The Scene and Herd

It moves quickly, stretching across the countryside and engulfing trees, fences and homes. It reaches up hydro poles and across transmission wires, eventually collapsing them under its weight.

-Globe and Mail, September 26th

I imagine the kudzu as a giant green snake, stretched across our nation with houses digesting in its belly. I imagine us slowly migrating up north, towards Nunavut and the ocean where it’s too cold for the kudzu to survive, or learning to live with the kudzu, on top of it perhaps, destitute except for plenty of tea.

At times, the invasive plant’s arrival in Canada sounds more like an environmental science fiction film than an agricultural reality. Experts use words like “endemic” and “catastrophic” to describe the finding of a small patch of it by Lake Erie and in the US, the kudzu costs the agricultural industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year to control. It sounds like if we left it alone, the whole country would get covered up with kudzu and part of me wishes to see that, a truly historic occurrence.

The Baron in The Trees by Italo Calvino is about an Italian boy named Cosimo who climbs up into the trees to protest his parents’ treatment of him (they were making him eat his dinner) and never comes down again his whole life. He grows old up there and finishes his education up there and takes part in revolutions up there in the trees, because he manages to travel long distances without touching a toe to the ground. He even falls in love up there and remains in love with the same girl for the rest of his life, because he can’t follow her when she gallops away on a horse.

The kudzu catastrophe reminds me of The Baron in The Trees, not only because it’s growing a bizarre and far reaching infastructure of plants, but because it’s somehow lovely and somehow devastating. At times, the kudzu vine’s arrival in Canada sounds more like a romantic work of literature than an agricultural reality.

Six years ago I visited Cluj, Romania with a group of friends. Our first evening there we were shown around the city by a student that we met at the seminary where we were to spend the night. His name was Lauri. He was a skinny kid who wore a cell phone around his neck like jewelry, shy, friendly and well spoken. While we were wandering around Unirii Square in the centre of the city, an older gentleman recognized us as foreigners and came over to make conversation, introduced himself as Otto. He was a big, dignified man, Romanian by birth but smuggled out of the country while still a child and raised in Toronto. In middle age, he’d reacquainted himself with the motherland and visited frequently. Otto initially paid Lauri no heed, but at some point in the conversation, turned to him. “Young man,” he said, “you look as though you come from a poor country.” Lauri appeared humiliated off the bat, but his face changed quickly into an expression of annoyance. “I do,” he said, and the two of them stared at each other, tensely.

I think often of Otto and Lauri, although I can still only speculate as to why I’ve always considered their exchange so significant. I recall Unirii Square whenever I read about the state of Canada’s immigration and refugee system, like this new study that concludes (somewhat obviously) that the economic well being of newcomers continues to deteriorate. When I read about Abdelrazik, Suaad Hagi Mohamud, and the Mexican visa debacle among others, I can still hear Otto’s voice in my head. “You look like you are from a poor country.” And I can still see our friend Lauri, pissed off in his cell phone necklace.

“This photo of my granddaughter Beatrice and I was taken in July. My wife Olivia Chow and I had come to visit with Beatrice and celebrate my 59th birthday with the newest member of our family. Beatrice was 4½ weeks old.”

I used to vote NDP, but then Jack Layton really started to bug me. I agreed with a lot of his ideas but his presence was irksome, and it wasn’t the mustache (which I don’t really like, but also don’t feel the need to insult). I turned Liberal and never really thought about it again, until last week when Macleans put together a collection of photos depicting famous Canadians on summer vacation. Stephen Harper and Jack Layton were right in there with the bunch and the stark comparison of these two political leaders, both of whom are vying for my vote, really shed some light on my feelings about Layton.

Stephen Harper’s photo endeared me to him (he’s always going and doing that in spite of me) because he’s with his daughter (who looks relaxed in his presence) and he’s wearing wire rims, which look great!

Jack Layton’s photo is okay. There’s a sweet little baby in it and I don’t doubt that Jack Layton likes the baby (although I do doubt he really wanted to kiss it like that). The real problem comes in the description that Layton cooked up to go along with the photo in which he refers to the birthday he spent with his new granddaughter and his wife, Olivia Chow… No, I mean he refers to his wife as Olivia Chow. He calls her by her full name. That’s weird. Am I right, or am I right. And now that I think about it, he’s always done that.

It’s interesting that people are always saying Stephen Harper needs to lighten up when frankly; his summer photo put me quite at ease. Jack’s photo freaked me out as usual and now I know why: Jack Layton irks me because he’s irksome. I always thought there was some weirdo sub-conscious reason that I couldn’t trust him or that my perception was off or picking up on something minute, when in actuality I was picking up on something gigantic and clearly off. Call your spouse by their full name all the time and you’re just asking for folks to distrust you.

I’m just thrilled that President Obama called Kanye West a jackass.

Not because it’s true (although it is, it is) and not because I think it’ll knock some sense into that jackass (not possible at this point – out of control) but because it’s really funny. That Obama, he’s a blessing. Remember when he brushed that dirt off his shoulder? Ha!
However historic his leadership is, we sure are lucky to have a political figure that pulls stunts like that and I fear we often forget it, take him for granted. Luckily, he gets chances every day to remind us of how awesome he is.

In honour of Obama calling Kanye West a jackass, I’d like to remind everybody about an incident that happened just over a month ago involving a tourist couple and an extraordinary squirrel that, unlike Obama, only had one chance to tell us how awesome he is.

We take the photo for granted and I don’t want this little guy to be forgotten just because we live in a culture that forgets everything great that has ever happened within fifteen seconds of it happening. The crasher squirrel practically reaffirmed my faith because he didn’t have to show up but he did. And just like Obama’s remark, I smile every time I think about him.

Take a good look. Remember. Laugh. This little squirrel is more miraculous than a brand new baby. And if you can’t see that?
Well, then you’re just a jackass.

Running around my old haunts last night, I saw a sign up outside Boo Radley’s that said “Welcome Back All!” Since it’s just after Labour Day, I figured they were talking to all the students moving back to the city and starting things up again. But there are no colleges or universities around Boo Radley’s and it’s definitely not a student hang out, not by a long shot (undesirable area, completely out of the way). Still, I think they thought they should say something about school starting, because the city changes in September. You feel different, optimistic and such. It’s a remnant of twenty years of Septembers when you were beginning something new.

I haven’t been able to begin much lately. I’ve kind of a writer’s block, I guess, and my days feel unproductive. I know what the problem is: I’m stuck on a style that’s starting to bore me. This has happened before. I know I have to wait for a new approach to strike, and then I can write like crazy. But until then, I’m going to feel sluggish. Yesterday I spent hours at the library and couldn’t write a thing. I walked home with Johnnie around dinnertime and the elementary kids were all coming home from school, tired and sweaty in new clothes, looking like they wake up with purpose each day, the little ragamuffins. I was jealous of them, sort of wishing that September meant something new for me too.

Perhaps Jack Layton shares my nostalgia. I noticed he chose to use a back-to-school metaphor to describe the likelihood of an election. “Mr. Harper has already decided that he’s gung-ho about going out into the schoolyard and having a rumble with Mr. Ignatieff,” he said, perhaps trying to illustrate the immaturity of the two men. I think that those guys over at parliament are suffering from a block (and a bloc? I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…) of their own. They’re stuck on this election business as a means of persuasion, communication. It’s become their default style and you can tell they’re bored stiff of the business (not to mention their readers), but a new approach just hasn’t struck.

Layton might be aiming to make Harper and Ignatieff look childish with his metaphor, but at least those kids rumbling in the schoolyard go back to their desks when the bell rings. We’d be so lucky if the government would sit quietly for a few hours every day, do some math or something. I’m willing to bet Harper and Ignatieff are as jealous as I am of the students around here, the ones getting up in the morning to get things done, the little ragamuffins.