I’m the mom rolling her eyes at the “no- peanut signs”, thinking that if your kid is so allergic to nuts that my kid’s snack can make your sprog’s tongue inflate like a blimp than you really should be looking at the newest in bubble homes, not hanging out at kindergym. (The Moops! The Moops!). When the university I worked for banned perfume, I sulked for a month. Although I had suffered plenty over-Polo-infused elevator rides in my time, legislating smell seemed crazy. Eventually, though, and dutifully, my perfume found its dusty way to the back of my vanity drawer.
I had the same basic attitude towards colds, superbugs, germy germs. Nile Virus, Avian Flu, even SARS…ha and double ha. As with allergy epidemics, I couldn’t quite swallow that bugs are bigger and badder than they use to be; after all, human history is plagued, well, with plagues. Of course I have had intelligent, semi-informed conversations about modern society’s overuse of chemicals, cleaners, and antibiotics and concede that there are reasonable grounds to conclude that times they are a changin’, but I never really believed.
Norwalk made a believer out of me. Because last Sunday I learned what “The Norwalk” is: it’s the pathetic, bile-laden crawl you do across your bathroom tiles to the foot of your bed, where you lie for awhile until you need to make the return journey, back through bile, back to the basin. When the final count came through, our rousing St. Paddy’s party on Saturday night had resulted in 9 casualties, otherwise healthy adults hugging porcelain for several hours and bed-ridden for at least a couple of days. A fellow Walker laughed when I marveled aloud about how a human can choke on something as small as a peanut and die but when our bodies sense a teeny-tiny foreign molecule, our esophagus opens up like Old Faithful. 1-2 days after we had toasted each other, dug our fists into chip bowls and slopped Irish stew, we were, to use the vernacular, slayed. We were slayed by one of the most effective viruses I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, a “noro-virus”.
5 days into doctor-suggested but self-imposed quarantine later, I found myself carrying disinfectant wipes to the park so that I could wipe down the swings and merry-go-round after my toddler was finished. That same day, my husband rushed in and out of the store for food, touching only what was necessary, while the three of us waited on the sidewalk like wee waifs waiting for a handout. I went to bed the other night worrying about how I pay for a movie: which method would expose me and others the least? Swiping at a terminal would be best, then I could clean my card and the keypad afterwards. Real money? Oh God! Granny, now I know where it’s been; I’ve seen its travels; they resemble a red-water river ride through chunky canyon. How will I touch coins or paper money again? I covet the sanitation station outside the grocery store and wonder how I can make one at my front door look attractive. Perhaps top it with a flower basket.
When I think back to that fateful night, I’m shocked by my slack approach to hygiene. My son chewed some olives, then slopped them back into the bowl. I scooped the chewed ones out and went about my business. The two toddlers licked chips and double-dipped. The adults shared a bottle of Bushmill’s, the lazy man’s way, the rummy way. We dipped our potato cakes in communal gravy. One of the kids had diarrhea; we didn’t think anything of it. Cleaned her up, chucked the pants in the wash and cracked a Guinness. Did we wash our hands? I can’t remember. We kissed and hugged and wiped runny noses with our fingers, then onto our jeans. We walked on the beach and strange wet dogs licked our fingers; we had some more chips and veggies and dip. Norwalk was laughing its pants off and rubbing its nasty hands together with glee.
I now experiment with different measurements of bleach solutions. I do this because in my mind’s eye I can still see my throat wide as a fire hose spewing semi-digested Sunday dinner and gallons of reddish liquid. I can still feel my eyes bursting from my head and the uncertainty of which orifice my organs will get sucked through. I still have the pathetic image burned in my memory of my two-year old dry-heaving while I lay curled around his feet. 4 parts bleach, 10 parts water. Hot, hot water. Yes, that seems strong enough.
Disease control thanked me for calling and the emergency room (where you are NOT supposed to go if you think you have a noro-virus) was very accommodating. Bless IV Gravol. I learned some new medical terminology and that my husband, while he looks kind of cute in rubber gloves, brings new definition to the word “hurl”, as in all over the bathroom door, floor, and walls. Most importantly though, besides no longer mocking peanut-paranoid moms, I have learned that those big, bad bugs truly are everywhere and love normal, but sloppy families and party-goers just like us, and you. See you at the movies tonight.
(As published in Monday Magazine, July 2007)
Showing posts with label anthem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anthem. Show all posts
Friday, September 4, 2009
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
O Canada
The last time I sang our national anthem was on a July long weekend in Kamloops two years ago. Shy in a crowd of many, my voiced cracked in a half-hearted attempt to appear patriotic and, though now thirty-four, I know I reminded myself to sing the new words, sans “God”, as we has been instructed sometime around grade four. My son sang gleefully beside me, slipping into the French version when the English words escaped him, the French lyrics more forceful, prideful: “…des plus brillants exploits….” The great Canadian immersion project.
When I entered the gymnasium of the local elementary school this past May 17th, I recalled all of the gyms of my school years and the frequent “assemblies” which always began with a scramble to sit near my friends and then a hush as we stood for, in the early years, God Save The Queen, and then, of course, O Canada. My vocal performance then was no different from that of today, struggling with the tricky balance of appearing “cool” in front of my friends but feeling in my gut it would be wrong not to sing (after all, Canadians young and old are embarrassed by any overt American-style jingoism…aren’t they? or perhaps it is what Adrienne Clarkson calls our “pathological modesty”). In truth, butterflies would tickle my stomach and I would feel something incredibly like pride as the anthem built momentum. I don’t doubt that both the cool and the uncool felt that same glow.
So, as I sidled up to an election volunteer in my son’s school gym that Tuesday, I felt the familiar thrill of my childhood anthemism. Of course, I can attribute the lump in my throat to the super-polished wood floors, the stale smell of sweat, or the stage and its makeshift curtains over which hung the red and white maple leaf. And yet, if I dig deep, I know that it’s because each of these are successfully symbolic, they make me believe, in the joy of childhood, in the satisfaction of education , in Canada, in the whole damn reason I was standing there that afternoon, in democracy.
I don’t normally think of myself or my family as very politicized, yet my 9- year old son wants to be Prime Minister and giggles at the Globe’s Heather Mallick and her term of dislike for our southern neighbour’s leader (or “neighbor” if you wish): “Bushlet”. My husband has started to refer to me as the “pop-up head” as I interject every news item on the radio with my invariably partially-informed, yet passionate, views on world affairs (“I can’t believe the CBC would broadcast comments like ‘dipstick’ “; “Newsweek shouldn’t have to apologize for publishing misinformation; for god’s sake, Bush went to war on misinformation!! And so on…) When my mother-in-law suggested I was wasting my vote if I voted for a certain environmentally-concerned provincial party, I argued that the heart of democracy was not strategic voting and that her vote could be considered trash too if she voted by default for the likely winner, rather than for the party that most closely represented her values. My friends and I discuss the fallacy of a true democracy in a two-party race and a decreasing voter turnout. Perhaps I am more politicized than I realized.
Of course, it was just a provincial election and (yes, Ottawa and Quebec) JUST a wacky B.C. election at that, but what I realized that afternoon as I hovered over my ballot (YES! STV) and my stomach did flip-flops was that O Canada and Gordon Campbell were the same butterfly. I realized that, with the possible exception of Stephen Harper, I can trust that Canadian politicians, regardless of the waxing and waning of scandals and budgets, will forever uphold democracy, will forever cherish my right to vote and it is up to me to stand on guard, protégera nos foyers et nos droits, by submitting my ballot. If democracy is a sham it is only because a country’s citizens (or a U.S.-sponsored coup d'état) make it one. Sure, I am sometimes as embarrassed by our politicians as I am singing aloud but, fortunately, I can hide behind the cardboard divider. Something as simple as a school auditorium or as seemingly complex as a provincial election nudges the word “free” from my heart to my lips. Free. As in True North. As in Strong and. Sentimentality perhaps, simple-mindedness even, but just try to sing O Canada and not feel funny inside. Peculiar and ha ha at once.
I used to be envious of the determination and passion of voters in countries where democracy is in its infancy, where, sometimes, to vote could mean to die. Canadians no longer value this freedom, I would tell myself. I saw no trace of that lazy monster voter apathy last month on the city roads awash with campaign posters. When I stopped for milk at 7:30 p.m., the clerk asked me to hurry, so she could make it to a polling station before it closed at 8. At my polling station, an elderly man struggled with his cane up the path; he looked determined. He looked proud. I’ll bet he had butterflies.
X Canada
X Democracy
(as published in Monday Magazine, July 2005)
When I entered the gymnasium of the local elementary school this past May 17th, I recalled all of the gyms of my school years and the frequent “assemblies” which always began with a scramble to sit near my friends and then a hush as we stood for, in the early years, God Save The Queen, and then, of course, O Canada. My vocal performance then was no different from that of today, struggling with the tricky balance of appearing “cool” in front of my friends but feeling in my gut it would be wrong not to sing (after all, Canadians young and old are embarrassed by any overt American-style jingoism…aren’t they? or perhaps it is what Adrienne Clarkson calls our “pathological modesty”). In truth, butterflies would tickle my stomach and I would feel something incredibly like pride as the anthem built momentum. I don’t doubt that both the cool and the uncool felt that same glow.
So, as I sidled up to an election volunteer in my son’s school gym that Tuesday, I felt the familiar thrill of my childhood anthemism. Of course, I can attribute the lump in my throat to the super-polished wood floors, the stale smell of sweat, or the stage and its makeshift curtains over which hung the red and white maple leaf. And yet, if I dig deep, I know that it’s because each of these are successfully symbolic, they make me believe, in the joy of childhood, in the satisfaction of education , in Canada, in the whole damn reason I was standing there that afternoon, in democracy.
I don’t normally think of myself or my family as very politicized, yet my 9- year old son wants to be Prime Minister and giggles at the Globe’s Heather Mallick and her term of dislike for our southern neighbour’s leader (or “neighbor” if you wish): “Bushlet”. My husband has started to refer to me as the “pop-up head” as I interject every news item on the radio with my invariably partially-informed, yet passionate, views on world affairs (“I can’t believe the CBC would broadcast comments like ‘dipstick’ “; “Newsweek shouldn’t have to apologize for publishing misinformation; for god’s sake, Bush went to war on misinformation!! And so on…) When my mother-in-law suggested I was wasting my vote if I voted for a certain environmentally-concerned provincial party, I argued that the heart of democracy was not strategic voting and that her vote could be considered trash too if she voted by default for the likely winner, rather than for the party that most closely represented her values. My friends and I discuss the fallacy of a true democracy in a two-party race and a decreasing voter turnout. Perhaps I am more politicized than I realized.
Of course, it was just a provincial election and (yes, Ottawa and Quebec) JUST a wacky B.C. election at that, but what I realized that afternoon as I hovered over my ballot (YES! STV) and my stomach did flip-flops was that O Canada and Gordon Campbell were the same butterfly. I realized that, with the possible exception of Stephen Harper, I can trust that Canadian politicians, regardless of the waxing and waning of scandals and budgets, will forever uphold democracy, will forever cherish my right to vote and it is up to me to stand on guard, protégera nos foyers et nos droits, by submitting my ballot. If democracy is a sham it is only because a country’s citizens (or a U.S.-sponsored coup d'état) make it one. Sure, I am sometimes as embarrassed by our politicians as I am singing aloud but, fortunately, I can hide behind the cardboard divider. Something as simple as a school auditorium or as seemingly complex as a provincial election nudges the word “free” from my heart to my lips. Free. As in True North. As in Strong and. Sentimentality perhaps, simple-mindedness even, but just try to sing O Canada and not feel funny inside. Peculiar and ha ha at once.
I used to be envious of the determination and passion of voters in countries where democracy is in its infancy, where, sometimes, to vote could mean to die. Canadians no longer value this freedom, I would tell myself. I saw no trace of that lazy monster voter apathy last month on the city roads awash with campaign posters. When I stopped for milk at 7:30 p.m., the clerk asked me to hurry, so she could make it to a polling station before it closed at 8. At my polling station, an elderly man struggled with his cane up the path; he looked determined. He looked proud. I’ll bet he had butterflies.
X Canada
X Democracy
(as published in Monday Magazine, July 2005)
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