A fairly uneventful week. Work is work... the dentist visit is a pain. Actually, the dentist has become one of my least favourite things. This was just a cleaning and, in the end, I'm given the clean bill of health. But the picking and poking with pointy picks always keeps me on edge. My gums don't like it and I'm always a touch nervous now that they're going to say I need another filling or something else that will bring me back and in need of freezing agents. My mouth doesn't freeze well at all. Last fillings I had needed the stuff they usually use on root canals. The time before, they had to refreeze me every fifteen minutes or so. Anyway... glad it's over for another six months.
I am torn in my views of Remembrance Day. I do remember those that sacrificed. I appreciate what they did and can't imagine being in such a situation. But I'm disturbed with how, after almost fifteen years since September 11th, war and the military have basically become a part of our daily culture. I know to fight is sometimes necessary... but I don't think it should ever be accepted and celebrated to the point of being regular life.
90% of all sporting events celebrate troops. Be it remembering back to World War I and II in a pregame ceremony, or having modern day military personnel marching out flags for the national anthems, we can not tune in to a sports event and not be reminded of our military. Every Sunday home game, the Blue Jays bring out a member of the armed forces for a jersey presentation and even the last football game I went to here in Ottawa had a halftime moment with a recently returned soldier.
So whenever I hear the "Lest we forget" talk in and around every November 11th I think to myself that we're a long way from forgetting anything. And there's a part of me that wishes we would allow ourselves to forget it just a little bit more than we currently do.
Again, as I've already said... I am thankful for what our military has done both historically and in modern times. I agree that our military needs to be properly funded and returning soldiers need to be taken care of both physically and psychologically. I'm just worried that military combat has become too big a part of our society. If things with ISIS and Afghanistan cleared up in the next year or two (which I don't think will happen) it seems to me that we'd feel as if there's a hole in our social fabric and that we'd need some other conflict to take part in.
At the very least, I want to be able to go to a hockey or baseball game and not see soldiers marching out flags or be recognized during a break in the action. These things don't happen at the theatre. I don't know why they have to at a hockey game. It just seems like sports can't make up their minds. On one hand, they want to promote themselves as being kid friendly with mascots and autographs. But on the other hand, they want to celebrate those who have returned from war. I'm not sure it's a great idea to blend those two aspects of life.
Anyway... a poem... that has nothing to do with any of this. But came to me while out for a walk along the ponds and woods this week.
Heron Stitched
On this calm sunless evening I walk
And to the first pond I come
Clear, reflectionless water
Low and shallow
Introduces me to the bottom
The light brown cake
Textured with dark lines
Underwater pathways
Zigzagging too and fro
Outlining the waters rim
And crossing through the middle bowl
It's heron stitched
Like sea bed fault lines
The heron's deliberate search for food
Traced out for all to see
If viewed on reflectionless evenings
Before the day turns to night
A hidden map
On an Indiana Jones crusade
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