Thoughts on America After A Weekend in Canada

The Canadians in Guess Who were right all along about America

Sorry to have been away for so long. The last week has been taken up with a trip to Montreal and the accompanying preparations. Now that I have returned, I am in a reflective mood. 

As we crossed the border north of Plattsburgh to return to the US this morning, I felt a new emotion. In the past, when I have returned to America after going abroad I have felt a certain warmness about being back in my home country again. This morning I felt dread. During a trip spent walking Montreal's streets, enjoying its sights, and riding its refreshingly modern subway system, I kept seeing the news from America. I read about progressive state representatives being expelled, about the gun deaths of children lowering our national life expectancy, and of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. For a couple of days, I felt like I had escaped a madhouse.

To be sure, Canada has its own problems. There were panhandlers and mentally disturbed people on the streets, for example. By and large, however, it felt like such an infinitely more FUNCTIONAL and livable place. There also wasn't an ever-present feeling of dread, one that has been dogging me in this country every day since the summer of 2015. For almost a decade, America has been on a precipe, our own Years of Lead with mass shootings, police murders, and capitol stormings with the spectre of right-wing authoritarianism constantly hovering. To the last point, I was in Montreal when I saw the news about a Trump judge banning abortion medication.

I had not been out of the country since 2009, by far the longest stretch in my adult life. I've still been traveling a lot however, and in that time have been to practically every corner of the United States. My travels to everywhere from New Orleans to Los Angeles to Alabama to Boston have deepened my love of this nation and given me perspective on its stunning regional diversity. I cherish getting to walk the Golden Gage Bridge, joining a second line on Bourbon Street, and chowing down on Maine lobster. 

But as my love has deepened, so has my despair. I don't much believe in this country's future anymore, and my deeper investment in it makes its precariousness all that much harder to endure. It's a dynamic I had not been aware of until I spent some time in Canada this weekend. It felt good to get a break from America, I only wish I could believe this nation could find a way out of its current spiral.