I am blessed -- and cursed -- by the overabundance of cultural opportunities
in Berkeley (let alone, the surrounding area). Attending readings at Cody's
Bookstore is a favorite opportunity for me to hob-nob with the many famous
authors who pass through this town and renown bookstore. The array of writers
is overwhelming, and I need to be selective in whom I go hear. Why this writer
and not another, I need to ask myself. Otherwise, I try to take in more than
I can absorb.

Last night, Robert MacNeil, known to me and, I suspect to many, primarily as
the broadcaster who retired
after many years at PBS' NewsHour,
spoke about his new book Looking
for My Country: Finding Myself in America. I went to hear MacNeil because
he is a Canadian who in 1997 became an American citizens after many long years
in this country. It was no accident that I learned about the talk from my friend
Peter (and fellow Canadian-living-in-the-US).

MacNeil spoke about his search for self-identity, specifically that part which
resides in nationality. He spoke about things that I understood -- that of being
an outsider/insider. I know a lot about the U.S. -- so it's easy to appear for
me to pretend to be an American. Yet I come from an alternative existence, one
not well-known to most people south of the border but one shared currently by
35 million people ("Canadians"). Although MacNeil came from a Canada
of the 1940s and I, from a Canada of the 1980s, we share, strangely enough,
enough commonalities for me to say, "hey, we're both Canadians -- maybe
all Canadians share these experiences."

I've been in the U.S. for thirteen years with no immediate plans to return.
I am working on getting a green card. I even surprise myself with thoughts of
becoming an American one day (thoughts that are tinged with guilt and intimations
of betrayal). When MacNeil spoke about being torn between being Canadian and
living in the U.S., the conflict that inhabited his body of seventy years is
probably going to be one that sits in my for the rest of my life. There's all
that me that grew up in the north -- and though most of the time these days,
Canada seems remote while I pass my days in northern California, I only have
to let my guard a moment or two, stare out the window at the wrong time to be
transported back to a long lost moment of purity and tranquility that I associate
with childhood or Canada or fantasy. I have no desire to make my residence in
the city I was born -- Timmins -- but there's something there for which I still
long. I can't name it; I don't know what it is. Canada has something to do with
it though, I'm sure.

(FYI and FMI, I've blogged in the past about being Canadian: when troubles
come, the differences
surface; remembering Canada Day through the Maple
Leaf flag; Glenn Gould as an eccentric
Canuck)