Keeping the Home Fires Burning

The walls have a funny way of closing in this time of year. By that, I mean that I always get the urge to be outside, make plans, feel the sun on my t-shirted arms. Wearing three layers all the time wears me down after a while.

I attempt to ward of the psych ward with plans and more plans, keeping myself busy. Right now I am preoccupied with how to plan a summer concert series, and eventually a festival in 2009 that will turn people's heads around.

I don't know if it will work, or if it will be the last nail in my Carleton County coffin (metaphorically, of course). The arts are seriously undervalued here, and to me that goes hand in hand with our collective identity crisis as New Brunswickers. We can't say for certain who we are because we don't appreciate the uniqueness and value of our history, or our current lives.

Some friends and I remarked that any other province would be fiercely proud to be officially bilingual. Very European, one might say. New Brunswickers of my generation have accepted the fact that half the province communicates in a different language, and lives a different culture. But our population is so 'scattered and small,' to quote one songwriter nominated for an ECMA, that isolation often seems inescapable.

Still, I wish people would stop being so apologetic about being rural, not swimming in a sea of vinyl and concrete. We should celebrate our close families and communities, our compassion for others and the beauty of of the landscape. And I wish our politicians would raise the bar a bit more, get creative with real solutions, and start being proud of the things we have to offer.

The arts have a vital role in calling attention to the fact that we are have a lot of blessings here. Can you identify a song, story, movie or poem that speaks to us as a people? What are the cultural experiences that unite us?

Sometimes I think NB is ready for its own 'quiet revolution' - the realization that lives here are just as valid as someone in "Upper Canada" or 'out west.' And if history is any indication, cultural revelations like that usually start with works of art that voice feelings people didn't realize they had.

Sorry to ramble but this is the kind of stuff that preoccupies me. There I go, being all apologetic again...