"this path, this road that one perfect straight line even if it goes around the world through heat and fog and rain and snow and it's my life I keep thinking. It's my life."
-Deborah Keenan, "Small History"

"Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else..."
-Eric Weiner, "The Geography of Bliss"

"-the air so dry and clean, so settling, she was afraid to imagine a world without such untouched lovely places. She didn't know how she would live."
-Lizabeth Carpenter, "Small Life"

"When I close my eyes, the floor of my dream collapses. I fall through. Everything skews. I land, wholly awake, in an old, known place, but I am totally new."
-Joan Connor, "Broken Vows"

I love my hometown. I love that people are constantly optimistic that warm weather is just around the corner, even when it's -40. I love how doors are held open, strangers smile and say hello as you pass, jokes are made to lighten the tension in a crowded elevator. I love that the newspaper is read and discussed rather than reality television being the source of information. I love that pedestrians are EVERYWHERE and it's okay to walk to pick up groceries.

It's hard to describe all the subtle things I have fallen in love with since leaving Canada. These frequent visits up remind me that there are still places where neighborhoods are designed around parks and green spaces. Where sidewalks are built and maintained to encourage people to walk. Where a nations people still believe in taking care of all those among them. And where education and lifelong healthcare are rights, not privileges.

It is sometimes disheartening to return to the U.S. after my visits here. It is hard to hear of people going bankrupt from hospital bills and see money spent on advertisements for hospitals and clinics rather than on patients. But now, more than ever, I view the U.S. as a nation in progress. For the first time in many years, there is a president whose frame of reference includes all Americans, not just the rich and privileged. It is an interesting time to be a citizen of Canada and a resident of the U.S.

I guess we'll see what the next few years hold.

Random things...

I love this, it's from this weeks Postsecret


Congrats Winnipeg!!!

Upon request, here are the things I knocked off my list these past two weeks:

#8 Risk Failure
The hubby and I put a bid on a house this week. Looks like we will most likely lose it to the local university, since we can’t possibly compete with them on price, but we both agreed we’d rather go down trying then to always wonder because we didn’t try at all.

#9 Do one thing a month that scares me…
See above… lol

#20 Sit somewhere with a great view, a great friend and a damn decent bottle of wine…
Did this on Valentine’s day and will do tomorrow for lunch (minus the view and the wine most likely… lol)

#38 Drink more water.
I’m practically a fish now!!

What keeps us from questioning that which we don't understand?

I am confused.

It's true, this is not the first time. In fact, it happens quite often, but usually, I can ask a few people, do a little research and come away with an answer that helps me better understand. Sometimes, however, you come across something that defies all logic.

This is one of those times.

Although I have heard many comments about how I come from a socialist country and how "those poor Canadians pay such ridiculously high taxes", I have mostly taken this as a sign of ignorance. But since Obama has been elected (which restored my faith in the U.S.), I have heard these opinions not just from people around town, but now in the newspapers and other media.

Today, I read a newspaper article where the writer (who unfortunately for me, shares my first name) compared Obama to the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz (which in and of itself is not a kind comparison) and said that she was not going to wait for him to make the U.S. a socialist country.

What?!?!

I read it twice thinking that I must have missed the joke that was surely pointing fun at those who might actually believe this ridiculous notion. Nope. No joke. Just one person's opinion which represents the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately.

So, my fellow Canadians (and Australians) who follow this blog... let's open up the discussion. With all evidence to the contrary (including the facts that, on average, Canadians live longer, are healthier, are more highly educated, more well-read, and all things considered, pay taxes on par with their American counterparts), why is it that there is such fear in the U.S. of more government involvement in healthcare and education?

When I first arrived here, I too believed some of the hype. I was sure that Canadians must pay much higher taxes then Americans, since we receive subsidized university education and national healthcare. However, after seeing both my husband's and my own pay cheques, I can no longer say this is true. (Actually, I believe my reaction was "Woah!! Then where is it going?!")

My second stereotype, that of America having a terrific school system, was shot down after learning that Americans pay more per student for grade school education then any and yet test scores upon graduating high school fall well below the norm.

So... why do these stereotypes and fears persist and who benefits from them persisting?

My little brother and his wife had a healthy baby boy this weekend. I am officially an aunt. In addition to having a gorgeous little one to take care of, they will receive many presents, lots of attention, and a little tax money from the Canadian government. What they will not receive is a bill for the many months of prenatal care, the hospital stay, or the follow-up visits from their midwife and to their doctor. Our 'socialist' government, and the people such government is responsible to, believe that this is one of their most basic rights and the responsibility of all Canadians. We pay into the pot, we elect the government who oversees it, and as needed, we draw on it. Surely, there must be some who take advantage, but it is the will of the people to by and large take care of those who are in need. There is a definitely understanding that each healthy, educated Canadian helps to make the collective nation stronger.

So how is it that patriotism, something that the U.S. is world-renowned for, competes with collective strength? Incredibly high numbers of Americans do not graduate high school, and with further education being so costly, those in the lower classes find it ever harder to break into the middle class.

How can anyone believe that Obama's government spending and reallocation will push the U.S. into a socialist structure, when surely they must have to come to terms with the fact that Bush's spending almost (and it remains to see if it already has) destroyed this country's economy. Am I to believe, as the earlier mentioned newspaper reporter obviously does, that unregulated spending by a government is simply a part of democracy, but having the people request that the new leadership take steps to get the country back on track, is socialism? And how is it possible for anyone in this day and age to deny that the Bush legacy will affect the world's economy for years to come?

Obama is not the Wizard of Oz. He is, however, the unfortunate one who had to pull back the cloth for the world to see that there was not a great and all knowing one after all. There is no Wizard. Instead, there are 306 million people who are being asked, for the first time in a long time, to take part in their government and the rebuilding of their nation.

Electing Obama was not the end of this crisis. It was the beginning of a dialogue. It is an example of democracy and an education of what that word actually means.

306 million people help to decide what happens from here on in. But certainly, for whatever disputes and discussion the future decisions will raise, everyone now has the ability to be involved.