the world and not the world
It’s official, gang: they let me in to Canada. The immigration guy looked through my tragic litany of entry permit extension letters and said ‘boy, the pandemic really got to you, huh.’ This was orders of magnitude better than what I had expected he would say, which was something along the lines of ‘you are horrible at paperwork and we despise you; begone from these shores and do not return.’
I woke up at 2:55am on Wednesday morning after almost no sleep, only to learn that my flight had been delayed. I got into the taxi anyway, because the alternative was listening to my mother (who means well, and who I didn’t want to snap at out of weariness and travel stress) reassure me about the flight delay for an extra 45 minutes. I then stood at the WestJet bag drop area for about half an hour on arrival at the airport, waiting for it to open. There is something unfortunate in my genetics which precludes ever being late to anything, and which usually entails being hatefully early to everything as a result. I did get a little sticker on my passport, though. Swings and roundabouts.
We got onto the plane quickly enough to make up for the delay, only for a new delay to intervene before we could get into the air. Something about a logbook? Also the phones went down at WestJet HQ in Calgary? The captain was very apologetic. I spent about an hour sleeping on a stationary plane, my neck scrunched up like a turtle’s neck. Imagine my disappointment when I drifted awake and found that we were still very much at the gate.
The recurring thought that I have about my parents’ place: it’s built on a black hole, or a sinkhole, or some other concept I barely understand which implies an element of unnatural hunger — of absorption. You stay too long and you will simply fail to leave. We waited at the gate, and then we queued to get onto the runway, and I had much the same thought about England. I imagined tentacles inveigling themselves up through the cracks in the tarmac to hold the plane down against the earth. I imagined the Albion House from Tell Me I’m Worthless, basically. My own internal Morrissey poster threatening to scratch out my eyes.
The flight itself was nothing. I slept through it, albeit only for odd and irregular intervals. I couldn’t listen to music; my phone wouldn’t charge at the plane’s power point, and I needed it alive so I could prove to immigration that I was allowed.
I’m not going to pretend I learned anything profound about borders or immigration by way of doing this. I’ve had every conceivable advantage, from money to the colour of my skin. What I learned is that if you have resources and you look harmless to the type of guy who becomes a border guard, it is pretty straightforward to enter a country without a return ticket.
I am here on a working holiday visa, which cost me a substantial amount of money just to apply for — processing, biometrics, even a UK police certificate (to verify that I have never done a crime). I was able to absorb the costs of my flight, of renting an apartment sight unseen, of two years’ worth of travel insurance with coverage enough to repatriate me in a medical emergency. I was also able to absorb the deposit I had to put down on services like the internet, because I bought it from outside of the country and I didn’t have any Canadian ID. (Still don’t! Working on it! But I am working on it with the benefit of internet, which is a tremendous help.)
I had a place to go when my lease ended on my previous flat; I had parents willing to help me move out of my previous flat, for all the process was a little fraught. Perhaps most vitally, I have friends on this side of the Atlantic. Someone was willing to collect me from the airport, drive me around, provide me with necessities like towels and a place to sleep my first night. If you’d asked me to come to a new country with none of these resources — nobody who knew me, no support system, no money to reassure a landlord or a service provider that I was good for rent or bills — I would have panicked and committed myself to the loam. (Frankly, I almost committed myself to the loam a few times, even with all the advantages I have had. Moving makes loam seem a deeply appealing prospect, all cool and dark and soft.)
I’m not saying any of this to dispute that borders are bad. They are bad. They are illusory and, as so many illusions are, very racist. But I knew that before I attempted any of this. It would be weird of me to claim a newfound empathy with displaced peoples when I displaced myself in a highly controlled fashion, with every measure in place to protect myself from disaster.
It is my first full day in Canada and I am writing this cross-legged on my apartment floor, waiting for my bed to arrive. I spent the morning finishing A Desolation Called Peace, a book (a fantastic one) about first contact and exile. What does it mean when home isn’t home anymore, when your adopted country sees you as other despite your very best efforts to assimilate? What sort of communication is necessary to bridge the gap between your people and a people who represent a potential existential threat? It’s a book about who wants communication and who wants war and who wants what from each option. I strongly recommend it, as well as its prequel.
The empire in Desolation and prequel refers to itself as the world. I think about that a lot when I think about borders: how we define and circumscribe the world. I certainly feel far away from the world with which I am familiar, and conscious of myself as seeming otherwise than most of the people who have been so kind to me here. (But it’s not the same, is it? Canada used to be a part of the empire my country imposed on the world at large. The history turns everything inside-out.)
I’ve mentioned it before in this newsletter: a Prime Minister of my country once claimed that ‘if you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.’ The world here is not shorthand for an acceptable norm, or for the places a nation will acknowledge as real and self-determining — it’s a condemnation, a word for what’s at the door and threatening entry. I heard Theresa May say this and I knew it was time to leave.
My bed is getting here in ten minutes or so, now, and I am conscious of writing without knowing where I want my writing to go. When I solve the problem of borders, of being English in a country the English colonised once, I guess I will let you know. In the meantime you should read good books about fascism and empire and exile, and you should not worry overmuch about me. I am doing fine. I left my friend’s mom’s house this morning with a Tupperware box full of date squares and brownie bites; if anything, I am doing great.
I can also report that I had my inaugural Tim Hortons coffee this morning. Cultural exchange!! Oh Canada, we’re really in it now.
(I didn’t hit Publish before my bed got here. This is just to let you know that my bed did get here. You need worry about me even less! Hurrah.)