I am blessed -- and cursed -- by the overabundance of cultural opportunities Last night, Robert MacNeil, known to me and, I suspect to many, primarily as MacNeil spoke about his search for self-identity, specifically that part which I've been in the U.S. for thirteen years with no immediate plans to return. (FYI and FMI, I've blogged in the past about being Canadian: when troubles 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 … Continue reading
\n in Berkeley (let alone, the surrounding area). Attending readings at Cody's
\n Bookstore<\/a> is a favorite opportunity for me to hob-nob with the many famous
\n authors who pass through this town and renown bookstore. The array of writers
\n is overwhelming, and I need to be selective in whom I go hear. Why this writer
\n and not another, I need to ask myself. Otherwise, I try to take in more than
\n I can absorb.<\/p>\n
\n the broadcaster who retired<\/a>
\n after many years at PBS' NewsHour<\/a>,
\n spoke about his new book Looking
\n for My Country: Finding Myself in America<\/a>. I went to hear MacNeil because
\n he is a Canadian who in 1997 became an American citizens after many long years
\n in this country. It was no accident that I learned about the talk from my friend
\n Peter (and fellow Canadian-living-in-the-US). <\/p>\n
\n resides in nationality. He spoke about things that I understood -- that of being
\n an outsider\/insider. I know a lot about the U.S. -- so it's easy to appear for
\n me to pretend to be an American. Yet I come from an alternative existence, one
\n not well-known to most people south of the border but one shared currently by
\n 35 million people ("Canadians"). Although MacNeil came from a Canada
\n of the 1940s and I, from a Canada of the 1980s, we share, strangely enough,
\n enough commonalities for me to say, "hey, we're both Canadians -- maybe
\n all Canadians share these experiences."<\/p>\n
\n I am working on getting a green card. I even surprise myself with thoughts of
\n becoming an American one day (thoughts that are tinged with guilt and intimations
\n of betrayal). When MacNeil spoke about being torn between being Canadian and
\n living in the U.S., the conflict that inhabited his body of seventy years is
\n probably going to be one that sits in my for the rest of my life. There's all
\n that me that grew up in the north -- and though most of the time these days,
\n Canada seems remote while I pass my days in northern California, I only have
\n to let my guard a moment or two, stare out the window at the wrong time to be
\n transported back to a long lost moment of purity and tranquility that I associate
\n with childhood or Canada or fantasy. I have no desire to make my residence in
\n the city I was born -- Timmins -- but there's something there for which I still
\n long. I can't name it; I don't know what it is. Canada has something to do with
\n it though, I'm sure.<\/p>\n
\n come, the differences
\n surface<\/a>; remembering Canada Day through the Maple
\n Leaf flag<\/a>; Glenn Gould as an eccentric
\n Canuck<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"