Prompt # 31 - Pride

Prompt # 31 – Pride

Pride. Well, first of all, I'm a Canadian and proud to be. Lucky to be born here, lucky that my grandmothers and great-grandfather and many mysterious greats before that chose to move here and make a new life for themselves. But one of the things about being Canadian is that we are sort of expected to be self-effacing, not to try to stand out, to try not to stand out. And not to intrude. You know the title of that early Alice Munro book - Who Do You Think You Are? - that's a phrase every Canadian child hears, especially when they've done or said something that made him or her sound “too big for your britches,” or “too proud.” So, what can I say?

I was always proud of my father for being a veteran and a farmer. I have always been proud of being a farmer's daughter. I was proud of my mother for being such an enthusiastic athlete (which I could never be). And of my brothers for becoming a nurse and a teacher/principal.

I always enjoyed school and school work and achieved good marks. I won a free trip to summer camp, and a free trip to Montreal in high school. I'm also proud of my MA thesis which received an Honourable Mention as best thesis of the year. It is titled The Indian, the 'Other,' in the Canadian Quest for Identity: Four Prairie Novels of the 1970s (University of Manitoba 1981) and is available on line. I'm also quite satisfied with my many published articles, reviews, blogs, and my book.

I'm also “houseproud.” I guess some people think this is not a good thing, but I love my house and I worked hard to achieve it and sacrificed a lot in order to keep it (being “house poor”). It allows me the luxury of working at home and being able to entertain when I so desire.

I am proud of my ability to travel alone and to have worked in non-traditional employment which enabled me to be self-supporting and independent while helping some people change their lives for the better. I also work hard to focus and to maintain a positive and optimistic attitude towards life. I attempt to transform empathy and compassion into action through my writing about human rights and spirituality, and through my passion for Canada and Canadian literature. And I'm proud of my eye for beauty and my ability to celebrate it in photography and visual arts.

Of course, I have a lot of things I cannot do, and am not proud of, but we don't talk about those.

Links:

My Dancing With Ghosts: A Cross-Cultural Education is available through the Canadian Museum For Human Rights website http://share.humanrightsmuseum.ca/writing/dancing-with-ghosts-a-cross-cultural-education/ and also on my own blog http://www.dancingwithghostsaneducation.blogspot.ca/ along with my other attempts Imagine Canada 2017 http://www.imaginecanada2017.blogspot.ca/
We Are All Accomplices http://weareallaccomplices.blogspot.ca/2013/03/good-things-about-nanaimo-letter-to.html 
Human Writes Activist (Amnesty International Book Club responses) http://www.humanwritesactivist.blogspot.ca/
CanLit: A Passion For Place http://canlitplace.blogspot.ca/2013/10/reading-list.html
Earthabridge http://www.earthabridge.blogspot.ca/