Missing

There are so many wonderful things about living in Toronto. I am quite convinced.

Today, though, tromping with my three children across damp brown California sand, I acknowledge that in fact I have not stopped missing mountains and ocean and desert, missing them desperately and daily. I want to "walk in beauty," as the Navajo say, or at least as Tony Hillerman says the Navajo say.

I don't want to hear about mighty Lake Ontario or the forested Muskokas.  Not today.

The Pacific Ocean. Santa Monica beach.

Underground Railroad Revisited

People often say to me these days "I bet you're glad you're living in Canada." First, it was my British friends after the narrow Brexit victory (52% leave to 48% remain). Then it was the Americans, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton (46%  to 48%, respectively). Lots of messages asking whether we have spare rooms, the playful mixed with the grim. "You're so lucky," said one. "We have plans for your house," said another.

I try to reply without getting too emotional. I tell them it's complicated. Being an American in Canada does make me feel fortunate in some senses (universal health care, poutine), but burdened as well. It's as though I have to try harder. Some friends and I are forming our own Toronto Americans' resistance group. We will make phone calls, send emails, protest in front of our consulate, console ourselves.

Also, it seems incumbent on me as an American to be nice even when I'm not feeling it, as though by being seen as a good person, I can make up for the bad one occupying the White House.  As America and Americans are eyed with derision and scorn, I have to say, "This president does not represent me. Hey, it's not really even a presidency. It's a hostile takeover."

Our house is in Brunswick Avenue, the same street where a man called Albert Jackson once lived. Mr. Jackson was born into slavery in Delaware (yes, I thought it was a free state, too, but no), and escaped to Canada with his family via the original underground railroad in 1858. He became Toronto's first black postman, possibly Canada's first, and someone wrote a play about that which was performed in our road a couple of years back.

 The Postman Walks 

July 2015

A few weeks ago, January 21,  2017, not quite 150 years later, one day after the inauguration, at the #WomensMarch, a United Church minister asked me what I thought about starting up a new underground railroad ("Democrats Abroad", Public Seminar). He said it might become important for vulnerable individuals in the US. I almost laughed, thinking, "Come on. It's not going to be that bad."

Three point five weeks later, I hear almost daily in the news about refugees, recent immigrants to the US, illegally crossing the border into Canada. In the dead of winter, some have lost digits or limbs. I read about 'ICE' teams following school-buses in Austin, Texas, ready to arrest immigrant parents when they meet their children at drop-off, and I wonder about the definition of 'police state'.

I may make plans for our house, too. Brunswick Avenue could possibly once again be a destination for escapees from the south, an endpoint for that new Underground  Railroad.

Un-fucking-believable.

Beam me up

There's a Star Trek episode (the original series, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc) in which the USS Enterprise is chasing the Federation's arch-enemies, the Klingons, across the galaxy. Or perhaps the Klingons are chasing them. Or it might have been the Romulans. In any case, Lt. Sulu informs Captain Kirk that the Enterprise is somehow becalmed. They can't move further. Their shields don't work; nor do their weapons. Kirk, from the bridge, prepares the crew for imminent destruction by the enemy, who can be seen looming closer. And then... nothing. Over the radio, the two opposing captains sputter at each other in outrage. "Cut it out! Give us back our weapons!" They carry on in this manner until a basso profundo voice interrupts them. "It is we who have disabled your ships and your weapons." At that point, the Klingomulan chief and Captain Kirk both turn on this new, common enemy, and say in unison "Cut it out! Give us back our weapons! It's our right to destroy each other." It turns out that they have sailed into the orbit of a powerful and enlightened civilization that no longer believes in violence. Not only have these cosmic gurus beaten their swords into plowshares (or hydroponic antigravity growing units),  but they refuse to let anyone else practice warfare. "You may have your warp drives back once you've made up and agreed to play nicely," they say to both spaceship captains. Eventually, with their phasers between their legs, they do, and are released. It's not really in doubt, because that's the grammar of the genre, and of course they'll duel again elsewhere, in some further episode. But before the commercial break and network identification, peace and harmony have been imposed.

I think of this episode more and more often in these wild and scary times, where there's a loose cannon in the White House who has access to the button of destruction. In the past week alone we've had the #MuslimBan announcement and the nomination for Supreme Court justice of a person who once founded a fascist party. On the global stage, there has been the mosque massacre in Quebec City, the mad attacker at the Louvre, and the triggering of Article 50 for #Brexit.

The Star Trek episode is a fantasy, I know. We're here in the world, grown-up and responsible, and there is no divine or extra-terrestrial intervention (not even by mice).

But in times like these, I sure do wish it were otherwise.