This is not a diary. It's a short love note to a country I only visited for the first time three years ago. But 33 years ago, I found myself in an education abroad program at a small university in Southwestern France. I was French major, but had never been west of Texas (where my parents are from). My French, if I do say so myself, was excellent as result of a great education and obsessive and repetitive listening to Edith Piaf records, every word of which I understood by the time I was selected for the program and got on the plane.
Once in France, I met my very first Canadian, who I will call Syler. We shared a dormitory.
We stuck to each other like glue, had tons of laughs, managed to insinuate ourselves into French culture while taking lots of time to learn about each other and enjoy ourselves. He was different from Americans. Although quite masculine, he was not afraid to study ballet in France, or to express himself artistically. He told me about his country, taught me the anthem, which we sang while sharing a nice bottle of red Bordeaux and he taught me how to ski for the very first time. (In that regard, he was very patient). He had a wonderful sense of humor and we had more laughs than would fit in 20 wine casks. And at some point, for me at least, it became a much deeper feeling.
I was heartbroken when I had to leave for Paris for the remainder of the school year. He visited me there a few times before he returned to Canada, and I to California.
Flash forward 30 years. My then partner (a guy) and I visit Canada for the very first time. We take an American aircraft with American flight attendants(Mesa -- don't) to Vancouver. As we approach the border they announce that we need to fill out customs cards, that they are short of cards and so please, only one card per household. When the flight attendant gets to our row, she hands us two cards and I return one to her. She says "One per household". I gesture to my partner. She says as if to a child, "No.... one per legitimate household". I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. We took two cards.
Then we landed in Vancouver and, to be brief, we were treated as a couple (or at least as nothing unusual) from the very first moment we landed -- at the rental car company, at restaurants, ziplining in Whistler, everywhere. No one even blinked.
I remember getting into the rental car and turning to my partner and saying "Do you realize we can get married here?"
We didn't. And it was for the best. We have parted ways. He is moving out this weekend. 19 years.
But three weeks ago, I heard from Syler. He tracked me down. He was in California with his family and wanted to know if we can get together. We did get toegether, and it was a marvelous reunion. He was everything I remembered: Cool, low key, very funny, gracious, tolerant and kind. His wife was lovely and his oldest boy looked exactly the way Syler did at that age. He looked me in the eye from inches away, as if to say "Do you remember?" Yes, it was disturbing in a way and it was all I could do to keep my cool and to make them all feel very welcome, and to squelch the overtones and undercurrents. It was like being together simultaneously in two dimensions: Across the table from me -- young Syler and older Syler. I enjoyed them all very much and I believe I made them all feel welcome.
And when we parted, I was a little broken hearted, yet again. Picture Barbara Streisand when she sees Robert Redford at the end of "The Way We Were". As his family walked away, he turned, looked at me and smiled. And for a brief moment he was 19 again, and I was 23. I smiled, too, and later wondered if dimensional travel, however brief, might actually happen. I know that in my heart it did.
And so while I am undergoing these intense waves of personal nostalgia, the health care debacle unfolds. I reflect on how hard it has been to do the right thing here....how difficult it has been to press past the propaganda, to try and give Americans what Canadians and Europeans have had for some time: health care.
All a jumble in my mind: watching America ripping itself apart the seams; the break up of my relationship; a reminder of an intensely romantic time....and a hockey game.
And somewhere during the US/Canada hockey game, I found my allegiance drifting to our forgotten cousins to the North -- these people who manage to handle bilingualism with nonchalance, who accept people the way they are, who apologize when you step on their toes, who have given us so many gifted artists and writers (Thank you Joni!), who revere their environment without making a big fuss about it, who have the city that recent news reports call the city with the highest quality of life in the world (Vancouver), and who do all this so effortlesly, without bluster or jingoism.
And I started rooting for the Canadians.....just some recognition here for the country that seems to live forever in our shadow. I wanted them to win. Just fucking win this Canada. Just fucking win it, I was thinking to myself.
The game went into sudden death over time and a Canadian shot went in. And I remembered what it was like to be genuinely happy for someone else, even when you are a little sad. I remembered the neighbor we have forgotten. The one that has always been there for us. The one that quietly does the right thing without disturbing another living soul. I remembered Syler.
And I watched the maple leaf rise, burst into tears and started blubbering the anthem I learned 33 years ago, drunk on youth, on affection and on red wine.
All the best to you my, Canadian friends. Thank you for an emotionally gripping Olympics and for being, as you are, the best hosts in the world.
I have been waiting to tell you this a very long time: Je t'aime.