Monday 01 March 2010



Love song to Canada

The world is packing its bags and having its last Japadog on the streets of Vancouver, but for we Canadians standing at airport gates and on the sides of roads waving, saying good bye is going to be hard to do.  During the last 16 days I’ve been curious about the outside world’s perception of our hospitality, our traditions and our hosting abilities.  What does the world think of us?  Do they know just how powerful the 2010 Olympic Games have been at forging a sense of national pride for us?  What do they make of the ubiquitous Hudson’s Bay Company clothing that seems to have been issued to every card carrying Canuck from Calgary to Kapuskasing?

It’s been too long, eh guys?  It feels like forever since we were united as one nation, strong and free instead of wimpy and taxed up the GST.  Even die-hard nationalists have found it difficult to wear their maple leaves on their sleeves, mostly because we tended to turn on each other, cutting our noses off to spite our faces.  I blame it on that blasted beer commercial from a few years back (you know the one I mean–don’t make me say it!), for giving us a false sense of security and a handful of quirky eccentricities to call our own.  You know, most of the English speaking nations of the world pronounce it “Zed” so that’s nothing to call our own, but I don’t want to get started on all that.  Some say it stems back from Ben Johnson’s ’88 disgrace, the point in which feeling good about our athletic achievements came back and slapped us on the face, stinging our senses and sensibilities back beyond humble to outright indifference.

So in light of where we were as a collective at the start of these games, what has happened here in the last 16 days is simple, but it’s extremely powerful stuff:  Canada has fallen back in love with itself.  We’ve all run into an old flame on the street, and what started out as polite chit chat and pleasantries has reignited that spark of passion and light in our eyes, the same feelings we used to have before “the falling out”.  The flaws are still there, that’s for certain, but the rush of endorphins are making us blind to the blemishes.  Canada is courting itself again, blushing and holding hands and indulging in public displays of affection, not caring who’s looking or what they’re thinking.  It’s a heady, it’s dizzying, and it feels so damn fine.

In typical Canadian fashion, I apologize for the spotty weather conditions early on, but ‘ll take a Vancouver rain over L.A. smog any day of the week.  I hope our pride and our joy has been infectious, and not annoying and tiresome.  If you didn’t quite get what the slam poet guy was all about at the opening ceremonies, don’t worry–some of us weren’t sure either–but I hope you were as blown away as I was by k.d. lang and the whales swimming across the floor of BC Place.  Thanks for coming over and spending some time with us, and I truly hope you had as great a time as we all did.  We’re really gonna miss you guys, you know?  But thanks for all the great moments and memories, world; they mean more to us than you’ll ever know.

MP3: Jason Collett “Love Song to Canada”
Myspace: Jason Collett





by J. Di Gioia | 1 Comment »

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under MP3, Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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