Sometimes, when I ride the metro, I look at the other passengers and try to guess which countries they’re from. Haiti? Rwanda? Bosnia? Chechnya? Iran?

Then, I try to imagine the experiences they carry with them as they travel. Did they arrive here as children? As adults? What have they seen? What have they escaped?

Or, was it their parents who came, leaving their own families behind to start new ones in Canada? Do they worry about their cousins? Uncles? Grandparents? Do they watch the news with a jeweler’s eye, looking for fragments of home?

Our cities are full of people who are at arm’s length from tragedy. It’s easy to forget this as we jostle against each other during rush hour, our clothes damp against our skin.

Tonight, I wrote to a friend who has family in Lebanon and said that I was thinking of him. I still am.

Related posts:

1. Living in Perilous Times
2. Montreal Earth Hour Mar 29, 2008 @ 8 pm
3. Unable to get home
4. Lebanon to Montreal
5. Gateway