Clearly Canadian

One of the subtlest, but most pervasive things about coming back to Canada after living in Japan is the way I often see Canadian customs from the perspective of an outsider. Not all the time -- just in flashes where I realize that the feeling of strange wonder I got at seeing Japanese customs is mirrored when people from outside Canada participate in our yearly rituals. Such as Thanksgiving. Every culture has family gatherings around a table filled to the groaning with food -- ours happens to include a turkey and cranberry sauce and root vegetables and pumpkin pie and other delicious things. Mindful of the fact that my Japanese friend Aoi was coming this year, my family and I had a pretty traditional feast, with an extra Canadian twist of wild rice stuffing. It was delicious, and great fun to introduce a 20-year-old world traveller to her first ever turkey.

Today Aoi and I went to the McMichael Gallery for more Canadiana, this time in art form. Again, for someone who never paid much attention in Canadian history class (who did?) I was surprised at how much I knew, picked up from years of simply living in this country. I admired formerly commonplace things such as backyards, swaths of colourful trees, a rich heritage of native people and mounties and painters and explorers (checkered as that past may be) for the luxuries they really were. I do love this country, in all it's half-frozen, rocks-and-trees-and-trees-and-rocks glory.