Wilfred blazer (similar)
Uniqlo shirt
Mavi jeans (c/o)
Gucci loafers
ASOS beret
Paper and Tea tote bag (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Location: Fitzwilliam Square – Dublin, Ireland
I dreamed of Europe from my earliest years of childhood. There’s no rhyme or reason to the pull that the continent has always exerted over me that I know of, really. I suspect it was just a result of being read, and then reading, so many stories set in the land far, far away that I knew actually existed, and wanting to get there because all the stories made it seem so wonderful. By comparison, Canada always seemed tawdry, somehow second rate.
It wasn’t until I was nine, though, reading an article about the impact of Taliban rule on women in Afghanistan, which was my first introduction to both the country and the plight of half its population, that I realised my luck.
I grew up in Canada by an accident of birth, the same way that girls and women elsewhere found themselves in their home countries. My life here was easy, a fact I’d always taken for granted. I went to school every day. There was always enough food for me to eat breakfast before leaving, plus take a packed lunch (not to mention the snack that was always waiting when I got home.) When I grew up, I would go to university and get a job. These were foregone conclusions. Until I read that article, I had no idea that my circumstances were the result of luck, a simple genetic chance that meant I was born here rather than there, in this life rather than that one.
…luck had everything to do with it. None of the stories I’d read about Europe taught me that. My experience of life up to that point was such that I could imagine an even better life, but hadn’t considered that I might just as easily be living an infinitely harder one. Suddenly, Canada, while still deeply flawed, seemed pretty good. For me, anyway.
It took a few additional years, and a lot more reading, for me to truly understand that my own experience of life in my home country was not representative of everyone’s experience, that my luck was plentiful, almost boundless and that it might be better described as privilege. This isn’t the first time that I’ve broached this subject. I’ll be transparent: it’s unlikely it will be the last. It continues to baffle me that I get to live this life when I am constantly confronted by the reality of the lives of others. How is it possible that I get to share photos from a mad dash to Dublin in January that we took just because we could? What did I do, that I am allowed to be so fortunate?
There is no answer to that question. But I ask myself regularly, anyway, as I read the news and am confronted, constantly, by stories of people who live with so much less. It’s a good reminder, I think. Not that my luck cheapens anything I’ve done or lived, but that because I can choose a joyful, adventurous life, I should always try to exactly that. That I am here, rather than there; that this is my life, rather than that, is beyond my control. What I do with my good fortune is another matter entirely. I believe I’m lucky. No, I don’t just believe it – I know I am. And I want to take every chance that comes my way, because there are so many people who can’t, who never get them.
It’s true, I don’t have everything I want. My dream life in Europe, for example, exists only on my vacation days. But no one has everything they want, and that isn’t the point, anyway. I have so many good things, and it seems that as long as I continue to look at life through a lens that focuses on them, more come my way. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there’s value in looking at life through that lens, but through a second one, as well – one that puts good fortune into perspective. Everything is happenstance. Our birth place and circumstances are the result of nothing more than a grand cosmic accident. There are no guarantees, no foregone conclusions, not really. Everything I’ve been able to do in my life has been a gift, not a right.
A gift. This rainy morning, damaging my beloved Gucci loafers… just owning a pair of Gucci loafers… while we snapped these photos as a rainbow shone overhead, was exactly that.
