Thursday, July 01, 2010

My personal Vimy

I've known as long as I can remember that Vimy Ridge was a WWI battle that took place in France. It's the sort of thing you absorb from your environment, just like you can name-check Dieppe and Ypres and Hastings and Hiroshima.

I studied it formally in Grade 10 History class. My teacher spent rather a lot of time on it, detailing the historical significance of having all the Canadian divisions working together in a Canadian-led operation, enumerating all the bravery and valour, and describing the influence this victory had on Canada's self-concept, making Canadians feel like they're their own proper grown-up country that they can be proud of rather than a colonial branch plant of the UK.

He then look at us expectantly, as though he expected us to suddenly have a changed view of our country. But I felt nothing. My concept of my country was exactly the same. I'd learned the material, I could rattle off the correct answer to the test, but it had no influence whatsoever on my view of my Canada, because it's something that has always been there.

***

The year is 2003. George W. Bush is president of the United States. I'd just finished my last semester of university, and in between completing final projects and frantically trying to find a job and an apartment for after graduation, I'd been protesting the invasion of Iraq and trying to keep Canada out. Every day a new right-wing political outrage would arrive in my inbox.

At the time of this story, I was in Quebec. When I'm in Quebec I like to immerse myself, so I had the TV tuned to RDI while I went about my evening chores. Suddenly, I heard something that made me stop and stare at the TV. That can't possibly be right! I must have misheard! But I couldn't imagine anything else that combination of words could possibly mean. I ran to the computer and pulled up an English-language news site. I'd heard correctly. Same-sex marriage had just become legal in Ontario.

It just smacked me in the face. I live somewhere that I can be proud of! We aren't a branch plant of the US, we're different! And better!

***

I was 22 years old when this happened, and it was the first time I was ever actively proud of my country. Before, I could rattle off all the reasons I should be proud of my country and conjure up an appropriate response, but this was the first time I actually felt it in my gut, unprovoked.

One day, in a couple of decades, we will be celebrating the 20th or 25th anniversary of the legalization of same-sex marriage. I will be in my late 40s, with lines on my face like my father's and salt-and-pepper hair dyed chestnut like my mother's, wearing no-line bifocals as though that little line is the only thing that betrays my age. My co-workers and I (for in my imagined future I'm still in the same workplace with the same co-workers) will sit around the break room reminiscing. Where were you when you first heard? Who was the first same-sex married couple you knew? When was your first big gay wedding? Newspapers will tell the story of how this all came about, track down the court justices and the Michaels and do "Where are they now?" profiles. And in our office will be some new hires, kids in their early 20s just out of university, who will look at all this fuss we're making and feel nothing, because for them it will be something that has always been there.

I very much look forward to that day.

Happy Canada Day and Happy Pride Week!

1 comment:

TravelMaus said...

What a lovely post! We SHOULD be proud of having same-sex marriage legal in our country ! And you made me look at it from a whole new perspective! Thanks!