... my kingdom for a newspaper ...

... aah, the curse of the conflicted ... it's a strange feeling to be pining for Canada in February, and doubly incongruent to do it from sunny Caribbean shores, but it's been a long time since a full edition of the Globe And Mail broadsheet landed on my seaside lap ... so try to look past the gentle surf and beckoning turquoise with me, to see this single-day time capsule from my removed island vantage ...

... there I read, warm in my geographic region-of-origin, wistful over that frozen-but-thawing adopted homeland and generally rapt at current events through yankee-eye-view media out of the influential U.S. confederation 'twixt right-here and up-there ... synchronicity with Canada is elusive despite television, fibre-optic cables and wireless internet signals delivering the world to me, but it's pleasantly surprising to approach it via the tactile immediacy of a traditional print format ...

... yeah, I know it's just a newspaper but it's as if the Globe editors did my web-surfing for me ... page one News spoke to a stereotype, or reflected a truth, depending on your interpretation, by reporting on the concussive prerogative that is hockey at home ... inside, the Editorial opined on the persistent immigration discourse, unsurprisingly perhaps, since this is a nation where a full third of the population was born elsewhere ... Op-Ed gave equal ink to domestic and foreign, reflecting a Maple Leaf penchant for collective equanimity ...

... advertising provides a familiar constant, with full-margin plugs for Dodge Caravans or a new Toyota Corolla, and the "field tested" alternate Canadian national emblem, "Rootsy LaBeaver" (my coinage - bilingual pronunciations encouraged), anchors the full-color back page ...

... de rigeur anticipation of a newlywed Royal Couple offsets palpably mid-Atlantic coverage of Arab popular uprisings and gives way to Books, Berlin Filmfest and Bieber in the Arts section ... before the extra-crisp white stock of the Life pullout offers up opulence and a snowy snapshot that teases the winter polarity dormant in my sense memory ...

... from here, Canada sits like a reassuring beret on the head of a rakish sentry ... swag and intemperance can manifest above the US/Canada border too, but y'know 'ow it go, perception precedes truth in most cases ... just like the Caribbean is supposedly about sand, coconuts and snorkeling instructors who also DJ, so too is The Great White North pegged as a land of glaciers, polite mounties and the migratory Canada Goose ...

... this newspaper confirms some truth about Canada but other realities spilleth over ... continuing, Toronto sports reporters tell of mega-gates for Mixed Martial Arts events, a b-ball boo-bird return for ex-Raptor Chris Bosh and a detailed half-page report on Europe's Arsenal vs Barcelona soccer fixture to feed my footie fetish ... the closing of Spadina's Magder fur outlet, champion of Ontario Sunday shopping, was a local footnote signalling a passage of time rather than doomsday, if the tone of "structural realignment" in the Business section is anything to go by ...

... I'm going to presume there wasn't much news fit to print west of the Alberta oil sands and leave that void for another day, or whenever a Vancouver Sun falls on my head ... meanwhile, in this part of the world scarce newspapers serve on as incubatory wrapping for ripening mangoes and papayas ... the subtext is implicit, Canada can be cold and icy but also nurturing at heart ...