Rupture
Once I mistakenly stated to a friend I didn’t really work in a multi-cultural environment. I think in the context of the conversation I could not recall the sums that can separate people and generate marvel or bias. That, or just at that moment, some unknown synaptic tumour ruptured.
At morning I counted Korean, Italian, Quebecois, El Salvadoran, Dutch, Mexican, Vietnamese, Jamaican, and 3rd generation Canadians who have not seen a second language. All toiling, united in common demand of food and shelter of themselves and children, hoping for a little extra left over, and all separated by specialized skills, thick accents, hobbies, and mild bigotry.
Brick slingers, tile guys, wood monkeys, paint jockeys, and drywall ghosts all forming various cliques and levels of debts, generally amicable by coffee but quietly examining ‘none of their business,’ sometimes out of ear shot. United by a house they will not live in and separated by decades and modes of immigration.
They are all the best at what they do, or at least good enough, so they tell me, and therefore the authority on what everyone else does, including foreign policy. Plato said as much.
Some argue, some do not, some take, some give. It’s irritating that across the house you can hear some begin each task with twenty minutes of complaining, while somewhere outside I can recognise ‘Jingle Bells’ by the tune, sung just for itself in Italian in August.
Some have kids at home in their thirties. Some are smart enough never graduating high school but have young going away to university. Some of the old have their mortgages long paid, while the young wonder if ever they can. Some rave about their favourite meats while they eat the salads wives made and some others do not have the options. Some still have gardens while others get fast food.
What really gets confusing is seeing the Dutch guy eat nachos, the Italian eat shrimp salad, the El Salvadorian eat spaghetti, the Canadian slather on his homemade hot sauce and you cannot understand any of them over the volume of languages.
For me, I fade from a wood-moment to a book I underlined, words I wanted to write, or a guilty philosophy feeling left over from a dream. Then I notice coffee cups on my un-stained maple and poplar cabinets. It’s either me or them but at the end of the day something is going to get a rupture across the head.
At morning I counted Korean, Italian, Quebecois, El Salvadoran, Dutch, Mexican, Vietnamese, Jamaican, and 3rd generation Canadians who have not seen a second language. All toiling, united in common demand of food and shelter of themselves and children, hoping for a little extra left over, and all separated by specialized skills, thick accents, hobbies, and mild bigotry.
Brick slingers, tile guys, wood monkeys, paint jockeys, and drywall ghosts all forming various cliques and levels of debts, generally amicable by coffee but quietly examining ‘none of their business,’ sometimes out of ear shot. United by a house they will not live in and separated by decades and modes of immigration.
They are all the best at what they do, or at least good enough, so they tell me, and therefore the authority on what everyone else does, including foreign policy. Plato said as much.
Some argue, some do not, some take, some give. It’s irritating that across the house you can hear some begin each task with twenty minutes of complaining, while somewhere outside I can recognise ‘Jingle Bells’ by the tune, sung just for itself in Italian in August.
Some have kids at home in their thirties. Some are smart enough never graduating high school but have young going away to university. Some of the old have their mortgages long paid, while the young wonder if ever they can. Some rave about their favourite meats while they eat the salads wives made and some others do not have the options. Some still have gardens while others get fast food.
What really gets confusing is seeing the Dutch guy eat nachos, the Italian eat shrimp salad, the El Salvadorian eat spaghetti, the Canadian slather on his homemade hot sauce and you cannot understand any of them over the volume of languages.
For me, I fade from a wood-moment to a book I underlined, words I wanted to write, or a guilty philosophy feeling left over from a dream. Then I notice coffee cups on my un-stained maple and poplar cabinets. It’s either me or them but at the end of the day something is going to get a rupture across the head.