Impossibly Single

I write this blog from the second floor of a bus looking out onto the bleak salt stained tarmac and the barren trees that typify a typical mid-winter day here in Southern Ontario. I just spied an old stone mill beside a river. I think we just passed Port Hope.

Being single is something I've written about before on this blog. Happily. People generally don't know what to make of the person who is single despite the fact that science is disproving the notion of everlasting love and there are record numbers of single person headed households in Canada (lone dweller households now surpass married couples!) there remains a stigma associated with the act of being single. And there are financial discriminations too.

Not too long ago I met up with someone who condescendingly said to me at her engagement outing 10 years ago: "Don't worry Orla, you'll find someone." I remember this vividly. I can almost feel the touch of her hand on my arm as she said it. That was possibly the first time I connected how patronizing society was to someone who is single. At that point in time I had over 7 years experience as a single mom, Daughter would've been 8. So many thoughts came crashing through my head at that time and now, a decade later, I am sifting through them.

Culturally, the expectation is if you have a child then it is best if there are two parents. Somewhere along the road of moral progress the notion of "it takes a community to raise a child" was lost. So this young newly engaged woman probably had her biological clock ticking and was proud to share her hope that I too would find a replacement father figure for my child and perhaps let some of his sperm get into my womb to gift him with one of his own procreation. Biological clocks are funny like that. In our modern age they seem to presume that once you're educated and employed the next task is to breed.

Also, to be fair, a decade ago her patronizing sentiments mirrored exactly what my own expectation was for my life at that point in time. I was then 35 and was dating extensively hoping to still find The One so that I could breed again. The funny thing was that every single guy who dared mention the "M" word (as in marriage) got quickly removed from the dating card line up.

And now, with my newly minted middle aged wisdom, I see myself as a person that might have a philanderer gene and I have no desire for long term monogamy. I hate cleaning my own knickers let alone a partners. And I'm wise enough to realize that the gift of choice vis-a-vis being single is afforded only to those of us able to be financially independent. We have come a long way baby. Or some of us have. I consider myself quite fortunate.

In Newfoundland they have a curious expression that captures what I and possibly many other singles strive for: a comfort. Essentially it is a fuck buddy with very few strings attached. As someone who has had fuck buddies I like the term much better but there was precious little comfort in the ones I had while my clock loudly clanged.

And one final thing. When I saw that now 30 something woman with her two small children recently I asked after her husband. Divorced. I admit to a sweet moment of revenge "karma" followed by the sincere hope that she finds the support and comfort she, like us all, need.

Lack of Imagination regarding 21st Century Slavery

I had the good fortune to hear Gustavo Esteva talk live here in Toronto twice this week. Also, I saw a series of disturbing videos this week on Migrant Labour in Canada (here is a 53 minute National Film Board of Canada film from 2003, and sadly, things have gotten worse, not better, since then). I am also deep in the midst of setting up another Impossibly Single event with the theme of Prostitution so am introducing myself to a whole new lexicon and expanding my knowledge of feminist theory.

The perpetual learner in me is thrilled for the new content I am pouring into my brain but I also feel that I am drowning in the bleak reality of 21st century slavery. I'll do a future post on prostitution after becoming better informed and will just focus on the Migrant Worker issue in this post.

It struck me this week that technology and our world's increasing reliance on  it is managing to divide humanity in new and creative ways. The improvements in the technology of getting one human to another place and the cost of travel relative to income in the Global North have created a global marketplace for human trafficking that is unprecedented in scope and destruction. We are excelling in technological progress while regressing in morality.

Here are some facts I've amassed after absorbing lots of new info this week:

1. Migrant workers are not allowed to form a union. They work 7 days a week and well over 8 hours each day. Labour laws do not apply.
2. Recent immigration changes have  increased the number of migrant workers in Canada to 350,000. That's 1% of our population. The 1% that have no rights (see fact 1) as opposed to the 1% that own our corporations. The perverseness of this dichotomy is elegant to my mathematical mind.
3. If a migrant worker complains to their consulate they are told to behave better. Consulates are for corporations. When will we get that, finally?
4. If a migrant worker complains too much they will be refused a renewal by their 'owners'. Yes. That's what one of the farm operator's called them in that documentary I linked above. Some farm operator's call their workers "Little Donkeys". For every migrant worker that gets kicked out of the program there are many more people waiting behind them for a position. The politics of poverty and our food system is clearly evidenced by this sad reality.
5.  Migrant workers pay EI but claim no benefits. Instead of removing the requirement that they pay these benefits, why don't we work towards paying them during the off season like the fishery workers receive in Newfoundland?

One of the many powerful ideas Mr. Esteva discussed was regarding Corn (Maize) and it's relationship with people. Corn does not grow well on it's own. It needs cultivation by people to prosper. Humans, over millenia, have created a knowledge base around corn in Mexico.  This knowledge involves hundreds of varieties of maize and the best environment for their growth. The campesino movement, which is expanding globally, wants this knowledge base to be preserved. There is a deep understanding of people in the campesinos of the symbiotic relationship between maize and humans. The corn needs people and in turn the people need corn. If we do not preserve this symbiosis, our species will die.

Ironically, he also noted that scientific research is showing that North Americans contain more corn in their bodies than Mexicans. Corn additives are everywhere in the North American diet and many additives in our medications are derived from corn too. North Americans are, literally, people of the corn while the people of the Campesinos are more metaphorically people of the corn. More importantly, the people of the campesinos know that the need to fuel our bodies with pure healthy food trumps corporate interests. They have managed to survive the development binge of the late 20th century and defy chemical 'progress' when it comes to agri-business. This leaves the people of the campasinos, who grow 70% of the food consumed on this planet in non agri-business conditions, well suited to teaching the rest of us how to return to the land. Return to the maize.

Mr. Esteva also noted that the biggest crisis facing humanity is our collective lack of imagination.  We need new ways to solve big problems. In other words, we need some moral innovation. Less big business, more subsistence plus (way down on this page). Basically subsistence plus is "a new approach to ending hunger and impoverishment while protecting small-scale farmers and the environment" (from the link). It is a concept developed by prominent Canadian intellectuals and food activists Wayne Roberts and Michael Sacco (who is also the founder and owner of Chocosol). Their approach is truly imaginative and I'll be writing more about it on my Lettuce Connect blog in the coming weeks as part of my newly launched series on the Cupcake Economy.

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