Red, White and Blue

On July 4th I took an uncrowded 4 train to Brooklyn to hang with my son.  Solitude and quarantine have muffled the sounds of freedom ringing; just a few short weeks ago the pre-sunset curfew was downright penetentiarial.  I craved the sight of bridges and water and the Jersey shoreline-- the sense of distance, of space that is not measured out in six-foot lengths.  I thought the trip might help stir up some holiday spirit.

Walking to the subway was like an audio land-mine... firecrackers and street-caps exploding everywhere... Roman candles and sparklers whizzing by, blasts and M-80s and rockets threatening my old damaged ears.  I was jumpy; the station, even with the heat, was like a quiet refuge.  On the train, pretty much everyone wore a mask-- except the guy by the rear door who was smoking a joint and pointed out to me several times that I was the only white person in the car.  Certainly I was the only person without earbuds-- a captive audience to his rants and raps and disgruntlements.  When he pressed me for a response, I confessed I didn't feel very white, thinking about my unbleached laundry still drying off in the permanent humidity of my bathroom.   It seemed to satisfy him-- he offered me a toke and I turned it down, touching the mask.  In the relative calm of train noise, I felt safe.

In Brooklyn my son treated me to tacos on the roof of a cool Mexican place-- seemed appropriately a-patriotic for American Independence Day.  I had my first drink of alcohol since that last horrid glass of red at Parkside -- when Alan I toasted the proverbial end of the world as the downtown music scene hit the fan.  It burned a little-- like I was somehow disloyal for drinking without him.   A few couples socially distanced at tables seemed subdued... as though they were waiting for something; a young family with a cranky toddler reminded me of how exhausting the relentless claustrophobia of family can be-- how my first quarantine was like a numerical sentence-- me, a baby, an absent husband and the thick walls of early winter dusk that closed tightly around a mother who was accustomed to barhopping and rock and roll nights.  Sometimes I tire my son-the-man with memories and reminiscence... mostly I reduce it down to a general apology for my learning-on-the-job parenting style.

I insisted we check out the view from the Brooklyn promenade-- magical on any night, but the 4th held some promise of pyrotechnics and sky-entertainment, although nothing like the dazzling light-show of 2019-- the crowds, the buzz, the noise. The Statue of Liberty seemed to have shrunk... like someone picked her off and replaced her with a facsimile-- Liberty-Barbie with the green robe and the crown... and what reason had she to stand tall anyway... sham that she became in this administration with her baited false message of welcome to immigrants, the racially charged symbol of white freedom-- in a harbor with few boats, in a city where residents must mask their face and fear their neighbors?  She, too, seemed subdued and ironic...

Where is my freedom, I wondered?  Is it here... on a promenade by a river I've known most of my life, looking at an altered landscape across a bridge I used to watch from my childhood pram-- the one that haunted my dreams for years-- even still?  On my birth certificate which identifies me as female and white-- a citizen of New York City where I find myself tethered-- despite my youthful wanderings and yearnings... ?  What has become of my city-- a scene of emotional wreckage and the slow attrition of all that I loved most?

The post-4th evenings are quiet although I read in my audio manual that the city ambient sounds have a significant decibel presence.   My dusk runs are still punctuated by heart-stopping random firework explosions.  I have become more intimate with Central Park than I ever expected...  I recognize the routine joggers and walkers-- the babies growing and the Boxers getting their mojo back... My egret has disappeared; surely she is somewhere in the city.  The ducks and geese seem to have a certain purpose... recently a few of them line up on the tiny rock island in the center of the reservoir; they have an order-- they do not seem to compete.

In the distance of dark there are few sirens now; the traffic is subdued and tame.  There is an occasional quiet roar from a pack of demonstrators but even these have become less frequent.  Fewer airlines pass above... fewer traffic helicopters.  My windows are always open; I live without air conditioning and maybe hallucinate from the heat. When I was small I believed in a country (my country) called Tizovthee-- sweet land of liberty.  I squinted horizon-clouds into purple-hazed mountains and transported myself there, land of the pilgrim's pride.  Of 'Thee' I sang-- its nickname...  halfway between heaven and Oz.   The mountains paint themselves nostalgically into the sky behind the towers of the El Dorado.  They stay with me as I type into the morning hours, as I waste time and dawdle with books and memories, go from guitar to text.

But there is another component of these nights-- it is a sort of cloud that hovers-- blankets and beckons like a scent... a few of my friends have been captivated and succumbed... I read their names
in the obituaries, on Facebook pages and Twitter posts.  It is there as the sun sets in its fiery death throes of pinks and golds, as the morning sky threatens to replace the black with its electric blue magic... deceives, taunts me into a new day-- or to the edge of sleep.  It sings to me--  of the bloodless cool of breathlessness, of the enchanting nightmare of fever, of a slipping away--a letting go-- of the girl who is lost in a lake tonight or adrift in an untraceable boat-- in a plane with a cut engine, a receding surf and a wind.  For some of us there is another kind of freedom that beckons-- that makes us safe, but offers solace when there is none.  I am learning to forgive those who cannot resist... I understand... there are bells... and as I misheard the song when I was young, without lyric sheets, perhaps the sound of freedom laughing.

Fourth Prize

Independence Day.  241 years after the fact, the meaning changes.  I am wearing a safety pin on my black T-shirt, supposedly symbolic of my sympathy toward all genders, religions, ethnicities… you are safe with me.  Excepting, of course, those that profess bigotry, hatred, prejudice, exclusion… It is still alarming to me to find traitors among my circle of musicians, as though musical talent guarantees some sort of humanistic tolerance and empathy… and doesn't it?  Are you listening, God?

Actually, I often wear a safety pin because my clothes are tattered and torn; my sewing machine was repaired by a Chinese man in a tiny garage filled floor to ceiling with junk who swore technical mastery of my 1970's Swedish brand but failed to honor his promise despite the nine months of service and my additional monthly payments.  I believed in him.  The fact that he scarcely spoke English only made my faith stronger; somehow I make assumptions that immigrants have way more passion and dedication to the American dream than our birth-citizens who seem more likely these days to pledge daily allegiance to the Apple logo and little else.

Walking through Central Park in near-perfect weather, there was an unusual sense of tranquility… the birds were louder than the cars; Mexican and Puerto Rican families barbecuing and sharing… children playing in the grass… tourists headed to Brooklyn for the fireworks later… up here people are enjoying a holiday, trying not to think of politics and patriotic complicity.

I no longer understand America… the meaning, the immigrants giving speeches about liberty and opportunity that no longer 'ring'.   The bells of freedom, like the bells of St. Martin's church, are in need of repair.  We are like a mis-diagnosed country, the victim of our own philosophical health-care emergency.  Not to mention an early-Alzheimer's epidemic, because no one seems to even remember the melodies that are being recycled, scarcely a decade later.  Where are the lessons learned?  They are archived somewhere digital eons before the 'cloud' of recent invention which is bloated beyond galactic proportion with trivial bits of cultural and personal narcissism.

What will future archaeologists find?  Where are our fossils?  The detritus of our own waste-- unrecyclable plastics and packaging-- corpses and buried secrets from the hideous wars and crimes of warped humanity?  Where is our goodness buried?

Recycling is a good thing in the wake of our wasteful ravaging of this planet… but cultural recycling?  Where is our history, our memory?  Man in his heyday invented writing, to record for posterity things that happened, things that were invented-- instructions, testimonies-- memorials.  Most of us know how to read, but we ignore the important documents of history in favor of entertainment and froth.  How many of us have piles of books by our bed and dedicate time to deciphering ideas and digesting text?  We have televisions-- we have phones; we have instagram and Facebook.  Few lessons are learned here.

In our day, we have invented all kinds of things-- we have created chemicals and microbes; we have changed DNA and bred flowers and dogs.  We have diagnosed strange diseases, chronicled epidemics--- and yet we do not have cures.  We build skyscrapers and house thousands of people in a small space; and still, when calamity strikes, we cannot save these people.  We invent weapons of mass destruction… we fight wars of ideas, but we kill and injure; we cannot spare the innocent victims of these weapons.  We do not really know how to solve our global problems.  Are we independent, any of us?  Do we think independently and make our own decisions?  We rely on our technology and do not think for ourselves.  Somehow we have en masse elected as our national leader a man whose ignorance  is impressive and who could barely survive a day without a network of staff making decisions and executing procedure.  It is a flaccid state of affairs…

Rereading the Declaration of Independence which I am motivated to do after pondering the state of our nation this July, I am baffled that many of the original principles seem to be underknown and disrespected by the priorities of the current presidency.  Are we so codependent and selfish that we cannot look around us and prioritize humanity over material and economic gain?  Are we so shallow that we no longer read or remember any historic lessons?  How many Americans can name Beyonce's new twins and cannot identify 90% of the countries on an unlabeled map of Africa?

Of course, we have our phones; we have Google maps and Alexa and Siri.  We do still use our thumbs, but for many of us, we don't retain numbers and names; we don't wrestle with ideas or walk from place to place but take the physical and mental uber.   As far as history is concerned, we seem to welcome remakes of Hollywood movies and epics that succeeded once; someone seems to believe that massive budgets and contemporary celebrity actors will improve on the original, even though these actors' names will disappear from the horizon in a few telescoped years.  The lessons of history are absorbed in the collective Alzheimer's of our society which is so busy streaming and amassing data that it has forgotten its own origins, and sacrificed the independence of its brain, once the shining crown of Man.

We believe in God, so many of us…  but is religion another excuse for laziness? How many of us fall back on tenets and cliches and fail to have faith in our own ability to think with clarity?  We change our bodies and faces, we are obsessed with style, and yet we rarely spend effort to change our minds.  The tragedy of dementia affects us so deeply, yet here we are, daily, failing to protect or invest our most valuable asset.  Think about it… in the fast-fading afterglow of twilight's last gleaming...

We Can Be Heroes

I'm not sure if anyone else saw the article by Max Blumenthal essentially shooting holes in the legacy of nobel prize-winner Elie Wiesel.  His bitterness was maybe poorly timed, and no matter how valid his points, we are all flawed and human and we make mistakes, and fame not only does not assure protection but maybe leaves us more vulnerable to poor choices and insecurities.  The bloggers who obsess about Mr. Wiesel's disappearing tattoo… well, I'm not sure their vendetta is worth the energy… his death seems to have made this all a bit moot.  

I had a personal interest in the death of Mr. Wiesel.  Thirty years ago,  for some time, our telephone land lines were one digit apart.  In the days of answering machines, I often got messages for him; one day I looked him up (he was listed) and called to tell him I'd received some of his medical test results in error.  We had a friendly little New York City exchange, and that was that.  Several months later I ran into him at a huge NYPL dinner honoring local authors… and I introduced myself.  I was pretty then--- dating a well-known writer, and Elie was charming and warm.  He called me several times when he'd got voicemail he was certain was intended for me… we talked a little, laughed a little… a New York connection.  I left that apartment, and the landline, 19 years ago.

Recently someone offered to take me to a restaurant-- they mentioned the name of a well-reviewed bistro in my neighborhood.  I rarely go out these days.  I've dispensed with everything but the barest supplies; I walk and drink my coffee black.  A little bit of hunger is good for imagination.  But the name of the place brought back an association. Years ago, a Goldman Sachs young wunderkind asked me to help him buy some art--- he needed me to see his new Park Avenue apartment-- unusual in those days for a young bachelor-- and of course he insisted on taking me to dinner first.  I cared little for these suitors back then, when I was a marketable human commodity…  but he was a friend of someone I liked, and I repped artists in those days, and was thrilled to help place their work.  So of course he was a little interesting and ivy-league smart, even though he would never have been my 'type'...and we drank some expensive wine, etc.  The bistro closed.. and our errand began.  Minutes after entering his massive apartment, the guy literally attacked me-- the term date-rape hadn't been invented. Yes, he professed his eternal love among other expletives… I can remember the way he smelled and his custom shirt…. the beautiful cotton… things like this cross your mind in these moments of extreme observation… like magnifications.  I had on a black Norma Kamali dress-- he was pulling at it like an animal… and somehow I managed to kick him in his balls and run out.   My dress was never the same, and that restaurant which remarkably has thrived over the years--  a personal taboo.  In my suede purse was a copy of 'Night'.  I lost it in his apartment, when my things dumped out… and I bought myself a 48-cent copy at the Strand ( they were common)-- my reading copy which I pulled out to look at after I heard about Mr. Wiesel's death.  And I recalled the incident.

In the context of life, this was nothing.  Children are abused and raped and beaten by relatives, parents and kind people.  Politicians profess benevolence and tip badly, yell at staff, have little compassion for neighbors.  And we are all so guilty of ignoring people in need.  Then again-- what good can we do? I spend days trying to help women who refuse and sabotage and self-pity and destroy and use me up.  Brilliant musicians and young guitarists make me cry with their talent-- and drink my sympathy down with their habits.  Does it bother me that this Goldman guy is one of the Masters of the Universe now?  Does his massive fortune make me crave revenge?  Not really.  I left his house that night and discarded the incident like a cigarette butt.  He has a paid army of lawyers on staff because he needs them.  These people commit petty sins and have them erased or charge and convict a dead pedestrian in a hit-and-run.  I have my pride and maybe he has the memory.  It hadn't crossed my radar until the mention of that restaurant triggered.  And then the Elie Wiesel connection.  I'd thought about his hideous tale of survival, the historic retelling, the way he became a sort of hero or symbol of this episode, and used his life to spread the memory-- the lesson.  At the time it had put things into a kind of perspective and helped me process my little violation.  Do I have a physical scar, a tattoo?  I don't.

It is well known that Elie Wiesel's foundation and personal fortune were decimated by the Madoff scandal.  Having built a sort of personal citadel based on his platform of survival, he was economically hijacked… suffered a late-life personal tragedy not of holocaustic proportion, but the irony of these Jewish charities being the worst-fated victims of the Ponzi scheme is double-edged.  So whatever Elie Wiesel did that may have been less than stellar in his final chapter of comeback seems less heinous to me.  He was old, he was tough-- had made some shocking choices in his youth in the camps, and confessed in his account.  His death was acknowledged by political leaders and dignitaries everywhere.  His moral status in history is assured.  The book will remain in its place of honor.  It will be read as a document, as a memoir, as a testimony of bravery and courage and survival.

The third irony occurred at the funeral-- a private ceremony on Fifth Avenue when mourners were startled by the sound of an explosion, attributed to a stray July 4th device or celebration.  Later on it was revealed that this was the sound of a 'random' mixture of chemicals in a container left in a plastic bag-- just yards away--  literally blowing the foot off of a young strong boy who minutes before was innocently exploring the park, enjoying a holiday with friends… when some hideous design of fate caused him to be in the right place at exactly the wrong moment-- one false step and his life was radically altered.

As Elie Wiesel was laid to rest in a civilized world, his coffin driven away in a hearse before rows of celebrities and famous men and women… it was a reminder that there is no guarantee of peace-- not anywhere, not for any of us.   No matter how good or evil we may be,  we are not safe… we can tiptoe through our lives or we can forcefully march through streets laughing and shouting… there are attackers and people with guns, and predators, and bitter victims seeking revenge… and there are accidents-- careless acts of preoccupied phone-texters or sleepy truckers or drunk distracted motorists who get behind their wheels thinking about their bed and end up in a line-up of coffins.  But there is no clear path for any of us and we can only try to kiss the dawn when we wake up, and cross ourselves when we step off a curb and a cab just misses us.  We marked another Independence Day and fireworks were displayed in peace… despite a few weekend gunshots and a poor ill-fated boy in the Park who will go on to win races with a prosthetic foot, I predict.  Catapulted into some version of forced heroism--  like Mr. Wiesel, in a way, he is forever changed.