't quite washed off. The guns, the out-and-out anti-islamic racism, the frustration of the remaining sane individuals whose voices go unheard... all that anger and frustration fuming unsaid in the undercurrent of life here.
That being said, I think a lot of my fears have become ... not so much outdated, because in this place, there's always cause for concern. But perhaps the intensity of those emotions is a little unwarranted at this time. The world is changing, the political and cultural dynamics changing with it, and although we're perhaps no closer to waking up from our daydreams than we were years before, a new pattern begins to emerge. New thoughts and considerations go hand in hand with these changes.
I've said to people before a theory I gleaned from some parody book of Canadian history, in which the author espoused that his own personal brand of patriotism came not from pride, but from gratitude. I'd like to think that one could make a valid case for that being a true form of Canadian patriotism, but in these apathetic times when the crooks run my country and the people do nothing, who can say that I speak for this place of my birth?
Maybe I love Canada because for me, it was a refuge for when I was in England. (Yes, back to that again.) My mom, my best friend, my hometown... all these things belonged in this country. It didn't matter that I was rejected in the concrete playgrounds of Southfield, because I didn't really belong there anyway - so my mind rationalized. I belonged in Canada. I belonged in the beloved country of my birth.
I cringed a little when my acting teacher espoused the virtues of mimicking a British accent. As one of the few students (maybe the only one) that actually lived in England, it'd be doubly harder for me to get, or even study the accents there, because I had spent years trying to resist getting one. I didn't want to be like these people, the ones that shouted and bullied and sneered and glared at me, or so I felt at the time. I didn't want to be like those awful people, even though I did become like them in some ways. I did become a bully, for the short two years of elementary school after London.
When I came home, it felt like the most important time of my life. Now it's been over a decade since I returned, and I'm starting to take an active interest in it. I voted, for the first time, in a historical riding. My vote was counted among the thousands going for the Green Party; my vote, and my voice, helped usher in a new precedent in Canadian history. And even though the rest of the country let me down, even though so many voices stayed silent and our faulty voting system let the fearmongers stay in power, I helped protect my one beloved piece of country, my hometown, my island... the place I want to live and die in when I'm older. The last refuge of happy memories I had, before the grey schoolyard, the pointed metal fences and the grim white skies above.
I suppose my current situation is one under duress, though in the context of it, I'm quite used to worse situations. We're on the road to Seattle, and what should be a two and a half hour drive is plagued by two traffic jams (so far) and a spat of bureaucratic nonsense at the American border. But we're through, we're here, and my parents and I are on our way (with a friend/coworker from GIFTS in tow.)
It may be an hour or so before we finally get in. I'm more excited about tomorrow, really - I get to see a friend I've known for years, whom I've never met in person. I think back to the things she's told me of her life, of the trials she's gone through and all the times I had wanted to hug her but couldn't, not physically. I may just accidentally squeeze her spine out when I finally meet her, poor woman... hopefully my scary bear physique can be controlled.
The United States as a country frightens me, even though technically its current government is more left-wing than ours at the moment. The sheer madness that runs through its day-to-day culture puts me on edge, and the fears and paranoia of the post 9/11 years hasn't quite washed off. The guns, the out-and-out anti-islamic racism, the frustration of the remaining sane individuals whose voices go unheard... all that anger and frustration fuming unsaid in the undercurrent of life here.
That being said, I think a lot of my fears have become ... not so much outdated, because in this place, there's always cause for concern. But perhaps the intensity of those emotions is a little unwarranted at this time. The world is changing, the political and cultural dynamics changing with it, and although we're perhaps no closer to waking up from our daydreams than we were years before, a new pattern begins to emerge. New thoughts and considerations go hand in hand with these changes.
I've said to people before a theory I gleaned from some parody book of Canadian history, in which the author espoused that his own personal brand of patriotism came not from pride, but from gratitude. I'd like to think that one could make a valid case for that being a true form of Canadian patriotism, but in these apathetic times when the crooks run my country and the people do nothing, who can say that I speak for this place of my birth?
Maybe I love Canada because for me, it was a refuge for when I was in England. (Yes, back to that again.) My mom, my best friend, my hometown... all these things belonged in this country. It didn't matter that I was rejected in the concrete playgrounds of Southfield, because I didn't really belong there anyway - so my mind rationalized. I belonged in Canada. I belonged in the beloved country of my birth.
I cringed a little when my acting teacher espoused the virtues of mimicking a British accent. As one of the few students (maybe the only one) that actually lived in England, it'd be doubly harder for me to get, or even study the accents there, because I had spent years trying to resist getting one. I didn't want to be like these people, the ones that shouted and bullied and sneered and glared at me, or so I felt at the time. I didn't want to be like those awful people, even though I did become like them in some ways. I did become a bully, for the short two years of elementary school after London.
When I came home, it felt like the most important time of my life. Now it's been over a decade since I returned, and I'm starting to take an active interest in it. I voted, for the first time, in a historical riding. My vote was counted among the thousands going for the Green Party; my vote, and my voice, helped usher in a new precedent in Canadian history. And even though the rest of the country let me down, even though so many voices stayed silent and our faulty voting system let the fearmongers stay in power, I helped protect my one beloved piece of country, my hometown, my island... the place I want to live and die in when I'm older. The last refuge of happy memories I had, before the grey schoolyard, the pointed metal fences and the grim white skies above.