Chrisonomicon

Monday, March 24, 2003

The US went to war with Iraq while I was visiting Montréal last week. I was grateful to be out of the country, isolated from the talk and pervasive CNN coverage, but I managed to find out a bit about what was going on from a few of the locals.

The national sentiment was uniform, each conversation as implicative as the next, a waiter or a hotel clerk or a boy leaning against the bar, casually explaining how he'd never been especially proud to be Canadian, a nationality that had always seemed like a shadow of its neighbor in politics, economics and culture. With Canadian officials denouncing American military action in the Middle East and increasing anti-war protests in the Great North, he now smiled and proclaimed, "I'm proud to be Canadian."

And I found myself apologizing profusely in every conversation as though I'd somehow unreasonably shouldered the responsibility for recent worldly events, being an American in a foreign country and all (but ultimately what are we responsible for besides our treatment of the few people we come in contact with daily?). It did prove for some rich opportunities for conversation with strangers, though. The French-Canadians are beautiful.

Returning from Canada was surprisingly uneventful. Hadn't security been beefed at one point with fears of terrorists raging against the recent war declaration? I checked my own bags and boarded with no search, and once inside the country, inside the quarantine of airport security, I was free to flirt with every gate, passenger, and carry-on. I imagined myself freely planting bombs of opiate with civility and kindness and an understanding smile.