A Previous Perspective

I've been trying to bring a little order to the chaos of my computer files. Not much, just a little. In doing so, I ran across this essay, which I wrote--wow--three years ago. I can't even remember what I was going to do with it, but I wrote it.

I am half Canadian. My mother was born Jeanne Starrett LeCaine on May 3, 1917, in an upstairs bedroom at 414 Dufferin Street, Port Arthur. The family spent summers at a camp on Lake Superior’s McKenzie Beach. My mother graduated from PACI and left the lakehead for Queens in the early 1930s; Harvard-bound, she left Canada in 1937. Opportunities, circumstances, and my American father conspired, benignly, to prevent her from returning to live permanently, though she worked in Ottawa and Montreal during World War II while my father was stationed in Hawaii.

As college professors in Oklahoma, my parents saw five children grow to adulthood, or what passes for it these days. Every summer, during the few August weeks between their summer and fall teaching sessions, the overloaded station wagon labored up I-35 to the camp on the lake. We kids loved the respite from summer in Oklahoma; my mother craved her time in the Land of Possibilities. When she returned to teaching each fall, was was refreshed and invigorated.

As I grew up, I shared her need to be here every summer, even if all I could manage was one week. I needed to see different newspapers, the headlines full of names I rarely heard the rest of the year – Mulroney, Chretien, Terry Fox. I needed to hear Canadians talking after church about GATT and NAFTA, Eaton’s closing, the new Magnus Theatre. I needed to understand how a two-lane highway could be the country’s only east-west artery and see lines of transport trucks moving Canadian goods to other Canadians.

My mother’s last summer at the lake was 1998, two years before Alzheimer’s claimed her permanently. She stood on the beach she’d known for more than 70 years and said to me, “I’ve been here so much, I don’t know whether I’m really here now or just dreaming.”

I know just how she felt. After 40-plus years of idle daydreams, I moved to Thunder Bay last fall. Yes, there are technicalities to straighten out. Until my permanent residence is approved, I’ll be doing the Visitor Visa hokey-pokey – you get your six months in, you take your six months out. Still, I live here. In October, I stood in front of the camp my grandfather built 80 years ago. The islands in the bay were splotched with gold as the birch leaves turned, becoming a scruffy calico when the leaves dropped. For the first time, I walked on ice in the bay. After some time in the States, I’m back to see the birches explode into green.

Before this fall, I spent about 15 years as a public servant, writing and editing in education and government, and about 10 years in private business, both at a publishing company and freelancing as a writer and editor. When I lived in the States, I always felt slightly apart, especially during Independence Day celebrations – the fireworks were pretty, but “God Bless America” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” made me squirm.

In fact, the moment that I felt most like a real American, a real citizen of the United States, was the November evening in 1991, when Bill Clinton was elected president. I had lived in Arkansas and worked in state government when he was governor. I knew his many strengths and I knew his Achilles heel. Full of hope and dread, I stared at the TV screen showing fireworks exploding over the Old Statehouse in Little Rock. He was a member of my own generation. One of us had become President – and we were now responsible.

A day in September of 2001 permanently changed my future. No, not September 11 -- a few days later, the day President Bush responded to the attacks on the U.S. by bombing Afghanistan. I had hoped that the fluke of his first election would be followed by four quiet years and a timely return to rural Texas. In that moment, those hopes disintegrated. His determination to revel in his cowboy ignorance, dispensing “justice” and encouraging Americans to go shopping to keep the terrorists from winning, revolted me.

Slowly, I started listening and thinking. Small steps toward major life change became bigger ones. Finally, I moved to a country that is starting to feel like home. My family’s past is here, and my heart is here. My future is here, too.

A few years ago, I met a Canadian living in the States. “Oh, I’m half-Canadian,” I exclaimed. “Surely it’s your better half,” he responded. Surely, it is.