the Nobodies

Okay, I didn't write yesterday, but does writing in your head count? If that's the case, then I'm writing more than I'm talking. Anyways, lots going on in my brain today.

My mother is an Israeli citizen, and when she was 19, she served in the military for two years, as is manditory. And I couldn't help thinking that for a lot of us left-leaning western liberals, being in the military is bad. It implies a willingness to cooperate in warfares we don't know, don't care to know, or know about but don't support. It implies complicity in the American brand of cultural imperialism we love to criticize. It brings to mind crewcut-and-combat fatigue uniformity, handling weapons of destruction and heartbreak. In short, it elicits a distaste for a particular side of humanity we'd rather ignore or reform through prayer or pacifism.

What if we, as Canadians, had to serve, manditorily, in a Peacekeeper/maker corps? What if we devised a military power that was founded on the principles of pacifism, with emphasis on helping those that wanted our help to reconstruct their lives and towns and governments in an unarmed capacity-building irrigation systems and supporting sustainable agriculture, building schools and shelters, working within a religion and culture rather than imposing our own? Our military wouldn't wear combat fatigues or carry weapons, because that wouldn't be our purpose, to intimidate, to pre-empt violence. We'd be of service to others, not pushing forth our own social/political mandate. We'd serve for two years, maybe even get to choose which region of the world we'd like to co-operate in...

Part of me knows this is laughable and impossible. We would never take a stand against the American government and openly oppose the war from all levels of government. Nor would we ever foist the burden of compassion onto our citizens with the force of law. But a large part of me feels a lot of us are arrogant in our ignorance and scorn of the Canadian military and what it means to enlist and be a part of a greater good-at least that's what I think is the reasoning for enlisting. Do we know or care enough about international politics(seeing as we barely care about our own) to understand that decision? On a more practical level, do we know what it is like for troops stationed abroad, living in everyday peril in a foreign land, missing families and sweeties, and chocolate chip cookies? Shouldn't we?

Almost every morning, I turn on my computer and check out certain websites. Yes, I have about three or four news sites that spark my interest, but appallingly enough, I also have three or four celebrity gossip sites I check. The result of this daily disclosure of smut is that I am astonishingly well versed in celebrity scandals and disgraces, but I would be hard-pressed to speak with the same amount of ease on world events as I would an Elton John event in which Scarlett Johannsen devoured some actor with her impossible lips and beautiful cleavage. Which begs the question; For a society obsessed with reality television and the very real downfalls of celebrities, why are we so completely ignorant of real people, people actually worth remembering and celebrating?

In the Toronto Star yesterday, I read a quote by an Iraqi citizen who was being asked about the release of James Loney and the other hostages, the flavour of the article being that Iraqis seem indifferent to it. And he said that he is indifferent, if we can call it that, because spilling Western blood is expensive, whereas Arab blood is cheap. We don't know the countless local victims of this war, this is the travesty. But we know the soldiers who die, we know their families, we see pictures of their weeping widows and sweet-faced children. There should be no inflation in the currency of blood! The human cost, for the most part, is the same.

I'm not saying anything new or groundbreaking here. I'm just feeling like we are so complacent! Like I have an excuse to not get involved on a mental or physical level in world events, because I am looking after my sick mother, because I'm depressed, because a customer was mean to me today. I know it's easier to focus on the Brad Pitts' of the world, because they can ache and be insufferably human from the comfort of their million dollar homes, and because they have the millions to get involved on a mental or physical level. What can I do? Write letters? Send fifty dollars I barely have to Tsunami victims? Maybe that is why people join the military. Not for glory or because they're bloodthirsty, but because it's something, it's a contribution, an extraordinary sacrifice of personal security and the comforts of home.

I'm not signing up, I've got fights on the homefront here that need my presence and engagement. But I'm not going to contribute anymore to the meanness of society, like the buying of magazines that play games like "Pin the tail on the starlet anorexic", or the gossip sites that trumpet relationship break-ups with vicious "I told you so" cruelty. I'm not going to view soldiers solely as puppets to dangerous administrations. I'm going to keep an open mind to unpopular opinions, ones that don't necessarily accord with the liberal left, keep reading and writing about the international backyard, because right now, it's all I can do, to keep the haunting of the nobodies at bay.

ten minutes

This is in support of ugly ducklings and late bloomers everywhere.

Yesterday, I was taking the subway home from my parents' house. As I got on the train at Bloor going west, I ran into an old high school classmate, whom I'd apparently run into at a previous job and forgotten, and whose name I got wrong. Oops. Anyways, we had one of those quintessentially awkward high school reunion moments that happen when you live in a city that operates like it's New York.

"So, are you still working at _______?"(the clothing store I'd run into her the first time around, where I worked miserably and briefly for two months)
"No, no that job didn't last long. I work at a pet supply store now."
"Oh, neat. "
"Whereabouts do you work?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm a lawyer, my office is downtown, I'm in real estate, wills, things like that."
"Oh, wow."

So the lawyer and the cashier catch up till one of us mercifully gets off the subway, maybe at a stop sooner than we'd intended. And it got me thinking about this article that I'd read a long time ago on the back page of the Globe and Mail, about a waitress who didn't want to be defined by what she did for money, because on her own time, she was first and foremost a writer. I kind of feel like that.

I never liked school. It was not for lack of intelligence, or interest in learning. I was a troubled soul, and a teenager on top of that, which made for a truant and trucculant student. I dropped out when I was 17, and returned to finish high school at the tender age of 21. And I did finish, if only out of principle of completing what I'd started. But after that, and a failed attempt at college, I decided that all I really needed were my trusty books and love, and school could just be one of those things other people did that I did not.

This arrangement worked out well, despite obvious disadvantages in terms of the types of jobs I've been able to obtain, because I've had a lot more freedom than my 'gainfully employed' peers. But this freedom comes at the cost of financial stability, which, at some point, became more than an irritant, it became a hindrance to any kind of future I'd want to be living in. I'm not happy living paycheck to paycheck. But more than that, something else has caught up with me. The need, not just want, but need, to be outputting something of value and integrity and meaning into the world, beyond a swift hand at the till and a ready smile.

That's why I'm going to go back to school. I know, beyond any certainty, indeed, with the kind of certainty most people envy because it implies a deep sense of self-knowledge, that I am entering the right field. I was born to write, I was designed to let my bleeding heart drip on the blank page in lieu of a pen, and the degree of success I find is no measure of the satisfaction I will feel for doing something challenging and real. And on another level, I've realized I am actually deserving of a better quality of life. The field of journalism is a noble one, the role of the journalist is one of the safekeeping of hope, for every journalist represents, to me, someone who gives a damn beyond their own backyard, someone who wants us to operate and govern and live in the staggering illumination of fact and suffering and of what could be. I want to be a part of that.

And if I'm ten minutes late coming to that realization, so be it. I'm here now. And because of it, the future is somewhere I'll want to be.

White Knights and Unicorns

It's my goal to write every day. No fear of censure for poor writing from an audience who I don't know exists yet, so I will be brave and opine and whine and rant and be creative as much as I can. I want to see if this "writing as a discipline" thing has anything to it.

Last night. Out to a movie with an ex-almost something fellow. Talking over hot chocolates, I realized I am the writer who doesn't write. Or not enough. I'm always waiting for the right moment of inspiration, or spending so much time trying to set up the right mood and atmosphere to write, that I exhaust myself trying to be a writer. That I forget to write...

I've been having loads of politically/socially incorrect moments lately. I was flipping through my latest copy of Vanity Fair, reading a brilliant article by Sebastian Juergen, about the forgotten war in Afghanistan. There's a picture of three soldiers in a moment of downtime, lying on the ground, one of them flipping through a magazine, and I thought to myself, amidst inner head nodding and soul elevation, the kind that happens when you read something so moving and perfect and intelligent and fierce, Golly, I thought, men sure do look fine in a uniform.

I could love a soldier. Something sexy about the uniform, the ability to shoot, more importantly;(and politically correct) the ability to know how to shoot and not do so. Something powerful about a man who enlists. They're not all farm boys from Iowa trying to rack up life experience to brag about in hometown bars years later when they arrive at that point in their middle aged lives, broken and battle worn, memories lubricated by denial and alcohol. I believe some do it for love, for love of country, for love of a society that trumpets human rights and the right to be human. And I love that love.

That's where the politically/socially incorrect part comes in. Am I supposed to, as a woman who would claim that a lot of feminist principle shadow the periphery of her morals, find a man in uniform appealing? Where did this fantasy of the knight come from? Is there part of me that loves the machismo, the complete mystery of female exclusion from war and the single-minded pursuit of sniffing out the enemy like a pig searching for truffles?

I'll admit it. There is a part of me that wants to be protected. That dreams of a big, strapping lad who's got my back, if I need my back to be gotten. That gets tired and annoyed sometimes, of the quest to be a self-contained unit of independance and sufficiency, of being my own knight, of eliminating all sense of purpose to masculinity, because femininity should be able to cover both spheres of delicacy and power. And I'll admit that I am entranced by men, mythical beasts that I've made them, because they are so wholly unlike women. And yet, nowadays they are so confused as to their knightly purpose in the court. As are we.

Men and politics, one of my favourite combinations. Men and war, one of the most baffling marriages. And I'm reading an article that is defining in no uncertain terms the bravery needed, the ability to walk straight into your fear and your possible death and ascend it for a greater purpose. And I'm sitting there thinking how hot soldiers are. Good grief!!!

Is it envy? Or is it just human nature to want what you're told not to want? Do we actually need gender roles? No one likes being told what to do, or how they should be, but imagine if men and women had the right to choose who and what they wanted to be, masculine or feminine, and both positions would be considered equal. Maybe lots of us are scared to be mothers and wives because no one takes that job, for it is a job, involving sacrifice and diplomacy and the application of love and passion, seriously, or as on par with being a breadwinner. Until equality is the dominant social principle between men and women, will I have to keep up the fight to be recognized as a woman who can do it all without a man? Will my "dirty fantasies" involve being a housewife? Will I ever admit openly that I love a man in uniform, that I admire the power it represents, without knowing if I want it for myself?

Till next time.