I can't sleep…
It is, after all, not necessary to fly right into the middle of the sun,
but it is necessary to crawl to a clean little spot on earth where the sun sometimes shines
and one can warm oneself a little.
~ Franz Kafka, from Letter to His Father
Notes:
The irony is that Canada, at the moment, has a lot to celebrate. Our prime minister is glamorous and internationally recognized as a celebrity of progressive politics. We are among the last societies in the West not totally consumed by loathing of others. Canada leads the Group of 7 countries in economic growth. Our cultural power is real: Drake recently had 24 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time — for one shining moment he was nearly a quarter of popular music. Frankly, it’s not going to get much better than this for little old Canada…
Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father, articulated Canada’s difference from other countries perfectly: “There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian,” he said when he was prime minister in 1971. “What could be more absurd than the concept of an ‘all Canadian’ boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate.”
Nationally, Canada has been spared the populism that has swallowed the rest of the Western world because there is not, and has never been, such a thing as a “real Canadian.” … To lead this country, you must be able to navigate multiple languages and multiple cultures. Our longstanding identity crisis has suddenly turned to a huge advantage — we come, in a sense, pre-broken…
So why is Canada so bad at celebrating itself?…Canadian self-flagellation results always in the same warm, comfortingly smug sense of virtue…It transcends the political spectrum. Whether it is Conservative insistence on frugality and small-town values or the furious outrage of identity politics on the left, everyone has the same point to make: We’re not as good as we think we are, and the government should do something about it…
None of what I have written should be taken to imply that Canadians don’t love their country, or that I don’t love my country. I do. Most Canadians do, too. They just love it quietly…
~ Stephen Marche, excerpts from “Canada Doesn’t Know How to Party” (NY Times, June 23, 2017)
An iceberg ran aground over Easter weekend just off the small Newfoundland town of Ferryland, population 465, drawing knots of tourists eager to catch a glimpse. Some are locals or travelers who happened to be nearby, but many are a special Canadian breed, the iceberg chaser — People who flock to the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland at this time of year hoping to see the huge frozen chunks of broken glacier that drift by on a stretch of sea known as Iceberg Alley.
The berg at Ferryland rises about 15 stories above the waterline — and that is only about 10 percent of its mass. Some of the submerged ice comes into view when the berg is seen from above…
The stunning view that is causing traffic jams of onlookers on the coast road is actually a snapshot of the iceberg’s death throes, 15,000 years in the making. What began as snowflakes falling on Greenland during the last ice age has crept to the sea in a glacier and then broken off, probably sometime in the last three years, to float slowly out into Baffin Bay. Bumped and nudged by one another and by melting pack ice, the bergs eventually get caught up in the southbound Labrador Current and sail down Iceberg Alley.
~ Dan Levin, excerpts from a story in the NY Times, April 20, 2017
Don’t miss the full story and other fantastic photographs by Jody Martin here: A Chunk of the Arctic Stops By for a Photo Shoot
At night I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi, excerpt from “Some Kiss We Want” in A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings by Coleman Barks
Photo of full moon over Peyto Lake by Cath Simard. Peyto Lake is a glacier-fed lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. Don’t miss her other shots of Banff here.