I totally get that it’s crucial to have a place, like a digital junk drawer. Suppose George Carlin would say, “a place for your stuff while you go out and get more stuff”. Here, I can toss all these crazy, occasionally furious thoughts and feelings. This prevents them from deciding to stage a full-blown coup against my sanity!

I’ve finally decided to channel my inner Atwood. I am diving back into the wonderful world of trying to convince myself that even just typing “Once upon a time” counts as a bestseller in the making!

Soooooo… whether politics, pride or prejudice, I am back.

What’s Going Down?

Watching what is transpiring down yonder in the land of my birth has been difficult. I’ve wandered stunned from angry to sad, trying to understand why so many became blinded by the hive-minded right-wing media.

They’ve managed to convince the crowds that the rich and famous should be the ones pulling the strings. Apparently, if you just keep the champagne flowing and the caviar coming, the ultra-wealthy will sprinkle down some of their leftovers like confetti! If they think you’re lucky enough, they’ll toss you a few crumbs from their golden tables, but don’t get too comfy—what you’re “worth” can change faster than a cat video goes viral. And let’s be honest, their promises are about as solid as a soap bubble in a game of dodgeball!

Course, apparently the “woke-mind-virus” won’t let them actually play dodgeball anymore, and I guess that has their knickers in a knot.

On the daily, the media serves up a gourmet platter of click-bait outrage, as the alpha bros on their podcasts enrage the foundations of the all-powerful patriarch. Tempting folks to believe the juiciest gossip about a super accomplished dark-skinned woman, while they’re busy handing over their power to the ultimate bad boy who, by the way, thinks he’s the superhero who can swoop in and fix all their woes! And… so it goes.

Like a bad reality show unfolding right before our eyes.

The circus is in town.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

Yet, this didn’t just all spring forth from nothing, so let me digress a tad. Its been festering for a while.

Back in the long ago, pre-9/11, many Americans were so blissfully unaware of the global side-eye they were getting, you could practically hear the rest of the world collectively whispering, “Oh bless their hearts!” while munching on their popcorn.

I look back at that time, and remember their sense of affront. And their ignorance to how those radicalized Islamic jihadist viewed the greatness of America as a threat.

Hate is way too strong a word to use. That’s not it. But that arrogant greatness, the desire for some of them to be the most, and often the loudest, the classic stereotype. The aggressive need to spread the ideology that the American way was always the most superior way.

What can go wrong?

The MAGA cult that is the Trump movement is what. They are a direct product of that arrogance.

I mean, they ain’t all that and a bag of Doritos. No one country is. To believe otherwise is just pure hubris, and left to its own devices for too long, begins to believe its own founding legends as the gospel truth.

As a U.S. citizen who grew up within the embrace of the land of my mother, the Great White North, I can 100 % say that Canadians don’t look at themselves at all the same as our American cousins down yonder.

I’ve been thinking alot about this of late. How exactly to articulate Canadian patriotism.

“If you think that threatening and insulting us is going to win us over, you really don’t know a thing about us,” Chrétien wrote in the article. “We may look easy-going, mild-mannered. But make no mistake, we have spine and toughness.”

I know Canada has its own cult-like MAGA North. It’s filled with right-wing Christo-fascist fanatics. Honestly, most of us still manage to keep our sanity intact. We don’t view each other as arch-nemeses. Our friendships and family gatherings look like a political buffet. One friend serves up fiscal conservatism. Another dishes out progressive ideas like they’re at a potluck. It’s like a hockey game – we’re all playing to win, but when the final whistle blows, we just shake hands and say “GOOD GAME”. See? Opponents can totally score without taking each other out!

And, keep in mind – if the sound system fails during the powerful strains of the National Anthem, whether in a Canadian or American hockey arena where their fierce rivalry shines, every soul in the stands knows the lyrics to the other’s National Anthem and will rise with fervor, singing with heart as if it were their own!

One of the values that defines Canadians, whether they have been here 5-years or generations, is this collective wisdom that we are stronger together.

Even if sometimes we need to be reminded.

Still.

Canadians aren’t better, greater, stronger, neither richer nor poorer. From cold days of a Newfoundland winter morning, to humid summer afternoons on the shores of those Great Lakes, cross the windswept praires, and all the way forth ove’r the mountains to raining Vancouver nights, diversity, we have found, shall always be our strength.

‘Our’, I say. Which is a lie. I’m not Canadian. Oh, sure, in my heart of hearts, my soul beats with the spirit of my Canadian mothers. Yet, my passport is that of my father’s land.

To-wit, ta-woo.

Anywho. Now, why am I going on about this. I watched the first part of a Politics Girl interview on YouTube. Her guest talked about the collective grief many in the U.S. are feeling after the Democrats’ loss to a convicted predatory conman funded by a pack of greedy, grifty billionaires… and I wept, and not for the first time.

Her words struck a cord inside me. A feeling I had quietly endured for weeks. Spoke very little to anyone about. This sense of sorrow at what I knew they faced. A grief at the dangerous road ahead, of all those who were about to have their world torn apart – and for what? Some who even VOTED for the man, somehow not once understanding what lay ahead.

That was a couple of days ago… which feels like a millennium ago. Nonetheless… actually… I think yesterday was the first day in some time I had this sense of hope.

Doomscrolling @Threads, and to my surprise, post after post, Canadians coast to coast in solidarity. It just so warmed the cold cockles of me heart. It was JUST what I needed.

Now, I’m on BlueSky as well, but there was nowhere near the same level of sweet Canadian Patriotism. Post after post after post, Canadians across the land vowing to try their very goldarned best to BUY CANADIAN. Inspiring.

Though, Chrétien is right. In his message to Canadian leaders:

You don’t win a hockey game by only playing defense.

We desperately need to swap our defensive posturing for proactive engagement. It’s like switching from a turtle shell to a superhero cape!

So, for me, Chretien’s message hit home. They are craving a national response stronger than a double espresso on a Monday morning. Geopolitical tensions are brewing like a storm in a teacup!

Canadian leadership across the country, would be wise to adapt the same solidarity I saw on @Threads.

You wanna go? LET’s GOOOO.
Elbows UP.

Sincerely,