Some people seek out Canada Day; others have Canada Day thrust upon them. And so it was thrust upon me this year when, flying back from a wedding in Lethbridge, Alberta on Sunday, I boarded my Toronto-to-Ottawa plane at 9:15pm.
Throughout our airborne hour, hundreds of tiny fireworks displays sparkled in the darkness below. Miniature concentric globes expanded above fields and off lakeshores. At any given time there were at least a dozen in view, each filling one audience’s night sky. Any given gathering was unaware of the others. Parallel joy. In the 90-degree night, invisible communities flung pinches of hope into the firmament like salt thrown over a shoulder, and the sky answered them with orange heat lightening.
I’m not much for nationalism, and I don’t tend to do the Canada Day thing, so Sunday for me was more than a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. It gave me a lifetime’s worth of Canada Day in a single hour. More fireworks displays than most people will ever see.
It also happened to mark the day when Canada started dollar-for-dollar tariffs to match the trade barriers imposed by the United States. Apparently we’re a national security threat, so the tariffs against us are legal. My livelihood, which is entirely a cultural and financial exchange with Americans, feels precarious and misunderstood.
But I have a peace offering for you all—some free advice. Find yourself an airplane tomorrow, folks. Hop in at 9 or whenever the Fourth of July fireworks tend to happen. And fly around for awhile. It might get you back in touch with your own country’s hope, as it did for me. If only for one hour.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
