Growth & renewal

This week I pass and celebrate a teeny tiny milestone in what I hope will be a long path: Okanagan Writing Services has been 'open for business' on the Internet for one month. Along with the website is the evolution of this blog, telling a bit of the OWS story and celebrating those who have helped bring about this voice.

Another milestone is celebrated this week: that of the birth of our country. Writers, poets, and storytellers of all kinds have pontificated and presumed what it is to be Canadian. I'm not about to attempt a definition in this small space - it is woefully not suited for such an undertaking. However, I have some gut feelings about why it's important for us to say who we aren't as opposed to who we are.

Someone once said that the last new thing had been invented, and despite all of our most valiant efforts we would not see a genuinely new idea again. Isn't that just like most of these little stories? Often beginning with 'someone once said...', and carrying on with a plausible yet slightly negative statement. How very limiting - the thought that your best imagined things aren't really yours. To that, I say a resounding boo.

Maybe it's a combination of events: brilliant thinkers and imaginative people creating and then inspiring others to be imaginative and creative. No beginning, no end - simply one large surge of growth and renewal. That image is truly Canadian.

I believe we are our best good intentions, and more. As Canadians, I believe we struggle and celebrate together - at times with only the common bond of one thing Canadian as the string that holds a fragile connection between us. I believe we are a tapestry woven with a multitude of fibers, not representing any one thing but coming together as a unique lacing and layering of different stories. Interpretive art with many right answers to the question: 'what do you think this picture represents'.

My parents are from Nova Scotia - one of Acadian hertiage, the other a descendant of Dutch and German ancestry. I married a man who's father immigrated as a child from Dublin, Ireland. My closest friends are first generation Chinese-Canadian, grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) of Maritime land owners, daughters of traditional south Asian families and sons adopted by Americans who also immigrated to Canada.

We are not the blending of many fragments; instead, we are the magician's scarf, pulled slowly from a sleeve, individual bits of fabric joined by finely woven thread.

I have spent the last month preparing to tell a story, but not really telling it. The feeling is like that of standing on the bank of a river: the current is running deep beneath the surface, barely noticable, but you know it's there. I've been trying to determine a launch site to join the movement without disrupting the flow of events. Where to start this part of the ongoing story.

When I'm stuck for a starting point, I often think of my mother for inspiration. So, I guess that's where we will start next time: my mom.

Until then, please celebrate the Canadian-ness in you - wherever you are.


~ Jeannette