The Fourth

 I have a difficult relationship with the Fourth.

For one thing, it reminds me that I didn't start here: I'm a Canadian at heart, a transplant below the 49th parallel. My American roots are deeper than my Canadian ones because I moved here at 16, many more than 16 years ago. I've had my citizenship many years, and I've never voted in a Canadian election, only in American ones, and yet if I was a salmon, I'd migrate back to the Fraser River, or maybe Goldstream, a little lost but sure it's where I came from. The Duwamish is my adopted homeland and beloved, but though the landscape is familiar, the trees and flowers and seasons assuring me that I am at home where I belong, the politics will forever be foreign to me.

In America, there's the guns (and the fact that the first thing I do every day as I enter my classroom is prepare for a school shooting by relocking my classroom door and putting a magnet over it, so that if the active shooter is in the hall I can quickly pull the magnet and lock him out). And the lack of healthcare (I never, ever, ever forget that Emily - who did not have health insurance at her breast cancer diagnosis, almost identical to mine, died many years ago, and I'm still alive because I had great insurance). And the fact that instead of coming to some kind of agreement with the British, like the Canadians did, the Americans needed to grab those guns and fight in the revolutionary war. It seems like a good idea the way the Americans tell the story, creating a nation in which all men could be "equal under God," but the reality is much more complicated; many groups weren't even pretended to be included in that "equality." As a woman, I still am not equal in the eyes of the law in America, and I know how lucky I am to be born into white skin that grants me unearned privileges that my POC sisters do not receive.

It's not perfect in Canada, but...

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/03/01/the-enduring-grip-of-the-gender-pay-gap/

https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/the-gender-pay-gap/

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/14-28-0001/2020001/article/00003-eng.htm

In Canada, the average pay gap is 7% less than it is for American women. Furthermore, the gender pay gap in America has basically stalled out since the early 2000s, whereas it's fallen 7% since 1998 in Canada.

In Canada, I have a right to my body. In America, a woman loses that right with pregnancy. I am livid about that.

In Canada, we sing of our "home and native land" and "the true north, strong and free" but in America we sing of "the rockets red glare" and "bombs bursting in air."

To celebrate, Americans today will set off fireworks - bombs in the air, indeed. We are experiencing drought, and undoubtedly there will be fires. I'll go to my favorite little beach tomorrow with a trash sack, and pick up fireworks debris left there by those who don't care about my favorite seal who resides along the shoreline there (she's medium gray with darker gray markings, and she has the prettiest eyes, and she let her baby swim up to my paddle board once).

I don't get it. I don't get it at all.

And yet...

And yet, I have the right and the power to critique my government, and here I am, typing things that would surely land me in jail if I lived in Russia or Saudi Arabia. "The land of opportunity" has allowed me to get an education, to work for a living wage, to live in comfort in a home with more space than I need, with cupboards and a refrigerator bursting with food. The water that comes out of my tap is clean (clearly I don't live in Flint), and my connection to the power grid is stable (so clearly I don't live in Texas or California). I have a home filled with books, and music, and houseplants; it's often filled with friends. In the summer, my daughter comes home from college and fills the home with her laughter (and her messes!).

I love my life, and I love my adopted homeland. But love isn't permissive: a true and faithful love has strong boundaries, and calls out the best in the beloved. I need to rise up as a lover of America and fight to make her the nation she deserves to be; America needs to do a better job of figuring out the "equal" doesn't mean "equal for some." 

My relationship with the Fourth is complicated, indeed. But there is a rhubarb raspberry galette that just came out of the oven, and some juicy tomatoes just waiting to be turned into caprese salad, and a neighborhood party with kids running around. I'll go, and maybe nobody will notice that I left off the blue in my red, white and blue outfit.

Happy Fourth, everyone, whether or not you celebrate. I dream of an America where you may receive equality that grants you opportunities regardless of your gender, sexuality, race, or ethnicity; I dream of an America where we value our children more than guns; I dream of an America where my body is nobody else's business; I dream of an America where health insurance isn't an indicator of health outcomes. And because I'm an optimist, I still think we can get there. Slower than I want for sure, but I'm hopeful.

This Canadian American is hopeful.