WASHINGTON, D.C.—The well-used metaphor that springs to mind is “trying to drink from a firehose.” Or maybe it’s more like trying to fill your cup while standing under Niagara Falls. The rush of news in the United States, I mean. It’s a constant deluge.

Since I arrived in Washington, D.C., at the start of this month, preparing to serve as the Toronto’s Star’s bureau chief here, there’s been a hurricane and a weeklong debate about the president’s Sharpie-assisted forecasting of it; the national security adviser was fired and the president has hinted at a possible coming war against Iran; there was a Democratic primary presidential debate in which socialized medicine, a ban on assault weapons, and reparations for slavery were discussed as probable platform planks; there was a Trump rally featuring his familiar greatest hits (“Pocahontas,” the unfairness of the New York Times and CNN, the big beautiful wall he’s still trying to build) and there was a Trump impeachment investigation hearing ; and then there was a report in the Washington Post of a suppressed intelligence whistleblower report about an alleged presidential conversation with a foreign leader. By necessity, this is a partial list — it could easily fill this whole page without any item seeming less noteworthy.

Through most of this, I’ve been doing the things you need to do when you move to a new country and establish a new office and a new job — standing in lines in bureaucratic offices, filling out paperwork, registering for this and that, figuring out where everything is in this city and how to travel around it. And perhaps, marvelling a bit at the scope and pace of this assignment in the capital of the United States, reporting on American politics and culture, and wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.

I had a dream job already, as the city columnist at the largest newspaper in Toronto, the city that has always been my home. I was happy in that job even after 16 years or so of reporting and commenting on city politics and life, and would have been happy to keep on doing it for years more. I love Toronto, and love writing about it.

But maybe, as I said when I announced this job change on social media, when you’ve listened to your favourite song again and again for years on end, you start having a hard time hearing the things you loved about it so much. It’s still good, but the hook doesn’t surprise and delight you anymore; the kick of the drum doesn’t get your heart beating like it used to.

And meanwhile, the biggest story (or set of overlapping stories) in the world is taking place in the country down south. The unprecedented presidency of Donald Trump, with his equally well-established disregard for the truth and for constitutional convention and his impulsive, self-regarding tweets and rambling speeches and frequent staff firings. The race to oppose him in the general election featuring a former vice-president, a self-proclaimed socialist, a seasoned smart woman and a young gay man among a massive cast of others. You’ve got an ongoing inability to prevent mass shootings, a society still somewhat racially segregated, a growing gap between the super-rich and everyone else, a generational divide among congressional Democrats, a humanitarian crisis at the southern border, the rise of white nationalism, and one of the world’s most influential debates about how to handle climate change. There is talk about an impending recession. Again, just a partial list for starters.

For a Canadian watching all this from Toronto, there’s the proverbial sense of sleeping next to an elephant and living in constant (mostly helpless) vigilance about its tossing and turning.

For a journalist, a storyteller, there’s the pull of witnessing this moment, and conveying how it looks and feels and what it all might mean.

Over the past five years I’ve visited more than 20 U.S. cities and towns in 14 states — occasionally for work, but mostly on family holiday road trips. There, I have seen green mountains and ocean beaches and breathtaking forests along the Great Lakes, eaten dozens of absurdly good sandwiches, walked the streets of thriving cities full of gorgeous buildings and fascinating museums. And I have met people — friendly, welcoming, people. Interesting people. People who seem more familiar than foreign to a visiting Canadian.

Sometimes, watching the flood of headlines from afar, it is hard to match up the tumultuous and sometimes terrifying news to the fond memories I have of those people and places.

I want to tell stories about those people, and this culture they live in — and that I now live in — as it works through a fascinating moment in its history. The decisions they make will send ripples and waves through Canadian society, and will help determine the course of world history.

It’s a big story (the biggest story, a huge story, tremendous story, someone might say). What journalist wouldn’t want to write about that? The challenge is figuring out how to take a sip from that firehose.

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But I know that the big, world-shaping narrative is also made up of millions of small personal stories about how and where people live, how they think, where they work, who they love, what they’re struggling with.

My hope is to tell some of those stories, sometimes from the halls of government power, sometimes from the neighbourhoods far from them. I’m excited to get started.

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