Canadian-ness

Canadian-ness isn’t something I often feel. It’s usually more a feeling of not being American, but being North American.

I feel a sense of being from Vancouver, but Vancouver’s relationship with Canada is different than Toronto or Montreal’s perhaps. I have also never been east of the Rockies.

However, whenever I listen to Winnipeg’s (maybe some are from Toronto?) The Weakerthans. I feel this slightly painful, very deep yearning for Canada.

It’s something I cannot properly put into words, and it may not make sense because I don’t think one thinks the Weakerthans are quintessentially Canadian.

Perhaps it’s because I listened to them a lot before I left for Japan at 21, and it somewhat feels like a soundtrack for my early 20’s that never materialized.

Most of my friends I think got into either hard drugs in the city, or having families in the faraway suburbs and I am glad I never was apart of either group. Despite all that was gained by loving my early 20’s onwards in Japan in the late aughts, the curiosity for what was potentially missed pops its head up sometimes.

And that feeling is what my heart identifies as Canadian, which it is in a very subjective sense.

Anyways, I’m listening to the Weakerthans final studio album now on the Saikyo Line back to Urawa, feeling Canadian in a way that isn’t connected with beer commercials, ice hockey, or contrasting with America.