Parked at the border on the way to my grandparents’ home in British Columbia, we children pranced back and forth between American and Canadian soil. No one stopped or questioned us. No one asked for our passports. Our parents told us this was the longest unfortified border in the world. My Canadian cousins quipped that Canada should annex the U.S. as an eleventh province.

A state park to the south and a provincial park to the north comprise the international Peace Arch Park. The arch stands on the exact national boundary. Its U.S. side bears the words:

     “Children of a Common Mother.”

On the Canadian side is inscribed:

     “Brethren Dwelling Together in Unity.”

Like many siblings, we've sometimes squabbled. We took opposite sides in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In 1859 in the disputed San Juan Islands between Washington Territory and Vancouver Island, an American farmer shot a British-owned pig he found rooting in his garden. British authorities threatened to arrest him, American settlers asked the U.S. Army for protection, and both sides landed troops on the island. Fortunately, diplomacy ended the “Pig War” with no casualties except the pig.

With World War II, Canada and the U.S. became close allies in military production and defense. Their strategic cooperation continued with the creation of NATO in 1949. An early-warning radar system against Soviet missiles in the 1950s evolved into the bilateral North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). NORAD continues to monitor North American air space for post-Cold-War threats like terrorism and drugs.

The U.S./Canada economic policy pendulum swings between protectionism and free trade. After the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 hiked the U.S.’s already high import duties, Canada retaliated. International trade collapsed. Later tariff reductions culminated in the bilateral Free Trade Agreement of 1988; its trilateral successor, NAFTA (1994), which added Mexico; and a NAFTA update, USMCA (2020). Whether new U.S. 50-percent tariffs on specific Canadian goods in August 2026 are legal under USMCA is above my paygrade. This trade war is another swing of the pendulum.

We’ve heard these issues will disappear if we eliminate the border by making the U.S. and Canada one country. Eleventh province, anyone?

Image: Peace Arch monument, Peace Arch Provincial Park, British Columbia.

Summer, counted as the warmest three calendar months of the year, concludes today at the end of August. Others date summer from the Solstice in June till the Equinox in September. North American convention extends it from Victoria Day (Canada) or Memorial Day (U.S.) to Labor Day. Some cultures identify more or fewer seasons, and my nose says ragweed season is upon us. In temperate zones, though, we regularly speak of “the four seasons” as if that number were built into nature.

Why four? We live surrounded by twos and powers of two: hot and cold, right and left, up and down, past and future, ahead and behind. Either/or thinking is quick and efficient. It helped our early ancestors to escape predators by reflex. Modern computers use binary code to solve complex problems.

Useful as it is, treating opposites as mutually exclusive is simplistic and often polarizing. Binary thinking rules out compromise, shades of gray, and bell-shaped curves. It discourages creativity. It blinds us to commonalities and nonlinear possibilities.

Summer and winter are shorthand for the warmest and coldest quarters of the year, or the quarters with most and fewest hours of daylight. We know these terms are only approximations. We don’t expect every tree to change color the same day. Our seasons progress by fits and starts, not always predictable, rarely at the extremes. That’s true of much in nature and human life. As summer turns to fall, let’s delight in the glorious variety of our multi-dimensional world.

Image: Photo by D.R. [sic] on Unsplash.

Having two left feet, I don’t always put my best foot forward. Sometimes I put my foot in my mouth. This time I lost my footing and broke a toe. To start on the right foot with the doctors, I toe the line: rest, elevate, and avoid standing or walking. My mind drags its feet to match. I’m not keeping on my toes today or thinking well on my feet.

My dear ones wait on me hand and foot, bless them, while I don’t lift a toe. No one puts a foot down about my endless requests or grouses that I’m treading on their toes. Their kindness sweeps me off my feet.

​I get cold feet at the prospect of driving, but I’ll dip my toes in before too long. My obligations are few, and Medicare foots the bill. Eventually I’ll land on my feet. It could be worse. 

Entering a nearby breakfast-all-day restaurant, I felt more in the mood for eggs Benedict than a cheddar-broccoli omelet. Knowing the menu held other options gave me a nice sense of agency, but I never saw reason to open it.

I’ve often said, half in jest, that going by routine or habit saves my thinking power for matters I care about. It turns out scholars now say the same in earnest. Making choices taxes the brain, especially if they’re high stakes or difficult. Overdo it and decision fatigue sets in. The rational brain tunes out in favor of procrastination or impulse.

Our prehistoric ancestors evolved to keep decision fatigue at a minimum. They did most things the way they had before. So do we; it saves on brainpower and carries a track record of survivability. Humans evolved a fast system to respond to immediate threats with little or no conscious thought. When chased by a tiger, you don’t decide, you just run. And they evolved a slower, more deliberate system to weigh complicated options. Nowadays, we often expect a heavier load of rational decision-making than our brains evolved to handle.

So I’m comfortable leaving the menu closed, knowing I have lots of options but needn’t consider them all. I’m happy to enjoy spontaneity and novelty when I’m in the mood or invested in the result, and to leave the rest to habit. I trust my thinking brain to be alert enough to keep my impulses within safe bounds.

Maybe next time I’ll order the omelet.

Image: Photo by Bady Abbas on Unsplash.

On one of those beastly hot mornings this summer, the view through my home office window looked eerie and mysterious. Was it fog, I wondered, or wildfire smoke? Through a smaller side window, the world was clear. The apparent haze was condensation on the glass, no puzzle at all, but eerily mysterious all the same.

Mystery, wonder, and puzzle overlap, but they’re not quite interchangeable. The experiences of gazing at the stars with mystery and wonder, enjoying the puzzle of a mystery novel, and wondering why my friend made a puzzling remark are as different as reverence, reasoning, and curiosity.

How would you explain this to a class of English language learners? While you puzzle out how to present it and wonder if your students will understand, think with awe of the mystery by which language lets us humans communicate at all.

Some things we do mostly for pleasure. No motivation needed. Others we do only to get them done; we’d skip the laborious process if we could. For those, my inner pep talks come from songs. “Keep your eye on the prize, hold on,” I sing to myself when I need a reminder the goal is worth the trouble.

Sometimes, though, the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. When a project feels overwhelming, dwelling on end goals will distract and frazzle me. Writer Anne Lamott recalls her big brother’s panic, at age ten, over a school report on birds that was due the next day. Her father’s advice: “Just take it bird by bird.”

Two songs play in my head when I face such a challenge. One is Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”:

     You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table
     There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done

The other is David Mallett’s “Garden Song,” later sung by John Denver, the Muppets, and Peter, Paul, and Mary:

     Inch by inch, row by row
     Gonna make this garden grow

These lines help me let go of the uncertainty and perfectionism that pull me off task. They help me stay in the moment and focus on the work at hand.

Image: Photo by James Nilsson on Unsplash.

I was probably about six when my big brother took me downtown to buy our mother a birthday present. We had a whole quarter between us. Roaming the aisles of Woolworth’s, we saw a rack of Life Savers in a host of flavors. Each roll of eleven cost only a nickel! We knew our mother liked the butter rum best. With a penny tax on purchases from six cents up, our quarter could buy four rolls of her favorite candy.

My brother had a better idea. He went to the clerk with just one roll of Life Savers. Before I could say we wanted more, he handed over our quarter, got four nickels in change, and hurried us out of the store. A few minutes later we went back in and bought another roll. By keeping each purchase small enough to avoid tax, we eventually took home five rolls of Life Savers instead of the four I expected. As always, I was in awe of my big brother’s brilliance.

Two classic rolls of butter rum Life Savers appeared in our kitchen recently, the first I’d seen in years. An image of my long-dead mother sprang to mind, the way a taste or smell or song on the radio can evoke a memory from one’s distant past. I’ve written about her before. While the Woolworth tale features us children, it’s still more about the mother who inspired us to get her the best gift our money could buy. 

My husband calls them comics on steroids. Hard covers and page count aren’t their only difference from the comic books I devoured as a child. Graphic novels (the term includes nonfiction in a similar format) often treat more serious themes and target an older audience. They’re started to gain acceptance as a literary form. A publication of the American Library Association in 2019 designated July as Graphic Novels in Libraries Month.

I might never have read a graphic novel if my book group hadn’t chosen Darrin Bell’s The Talk for this month. The biracial Pulitzer-Prize-winning editorial cartoonist begins his graphic memoir at age six, when his mother explains why he can’t have a squirt gun that looks like a real one. By the end, the adult Bell struggles with how to talk with his own six-year-old son.

Critics of graphic novels for students note their limited vocabulary and simple sentence structure. But for me, The Talk was deep, intricate, and thought-provoking. It took me inside a school kid’s shame at having been questioned by police, and his embarrassment when his white mother makes a scene about a racist incident. Bell’s character arc is compelling. Students who are regular readers may, like me, find it enriching to infer complex emotions from a blend of visuals and text. Students who read only graphic novels might otherwise not read at all.  

The things I take for granted! My thanks for daily blessings range from the love of friends and family to the joy of songbirds in the morning. They have never included such mundane conveniences as a working stovetop. Until last month, when the gas burners would neither turn on nor off.

What to do? Happily, we’re reasonably accustomed to sandwiches, cold snacks, and carry-out. We’re fortunate enough to afford an electric kettle for morning coffee. As for foods I’d normally cook in a skillet or saucepan, necessity is the mother of invention. Some experiments were more successful than others. Breakfast potatoes crisp even better in the oven than a skillet. On the other hand, even after pricking the shell to prevent an explosion, I doubt I’ll ever again try to hard-cook an egg in the microwave.

My gratitude list now includes a working stovetop and so much more. Thanks to the appliance techs who came out on a Saturday to check for safety, ordered the parts, and made the repair. Thanks to the workers who manufactured those parts and the truckers who brought them from the factory. The list goes on and on. Still missing are other blessings I haven’t thought of yet, because I still take them for granted.

Two-hundred-fifty years ago, former colonists renounced their allegiance to the British Crown and created a union of independent states, with ideals of freedom and equality. Titles of nobility were abolished. Citizens were to be equal under the law. For all its shortfalls, the Founders’ vision implied a far less rigid class system than in Downton Abbey (set 1912-28 in England), which I’m watching on library DVDs.

My father was a professor of sociology. As best I remember, he told me social class rested largely on ancestry, wealth/income, and either education or occupation (I forget which).  His salary was modest, his ancestry meaningless outside smalltown British Columbia, but West Virginians held education in high regard. When Dad met former students in the grocery store, they greeted each other with warmth and mutual respect.

The United States has never been a classless society, nor did the Founders intend it to be. The promise of America was the possibility of rising from one class to another. As a kid, I took it as given that each generation earns more than their parents did. That was true for more than 90 percent of Americans born in 1940. It held for only half of those born in the mid-1980s.

Today, rags-to-riches stories are rare. The household wealth gap last year was the highest since tracking began 37 years ago. While a soaring stock market helps the rich get richer, the poor get poorer under a crushing burden of debt. Whether to promote this or reverse it is up to us.

Image: Photos on Unsplash by (left) Louis Moncouyoux and (right) James Day.