I am reading a book called Bringing Back the Dodo by Wayne Grady. The author argues that humanity is basically a subtropical species. This, he suggests, is why we prefer mangoes and oranges to apples and saskatoon berries.
I think this is especially true of Canadians, regardless of their place of origin. We are like the birds that live amongst us. Although there are a number of lovely species in Canada -- the red-winged blackbird, the yellow-headed black bird, the common loon, to name a few -- they are notable not so much for colour as for "splashes" of colour. No vibrant plummage for these birds -- just a practical, work-a-day covering.
I think Canadians sometimes feel like sensibly-coloured mid-continental birds, human thrushes or sparrows. But deep down inside, we long to be tropical birds -- parrots or toucans or flamingos. We long to live large, to be larger than life characters, rather than hiding our colourful plummage under conventional trappings.
