Fruits of Insanity

Canada: Some Thoughts

I went to Toronto once. That’s the only time I remember going to Canada, which is kind of sad when I think about it. I was thirteen years old, and was on a youth activity with the church. We drove from our home in upstate New York—I was living in Liverpool, a suburb of Syracuse at the time—across the border, and to Toronto. We went to the mall, as a recall. After all, there is no more interesting sight to young Americans than a mall. I don’t remember having to change money. We spent our dollars and got Canadian change—I think I still have a Canadian dime—but it’s probably gotten lost in the moves I’ve made since then.

I remember the people mostly. I remember the politeness of them, and how it made me want to be better, especially when I compared the behavior of our church group with that of some of the young people we met in the mall. It was embarrassing—and embarrassment is one of the primary emotional defaults for teenagers—to be called out with the rest of the group for acting inappropriately in the parking lot (it wasn’t me, but one of the other girls was changing clothes out in the open).

That was my only direct contact with Canada, at least that I remember. We lived in Oregon when I was three, and I think we might have gone up to British Columbia in the spring after blueberries, but that might be just extrapolation based on a picture that my father painted at about that time. But because of that, Canada, for me is something like a dream. I imagine it as brighter colors and larger spaces, and flat places where the only things stopping the wind from off the North Pole are random reindeer.

I imagine Prince Edward Island as a kind of paradise where the world smells fresher. I know in my head that it’s because of Anne of Green Gables, but there’s still something magical about the place. I love the Toronto that I was introduced to through Tanya Huff. I love the idea of Mounties—horse borne men in red, riding to the rescue. I love the Victorian Steampunk feel of Murdock’s Toronto, even though I don’t remember anything like it on my own visit. Alice Munro was on my comps book list because I love her people and places and the writing that I aspire to. I envy Canadians for their ability to buy insulin at prices that are unheard of in the United States.

Someday, I’m going to go to Canada. I’m going to see Niagara Falls from the northern side and be mesmerized by the fall of water. I’m going to walk the rooms of Lucy Maud Montgomey’s house, breathing in her air. I’m going to stay up and see the Northern Lights—fires stretching across heaven. I’m going to watch for whales at the Bay of Fundy where the tides are the highest in the world. I will see things I don’t even know are there, yet. And it will be glorious.

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