A Citizen of Earth

Sitting here in the temporary housing I call home, I’ve been forced to grapple with a few things after having been working here for exactly one day. Here, in list form, and in no particular order, are my first observations…

1) When one reads of the history of the flintlock rifle, as I’ve been known to do, one reads about those few moments where the “entity” was North America, not only countries or states or territories. The Great Lakes Region extended to where I sit now, in Toronto. I suppose it still does, but in the textbooks of my youth, anything above St. Lawrence River and the Lakes was a pale blob on an otherwise colorful map of America. Anyway, I’ve become used to reading of that period and, as such, not paying too much attention to national borders. Borders mattered to the upper class warring over territory to own and I’m slogging through stories of beaver trappers probably first written down in a pub somewhere. It was those same godless schizophrenics that would rather be alone in the wilderness for months or years at a time, wearing animal pelts over a Michigan winter to stay “warm”, than to be anywhere near another human being, who settled both Canada’s and America’s first wild frontier.

As I drove around for the first day here, listening to the CBC, I heard a long story about the 100^th anniversary of a seal hunting disaster off of Newfoundland. There were terrible details that, if I tried to summarize them here, would only be an insult to those that endured, or tried to endure, that particular storm. Hearing the stories, I didn’t think “Those poor Canadians.” Instead, I heard a different version of the same stories passed down to me in my life, where Michigan families strived to take hold on this still new continent.

You may be asking…

2) Why was I driving around on my first day? I needed a bank account. TD Bank (the “T” stands for “Toronto”) is open on Sundays and, as I’ve heard it, has a good price for moving money back and forth over the border… legally. I had not yet worked my first day at my new employer, I was living in a hotel, and I did not have a Canadian cell phone. Still, they gave me an account without question. Lesson learned: banks will do anything to get your money.

3) Speaking to another former Michigan fellow that lives here, I stated that I purchased a few items at a small grocery store near my hotel. He said, “Have you heard of Canadian Tire?” Let me assure you, dear reader, that flash of confusion that just shot through your mind is the same sensation I felt when he said it. As I actually do need new tires on my car, I was also embarrassed that he noticed my balding tires. “Waaaait a minute,” my brain slowly said. “There’s no way he cares about the condition of my tires, let alone that he’d notice the shallow tread from here, inside this building, where I am totally NOT parked.” Probably recognizing the confusion contorting my face, he said “It’s like a Meijer.”

4) I am the one with the accent. During our “meet and greet,” the locals at work were having a grand old time having me say things like “about” and “I know” and asking me - by pointing at it - “what is in this can?” (pop, as opposed to soda).

5) I’m working on one last piece of documentation to be official here. I’d love to tell you the name of it, which would be expected of any authoritative author in this spot of the story, but I can’t remember it. It’s like a social security number, but I think, maybe, it’s called a “social insurance number.” Anyway, one moving into the country gets such a number at the Service Canada Center, which appears to be something like a one-stop shop for government-related stuff.

Not having this number is incredibly stressful. Not that I’m doing anything truly wrong, mind you, but that without it, I feel like I’m somehow “in the wrong.” I’m not sure that that subtle word difference makes my point, but me going on about the way I wrote that sentence here certainly won’t help… So, it’s stressful.

I imagine all of the people that were the “immigrants” in all of the news stories I heard back home. Thinking of them now, I imagine how stressful immigration must have been on them, where people and local governments can be, at times, openly hostile.

That reminds me of a cliché I heard in college: A Republican is just a Democrat that hasn’t gone to jail yet.

6) As one would say “Give me a Lager” in Philadelphia to get a Yeungling, here one says “I’ll have a Canadian, please” to get a Molson. Yeungling is far superior.

I’ve not been sufficiently self-aware over the years to notice myself growing or changing, but it seems that changes have been made. However, living as an expatriate, for all of two days, I can say confidently that I’ve noticed nothing that could be chalked up as a change in my behaviour. I’m still the same guy, from A to Zed.