Fallout Shelter

Our town's open mic resides in the 118 year old decommissioned Anglican Church, now known as St. John's Heritage Church and Arts Centre. The evening of music and readings are on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Each session features our regulars and guests, singing and reading, hopes and hearts plainly in sight. Last week was revelatory, at least to me.

It was subtle, noticeable if you attend the open mic regularly. Performers made unusual mistakes, tripped up on words or chords. We held our bodies tight. We seemed slightly distracted. We looked as though we were on guard, but it wasn't stage fright.

We told our stories, consciously (or subconsciously) aware of the shock waves of our reality. Inside the comfort of the small clapboard building, we were still impacted by the storm of chaos outside, its debris pummelling the exterior. And that's the intention of chaos: to stop you dead, strip you of your authority to act, to minimize you into paralysis. Despite the aggression outside the doors, there was sanctity. The church, likely doing its best work in a long time, became a shelter for the world-weary.

Up to that evening, I was struggling to write, especially nonfiction pieces on our current state of affairs. I'm no pundit or intellectual, but I would like to suffuse hope into the world. Yet, every time I put fingertips to keys on a current issue, I could not find words to express myself. My heart would race. I would get teary (so emarrassing!). I was stuck.

I've been working on a story that involves researching my Grandfather's WWI records. I have read through attestation papers, battalion war diaries, books, videos, and online documents. The Great War was as horrific as we have been taught to believe. I haven't been deeply affect by it because I have been looking at it through the veil of 'the past'. Macabre scenes of war comfortably bound in 'that was then'. Palatable.

A few days after the open mic, I read an article in the Guardian. It covered the defence summit in London that drew together major European powers to discuss peace in Ukraine. Without thought, I searched the article's photo of leaders and their flags. I look for Canada's. It was there, featured amongst those of the western nations, our allies. I was relieved. And proud. As I returned to the text, 111 years collapsed into the present. In a trick of time and emotion, it might as well have been late July, 1914. I visualized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's remarks that Europe and Britain were prepared "to put boots on the ground and planes in the air", and that "if you want to preserve peace, you have to be prepared to defend the peace". In that moment, I was shaken from the comfort of looking at WWI over my shoulder to seeing it staring me in the face. Not so easy to digest. We are the past in the present. We've been here before. It's frighteningly familiar. And now there is clarity. I understand our heightened emotions. I understand too that what I have been craving is safety, not to be confused with escape. I think it might be what the performers at our open mic needed last week, too.

Political cartoons and recent musical tributes to Canada's strength are morale-boosting. It's a rally cry to nationhood and it's so good to laugh. Trench newspapers in WWI did the same thing. Soldiers drew and published cartoons that parodied military brass and the war, laughter in the face of indescribable suffering and death. But, if we are to bring peace we need to dig deeper. We need to look past the unavoidable and well-meaning rhetoric.

Eighty million people did not vote for the current president of the United States. While we push back against the US and buy Canadian, we need to remember that the American administration does not represent the majority of its citizens. The US is still our neighbour. Don't get me wrong. I have a very strong commitment to our border and country. But, I don't want to forget Americans who are demoralized or compromised by the acts of their government. Many are fighting for justice too. Our neighbours in Mexico are facing tariffs like us in addition to social justice crimes that will affect the lives of its citizens. Overseas, our relatives and ancestral lands in Ukraine and Europe are rallying to restore peace. For me, the possibility of war overshadows the threat of economic ruin from tariffs. The first inevitably leading to the second.

We've been rattled. We can enlist in the comfort of our tribes, allies, friends, and families. We can take strength from the balanced and wise words of journalists and writers. We are inspired by leaders striving to build peace, people who are working thanklessly for our benefit, regardless of their political alliances. In unity, we are inoculated against overwhelm. The thoughtful, devoted, humorous, kind... The warrior, healer, diplomat... archetypes in each of us, the blueprint for peace. Our kindredness a fallout shelter.

Our town’s open mic resides in the 118 year old decommissioned Anglican Church, now known as the St. John’s Heritage Church and Arts Centre. The evening of music and readings are on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. Each session features our regulars and guests, singing and reading, hopes and hearts plainly in sight. Last week was revelatory, at least to me.