Monthend

This morning was cold!  I don’t need a reminder that Fall is coming, and mornings with a frost warning aren’t exactly my favourites.  Jerry seems to like the cooler weather — he gets very frisky and is more likely to pull me (naughty puppy) He had a nice time barking at everything and generally getting into mischief.  Don is also doing well, although he is, like me, not a fan of colder weather.  

I’m heading to my sister tomorrow; we’d planned this a while ago for me to spend Thanksgiving with them. I’m eager to see my sister and her family — the kids have been a little more chatty on video calls, so maybe they will be more inclined to talk to me in person.  I can only be optimistic, right?  I’m hoping that they have memories of me being there at Christmas so they won’t start off being upset at a new person in the house.  It’s a bit of a challenge, having family spread around the globe.  You can’t be everywhere at once, and when I go to my sister’s, it means that I’m away from my boys and I miss them dreadfully.  When I’m here, I miss my sister, and more, my family in Trinidad.  I would love it if we had a Star Trek-style transporter so I could move instantaneously from one home to another and not leave anyone behind! Besides, I really hate packing and being shoehorned into a plane (I used to like flying, but that was in the before times when security checks were less onerous than they are now!!)   

Today we mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (NDTR), a new observance to commemorate the horrific legacy of residential schools.  It’s one of the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and provides an opportunity to more fully recognize and honour Indigenous peoples.  It’s really distressing how colonialism works to destroy civilizations, isn’t it?  One group, with more powerful weapons, takes over another group (or groups) and then systematically works to erase their identities.  It’s a technique dating back before the Greeks, and it’s only been refined over the years.  The marks of the conquerors go deep, and it can take generations (read centuries) to remove many of the lingering effects.  I hesitantly suggest that we’re improving at overturning the problems caused by invasion, occupation and colonialism because there are attempts to address and redress the problems.  It’s not perfect, but I suggest that it’s a gradual step to becoming better humans.  It would be infinitely better if there weren’t these invasions and destructive practices, but we can only deal with what we have now and work forward.  The past is immutable.  

It’s sad, isn’t it, that as a species we seem to have a desire to erase other parts of our species?  Carrying out wars, raids for slaves of all sorts, suppressing languages… and while much of that is opposed and encoded into laws, there are still people who exploit others.  IMO, it’s a good thing when a leader realizes that their predecessors had instituted something horrible — like the residential school system, or institutional slavery or segregation or concentration camps — and works to correct the damage.  In some cases, it’s only acknowledged as dreadful a long time after (like slavery) so there are no direct survivors and it’s difficult to atone for the damages caused.  It’s also a challenge to get a government to admit that they, or rather, their ancestors, did something terrible and they need to make it better, because at that point it means upsetting the balance of power, and nobody wants to surrender power or share it.  If it was easy, it would be done quickly, but instead there are many who object and fight to maintain the status quo.  I think, though, that eventually everyone comes around to supporting the protection of rights of everyone, and things improve.

I still have hope that humanity will one day wake up and stop harming itself and the planet.  It’s a hope founded in reality — I mean, when you consider the slave trade, there were many people who thought that it was right and natural to have slaves, and made some feeble (but expensively funded) arguments that some groups were naturally suited to enslavement.  We no longer think that way, and it’s almost universally accepted that slavery is bad.  So I think that we will eventually come to a point of acknowledging the rights and dignity of all humanity.  In the meantime, we have days like today where we can take the time to reflect on our past and work to build a brighter future.

On that note, I’m off to finish packing and then to bed.  I’ll let you know how the train journey goes, because I opted for that instead of flying.  The fact that even business class on the train costs less than a flight is just a bonus.  Relaxed ride, wifi included, hot meal and beverages… all very good things.  Good night!