Nikki

O Canada, Let Me In

Jul 012017

I love Canada. I’ve biked in Vancouver and strolled through Butchart Gardens. I’ve driven around Nova Scotia and up to Prince Edwards Island. I even studied one summer at Université Lavalle. We were two Midwest high school girls whose young chaperone ran off the second day. Suddenly unsupervised, we promptly cashed in our lunch stipend and used the money to visit bars amenable to underage drinkers where we hung with the local boys. A great way to learn colloquial French.

But I digress.

I’ve thought about living in Canada. Where would I head? The bustling province of Ontario, which holds nearly forty percent of the nation’s population? The fast-growing west? Somewhere in between? It’s a big country. Surely there’d be room for me.

My comfort level with the United States has been dropping precipitously. Even before the presidential election unleashed an undercurrent of ugly and entitled resentment, I considered an exit strategy. Blame the lack of gun control. How can anyone trust a nation so cavalier about mass shootings? Where regulations are loosening in all but seven states? Where the NRA releases thinly veiled calls to violence with every new ad? Where I can’t go into a Starbucks without worrying about getting caught in the cross-fire generated by misunderstanding or long-standing grievances?

Canada, with its open spaces, clean air, hot young leader and atmosphere of tolerance, beckoned. Cold, sure, but that’s what parkas are for. I wanted Canada. But did Canada want me, a semi-retired writer with hope in her heart?

The most common way to gain permanent residency is via Express Entry. In 2015, the Canadian government instituted the program to seek out skilled workers, entrepreneurs or investors. Six factors determine eligibility: education, language, employment experience, age, arranged employment, adaptability. One’s eligibility is calculated on a points system per an initial evaluation offered on the government website. If you reach 67 out of 100 points, you may be a candidate for immigration. No guarantees.

I felt cautiously optimistic. I had no job waiting and let’s face it, age will never again work in my favor. Yet I have several things going for me. I speak excellent English and passable French. This is point-worthy, non? An advanced degree? Mais oui. And I am nothing if not adaptable.

But as I continued to wade through the evaluation, my spirits sank. Employment experience means work history relevant to future employment, something I can’t predict. Would I be willing to invest millions, launch a startup, buy and manage a farm. Sadly, no. I couldn’t even point to family in Canada. No one waited to welcome me with open arms, save a couple of friends.

I saw the handwriting on the wall. Don’t apply. Tu n’es pas éligible.

Undaunted, I found the name of an apparently reputable law firm online, one of literally hundreds that offer free or inexpensive consultations for would-be immigrants. I caught the attorneys during a busy time. Unsurprising, given how appealing Canada looks to the rest of the world right about now.

Over three days, three attorneys were able to give me between one and four minutes apiece. Briskly, politely, or regrettably, they told me my age and lack of ties to Canada counted against me. Just what a gal needs to hear.

The third offered a thin lifeline. I could try to fill out something called a Generic Application as a self-employed person. Again, no guarantees, of course.

Nevertheless, I felt buoyed. Yes, my income is negligible and my royalties paltry, but I have listed myself on my U.S. tax forms as a writer for more than a decade. I have two published books and countless published essays to show for it. Je suis écrivain!

Have I participated in world-class cultural events, asks the application form? I’ve spoken at Harvard and signed books at Princeton. These are world-class universities. Tell me this counts.

Never mind: I’ll fill out the form and send in the fifty dollars. Meanwhile, though, I am compelled to search out other creative, original, and unique ways to convince Canada I can contribute to its culture. For instance, I could:

set my new novel in Canada
hire a Canadian editor
write for a local paper
write a new verse to the national anthem (although it’s fine, really)
write about moving to Canada
write a reality show in which a sophisticated older American woman selects from among a group of eligible Canadian men vying for her hand in marriage.

O Canada, I pledge my love and allegiance. Please let me in.

Spring Cleaning

Mar 132017

Spring is just around the corner; can’t you tell? Okay, may not if you’re living in much of the United States north of Florida and west of California. Ten days before the official start of spring, the temperatures can’t get out of the twenties and more than a foot of snow is predicted. Forecasters promise a colder and wetter than usual season.

Absent weather that conforms to a recognizable pattern, we proceed by sensation. It feels like spring is close at hand and not just because the calendar says so. We have more hours of daylight. Here and there, a bud or a birdsong suggests we are done with hibernating, no matter what the thermometer says.

Spring it is, then, and with it, a chance for renewal, reinvention, rebirth, redo.

Sorry, not that last one. Though we’ve been pummeled and punished by the toxic sludge stirred up by the election of 2016 (wherein violence seems to have been given a permission slip to run amok) or by life in general, we know there are no mulligans. We can’t rewind to our twenty-first birthday or even to last year, much as we might wish to. We can’t do over; we can only do again, maybe better.

What does “better” mean? I ponder this every March, which, by the way, is my personal new year. Not for me the man-made calendars or cultural/religious constructs that have us repenting or resolving in September or January. My rhythms derive from Mother Nature. If I could sleep from December through February, I would. If I could live the other nine months with nothing but naps, I would do that as well.

I engage in what I call psychic spring cleaning. My physical health is something I attend to seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. Mental health, though, can always use a reboot, never more so than this year. So I’ve joined a group so I can attend get-togethers, meet with new people and feel connected.

The real adjustment I’ve had to make involves my attitude. Like many of my friends, I’ve lived these last four months alternating between anxiety and anger. Each is a natural default position for me and neither produces anything constructive. Thus, I’ve taken on a set of activities that allow for civic involvement rather than simply online venting. Thus, I’ve renewed my attention to charities that supersede politics and target groups that are chronically in need. Thus, I check in on my neighbors and practice my customized version of gratitude.

There’s also this: my birthday is in the spring. It’s been years since I’ve looked forward to it. From the moment I crossed what is by any measure the halfway mark of my lifespan, I saw myself as in countdown mode. That’s a formidable shadow to shake off and each year it becomes a little more challenging.

Which is why each spring I emerge, determined to fight my impulse to stay hunkered down and folded in. If I open my eyes, I see there are places I’m still needed and ways in which I can still be helpful. Sometimes I have to push extra hard to prove my worth in this youth and resume-oriented world. And yes, sometimes it’s a struggle to rise to the occasion or even rise up out of my comfortable chair. But the times demand it. So does a life repurposed, renewed and rebooted.

His Gift

Dec 042016

burned out village There was a single moment of eerie calm, a soundless void over which the world was suspended between the before of what had happened—what he had caused to happen—and the after, when the trajectory of history was forever altered, at least for that place. In the space of stillness before the first screams escaped the smoldering ruins and the spiraling debris, Smith turned on his heel. With some effort, he limped away from what had been just another morning in the outdoor market.

The gravel shifting under his boots made a disproportionately loud crunch, piercing the silence and rebounding off the buildings at the edge of the town. The reverberation seemed to kick-start time itself. Then the after took over completely; an orchestrated cacophony that rose in intensity, consisting of equal parts shock, confusion, fear, and despair. Later would come anger.

He couldn’t believe he still lived. Not that his death had been part of the plan. On the other hand, no one guaranteed his survival. It was his first such assignment, after all. Older, more experienced combatants had failed in their attempts. Smith had accepted several possible outcomes with the fatalism that had accompanied him throughout other missions he’d carried out in an earlier life.

Yet here he was, heart pounding, ears ringing, arms pumping, and legs bearing him away. He was most definitely still a part of this world. The realization made him feel unexpectedly buoyant, though he was covered in brick and mortar and a thousand bits of flotsam and jetsam he would never be able to identify—and never want to.

Alive! And intact. Was it possible? It was. Smith willed himself to breathe slowly, to act dazed, which wasn’t hard to do. His adrenaline high began to fade, replaced by a sense of displacement. For a moment he allowed himself to be pushed and pulled by the flood of humanity. Some ran away from the devastation and some ran toward it. Others remained still, rendered inert by their disbelief or their injuries. He kept moving in a straight line, seeking distance.

The disaster vehicles descended on the shattered scene. Their unrelenting mechanical alarms combined with scattered cries for help to form an inhuman wailing wall of noise. The music of suffering.

Smith risked a backward glance and slowed. Falling ash blanketed the burned-out stalls and scattered detritus as survivors climbed frantically out from under, shouting for those missing, keening for those discovered dead: men, women, children, the old, the strong, the infirm, the guilty, and the innocent.

He tried to purge his mind of thoughts of death, loss, injury, and grief. It wouldn’t do to lose focus. Yet a memory surfaced, unbidden. He recalled a beautiful home reduced to rubble, the stench of something unnamable, the taste of acrid smoke, and the cries of a small child whose security had been ripped from him. He tasted bile and felt the familiar pain in his stomach.

As hurtful as his recollection was, it served to bring him back to the present turmoil and the task at hand. He’d been given a plan. Get away clean and report to the rendezvous point. He set off again at a brisk pace, swallowing repeatedly as if by doing so he could manage to digest the volatile mixture of pride and pain that clogged his throat.

Keeping his head down, Smith broke free of the crowd and moved into the shadow of an intact structure in order to catch his breath. Immediately, he sensed he was not alone. When his eyes adjusted to the shade, he saw a young boy, perhaps six or seven, his eyes tracking Smith’s every move.

He’d seen the child earlier, just before the explosion. Which means the boy must have seen Smith head into the town center with his parcel and leave again without it, his right leg dragging just a bit behind him. These were details an observant little boy might remember and be able to describe to interested adults.

Smith’s hand drifted to the weapon at his belt. He could kill the youngster. The enemy came in all sizes. Sometimes they even looked like you, although he knew that to be less and less true. He’d seen the changes reflected in the culture that had entertained him for years until he learned to despise its insistent “otherness.”

He smiled. “Hey, buddy.”

“Hello.”

“What are you doing here?”

The child looked down and kicked at the dirt. “Nothing. Watching.”

“Watching what?

The boy pointed at the ruins without raising his eyes.

“A lot to take in. What do you remember?” Smith hoped he sounded more relaxed than he felt.

“People shopping. Then there was a blast that tore everything apart.” He threw his arms out. “After that, everyone was screaming and crying.” He looked up, suddenly defiant. “I saw you walk in and walk out.”

“You have good eyes. Do you know who I am?” Smith kept his voice neutral and fought to quiet the warring voices in his head.

The boy met his gaze. There was no fear, only curiosity.

“A terrorist?”

“What? No!” Smith felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. This is what the boy saw? Not the features that so closely mirrored the boy’s own. Not his devotion to God or love of country, at least the country he used to know. No, he saw the enemy, the very thing Smith fought.

Struggling to stay calm, he squatted in front of the boy and put his hands on the child’s shoulders.

“I’ll tell you who I am. I’m a soldier. A patriot. A hero.”

The boy looked blank. “You are? Then why did you leave? Why didn’t you help those people?”

Smith flinched. How could he make this child understand? He cast around for a reference and came back to his own childhood and the pop culture he loved and loathed. “I’m a special soldier. Like Soap MacTavish in ‘Call of Duty.’ ”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Wow. Captain MacTavish. He was a real bad-ass.”

Smith didn’t know whether to laugh or weep. Could it be that easy? Could he lead a young mind to believe as completely as he did? Or was he taking the easy way out by gluing his truth to a video game that glorified battle for its own sake? In that moment, it didn’t matter.

“Exactly like that. Dedicated. Strong. Ready to do whatever is necessary to complete what my assignment. Does that make sense?”

“You’re a special soldier, just like Captain MacTavish.”

“Exactly,” Smith stood and smiled down at the boy.

“I need to leave now. Another job. Top secret, so let’s not mention it to anyone, okay?”

“Okay.”

Smith pulled something from his pocket. “Tell you what. Hang on to this for me until we meet again, okay?” He pressed a small sharp object into the boy’s hand and closed his fingers around it. “Protect that at all costs, soldier. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir.” The boy clutched the gift in his hand.

Smith took off without a backward glance, filled with gratitude as well as purpose. He’d completed a difficult task without hesitation. His life had been spared. He, in turn, had spared a life. If that wasn’t God’s will, he didn’t know what was.

The boy waited until the man disappeared over the knoll. Then he unfolded his fingers and stared at the tiny American flag pin in his hand.

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