I almost wrote something the day of the Tucson shootings but am glad now that I did not. I am haunted as I'm sure many are by the photo of Christina Taylor-Green. I was the geeky less stable version of her at 9. If there had been a congress person at a supermarket, I would have been there, absolutely. But that's not the point. It's just the utter senselessness of the whole thing, and when I look at her, I just cry and cry. Maybe because she was also born on 9/11 it makes it even worse. I was in NYC on that day and had the same reaction to that, I'm having to this - please everyone stop killing each other. Stop hating and yelling and screaming and especially now that I live in a country without semi-mandatory gun ownership - please put the guns down.
But even that isn't the point, is it? It's just that these people and in particular, this little girl was killed. I will admit to being moved by Obama's speech and glad again that he was elected president of my native country and that I was someone who worked for that to happen (in a small way - phone calls and such from here, which was funny - calling people in Ohio from my computer in Europe, trying to sound like I was just around the corner in Columbus or wherever...but hey he got elected and the Ohio Dems keep sending me email). I did not work for him to be president because I thought he'd be some left-wing super-hero. I am not that delusional. I worked for him to be president because of the history of race relations in the US (abysmal), the fact he seemed like a basically decent and intelligent guy and because Sarah Palin is scary. I think these last few days have given me the sense that in fact I was right about all this.
But OK off the point again...it's hard to stay on the point and so easy to move over into politics...so much easier. The point is that something like: what? evil? Can I say that word anymore? Leviathan? I have been reading Job a lot recently for my own self...swirls in at times and takes out people. But this seems particularly horrible. Why? Because I know there is rhetoric around available everywhere that lauds this kind of behaviour? Because this guy was clearly unhinged but then somehow this is how he expresses it which means what exactly? And it makes me sad because it seems to be yet another expression - no matter 'who' in the literal sense is responsible - for why the American dream (and by that I mean the dream of a real democracy not the dream of having a bunch of stuff) is so precarious and seems in so many ways on the way out. Or has it ever existed?
I was struck whilst being moved by Obama's speech at the pep rally atmosphere of the clapping. Kind of an only in the US type of thing at a memorial service. This weird mixture of the sombre and this celebrity worship that I find so bizarre and endemic to the world right now (and is in fact the focus of so much of my work). And the fact that there always has to be a happy ending - we will endure, we are the Waltons not the Simpsons kind of thing. And yet for all that, still being moved that there was an adult who showed up and knew what to say at the right moment and clearly brought some relief to the victims, their families and the town. America - such a strange project. Is it on the way out? I am so afraid it is. I will be visiting China in a couple weeks - our future I imagine. The very oldest culture in human history about to usurp the newest. We do in fact live in interesting times...(the 'ancient Chinese curse'...humorously enough...)
But for all that, I was born in the US and still want to believe in the potential of what she created, and then don't and then do and then don't and then do...and then, because I've lived outside the US for over 7 years, I also know the triumphalism and apocalyptic voices on the left and right are all outsized. It is just one country amongst many and it is not the only narrative. Yes, that's true, but still there is a focus on it even now, outsized, outrageous and at times just plain silly. But it's there. I feel that here too. All the young people where I live with their NY (Yankees) caps on and some - the rebels with NYM (Mets) caps on. These are the underclass here and they desire to be in the US where they perceive things are better and they have more access to a sense of inclusion and belonging. And in some ways, I think that's true. If - and that's a big if - they 'made it' somehow, they could be part of the great American project. That is the difference in the end. Europe for all its attempts to open out, in the end is only open to itself and has a paternalistic attitude toward 'others' even if it does attempt to care for some. In the US immigrants have a hard time initially and can even face outright hostility, but once established - which is an inexorable and ultimately unstoppable trajectory - they are accepted. There are those, and we just got to see them in living technicolor (and one who went too far, who was sick and lost it) who resist this, but the major movements are that - of inclusion and 'we are united' because it is and always will be a country of immigrants. And at the service for the victims of Tucson the opening blessing was by a man who was half Native American and half Mexican, but 5 generations back. So that is included too. When I was growing up, the coolest thing you could have was Native American blood. I didn't have any but wished I did. Me, I'm from here - where I live now, again humorously enough.
It is such a puzzle and I'm so sad for Christina Taylor-Green because I know she felt she could be part of this crazy project and she was taken out. Now she will be held up as a martyr and perhaps her death will usher in some 'new era of civility', but dear God, think of her mother. Horrendous. Or that neighbor who brought her to the congress woman's event who survived. Will she survive surviving? I hope so, I really do.
And then there's the Congresswoman herself - who gets to be the first female national figure to be assassinated (almost - hopefully her recovery will continue). Something so weird about that and so sad again. I love that she opened her eyes when her female colleagues from Congress were in the room - somehow that just seems right. Even when I was growing up, it would be an unlikely sight - all those congresswomen and a female senator in a room. And of course Christina Taylor-Green, had she lived, would never have thought there was a barrier to her doing anything - she was even on her Little League Team and was determined to be a MLB player. I love that.
Yesterday I saw in the paper a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope - my personal favorite piece of technology ever - that showed a green 'blob' that was in fact a supernova - a dying star - that was giving birth to new stars. That just fills me with awe and makes me understand the book of Job and everything else. We can got so obsessed with the goings on of our tiny lives and even the tiny lives and travails of our plant, but then there is this - cosmic time and space - where we come from and where we are going to and even that - we don't understand. And what is dying is giving birth to new things and this seems to be the way this universe works and that is kind of astonishing and kind of like Vishnu who dreams a universe, wakes up and it disappears and then sleeps again and creates a new one, except no 'Vishnu' - just an endless stream of becoming out of dying, which is gorgeous really...
And for those following my little life, I went to neurologist yesterday and he thinks I'm OK maybe migraine symptoms (which apparently can include dizziness and tingly sensations rather than headache) brought on by fall in April but will have MRI next month. Mighty relieved and glad I will be having scan anyway just to be sure. But the doctor was good and I liked him. Felt heard and understood especially about not wanting to take medication forever that I don't need for sure. Have a feeling these days of being on the right track somehow and being held. However, my time in terms of sleep is completely whacked.
Speaking of which, time to begin my day in earnest...be well everyone, dance while you can and here's hoping we get to do that in other realms as well...
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