Three bright spots
The past year had reminders of human solidarity in our troubled world
I’m a bit rueful about a letter I wrote to 2017 in my final column last year, pleading for “kindness” in the coming year and promising not to let “every Trump tweet and twitch become the centre of my mental, moral or even Twitter universe.”
Ha. Instead, 2017 got globally Trumped by a constant stream of puerile, corrosively hostile and often hateful tweets from an American president whose words and actions make it difficult for anyone who cares about democracy to find a healthy Trump-life balance. The id stayed in the picture.
There were as well, in 2017, terrible mass murders, including a massacre in a Quebec mosque, growing incidents of unabashed bigotry, devastating floods and other natural disasters, and in many of us a deepening sense of outrage and despair.
Yet there were also bright spots in all our lives, both personal and public. A joyful wedding, a new baby born into a family, a moment of mastery at work or at play.
These moments gave comfort, a reprieve from the often soul-battering discourse in the public square, and hope.
Here are three of my favourite moments. 1. I’ve recently written about how the massive Women’s March in Washington in January and similar marches around the world lit a spark that eventually led to the #MeToo movement after appalling allegations against powerful men — and a new resolve to end misogyny and sexual harassment.
But the march also personally inspired me. I am not a joiner. I chose journalism partly because, as the late writer Nora Ephron once observed, “you were officially deputized not to join in.”
Yet at almost the last minute, I felt compelled to take to the Toronto streets that day, along with a close writer friend, and we experienced a jolt of pure positive energy. We made up our own slogan to shout — “Ho ho, hey hey, freedom of the press has got to stay” — and marching down University Ave. that Saturday felt like the best — and only — place to be in all the world. Later a friend gave me Why We March, a fantastic book collection of images, signs and sayings from that day.
Leafing through it reminds me of how powerful and connected we all felt. As singer Alicia Keys put it: “We are mothers. We are caregivers. We are artists. We are activists. We are entrepreneurs, doctors, leaders of industry and technology. Our potential is unlimited. We rise.” 2. In March, I found myself in Manhattan, seated in a Broadway theatre with my husband, seeing Come From Away. You could describe the Canadian musical, written by Torontonians Irene Sankoff and David Hein as an uber-folksy “feel good” production telling the story of how in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorism attacks, the people of the tiny town of Gander, N.L., welcomed 6,600 unexpected guests for a five-day sleepover when all commercial air travel was grounded.
But that doesn’t do it justice. The musical, which went on to be nominated for seven Tony Awards, eventually winning one for direction by American director Christopher Ashley, makes a profound statement about human kindness and generosity, complete with rousing fiddle music and endearing characters.
For me, it was so moving to see this show surrounded by Americans — at the heart of where the terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened — and feel their relief at experiencing something so uplifting at a moment of extreme political upheaval in their own country.
Every moment in that theatre felt like a vote for our better angels. It was sublime, also more than a bit teary. 3. On Labour Day weekend last September, I was at my husband’s family cottage on a lake just outside a small northwestern town in Quebec, getting ready to participate in our “closing ceremonies” in which we build a big bonfire, and recite poems or sing songs to laud or poke fun at the summer we’ve just experienced as an extended family.
Before we got to it, my mother-inlaw, now 91, whose cottage it is and who has been coming here since she was a baby, asked that we drive into the French-speaking small town where an “ethnic festival” was taking place.
Four of us arrived in the early cold evening to see tables filled with townsfolk, and a band playing Klezmer music, the original folk music of the Jews of ancient eastern Europe.
We stood for a while listening to the music and watching the townspeople down their drinks and tap their feet, although many were continuing to talk throughout the performance.
As we were leaving to go back to the family bonfire, the four of us — my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my husband and I — spontaneously held hands and began to dance hora steps in a circle in the empty space in front of the stage.
Suddenly one, then two, then many townspeople jumped up to join us, and there we all were, all holding hands to dance a traditional Jewish dance together in a town in which, when my mother-in-law was an infant and her mother wanted to hire help, young women were told “don’t work for the Jew.” We made our way back to our car, our souls full on a starry night.
Looking back, all three of these events — the march, the musical and our “ethnic” moment — highlighted for me the power of simple human solidarity in a troubled world.
I’m so grateful to have experienced them. And I will carry the hope they gave me into 2018. Judith Timson writes weekly about cultural, social and political issues. You can reach her at judith.timson@sympatico.ca and follow her on Twitter @judithtimson.