What it Takes to Really Learn Something

Since moving to Canada, I have learned that if I wear a coat with Velcro fastenings, I should avoid wearing knit scarves (meaning the muffler variety of scarf, a use of the term "muffler" which is apparently out of fashion). Knit scarves invariably get caught in the hook side of the velcro.

That's two rabbit trails in two sentences. "Muffler" is something you read about in books, but most people (around here) tend not to say anymore. "Hook-and-loop fastener" is the generic way to refer to Velcro. Sheesh.

MY POINT is that I should have learned this sometime in the early 1990s, when I moved to the mountains of Northern New Mexico and got to buy serious coats. Failing that, you'd think it would have become part of my explicit learning at some point during the ten years I lived in Colorado.

But no. Now, some five-plus years into living here, I finally can verbalize that the fleece muffler (crap) scarf goes with my black Velcro (crap) hook-and-loop fastened coat.

This is really about the shootings in Tucson on Saturday. (Trust me.) I have known for some time that I am grateful to be away from the relentless political rhetoric in the US. I am no more a fan of Keith Olbermann than I am of any of those on the right who also shriek and froth at the mouth. I have a low tolerance for people shouting past each other. So I am glad to have missed so much of it.

My heart is heavy from the shooting, in part because I've spent significant time in Tucson--in fact, at the Safeway and the bird food store and the La Salsa restaurant in that shopping center. Tucson is a lovely community, where many kinds of people make lives together. So the shootings there are not much farther from my thoughts than is my brother, his physicians, his family, his blood cells.

And, as is true with "knit mufflers don't go with Velcro," I am finally able to say, explicitly about politics and rhetoric, "I know all I need to; now I move on." I'm so very glad to live here, where I am away from the relentness ugly rhetoric.

This morning, while running errands, I was in the car during a CBC newscast. CBC calmly reported actual news of Tucson: arraignment, suspect, a recap count of injured and killed. Nothing breathless. No "breaking news" that isn't actually NEW. CBC reports that people are searching for blame, but it's a ten-second summary, not a rehash of "he said, she said." And then we return to regular programming: a gardening show.

And for me, for now, that's what I need: regular life. I can drop off a box of books at the library, take papers to a lawyer, go to meetings. I can prep for other meetings, do laundry, and review drafts of written stuff. At some point, I may even be able to research and revise policies, and tease out creative writing, with the focused attention they require (and deserve).

Later, when I have run out of "little things" and "regular life," ha ha, I will look again at the "big picture" and apply what I have learned. Specifically, when I have the opportunity to vote again, I will pay attention to more than political party, campaign promises, and voting record. I will look at how the candidate ran for office, and I will not reward flamethrowers.

To recap what I have (finally) learned: Wear fleece scarves with coats that have that hook-and-loop closure.

After you find out the facts, return to regular life as much as possible.

Oh, and: Deliberately incendiary rhetoric is vulgar at best and destructive at worst.

Let's hope many in the US have learned that last lesson.