View from the Bridge

I grew up pledging allegiance to my country’s flag every morning in nursery school where few of us even understood the words we mostly mispronounced.  We put our hands on our hearts and swore things and then we sang about God and other things.  These repetitions were part of our daily ritual, like a mantra.  At sleepaway camp I sang the Doxology at lunch; another repetition.  I liked recitations; I liked music.  I liked the sound of girls' and boys' voices in unison, like a choir.

Later on we questioned things, we refused to repeat words we didn’t believe in, we found the exceptions to every rule and that became a temporary raison d’etre.  By the time I was an adult, no one was mouthing things in school anymore; no one was pledging-by-rote or reciting things about God except in church.

I traveled out of the country for the first time as a young teenager; I was an exchange student in a totally rural village in Mexico which was an education in itself.  But it was the first time I became aware of being American, with all the advantages—and of the envy and the bitterness of people in a poor culture where plumbing was a luxury and electricity a rarity; where they’d experienced the well-meaning efforts of things like the Peace Corps which too often came off like smug imperialist elitism. Bleeding heart US liberals, rich kids wearing their overalls and charitable deeds like badges of honor.  My Mexican family had seen them digging ditches in their backyards with their transistor radios and their rock-band messaged T-shirts and didn’t much care for them.

This month I’ve been to 4 countries in a short space.  On the trip to Oslo I realized it was the first time I’d left the US since the election.  My SAS plane was packed with Norwegians; they didn’t even bother making announcements in English.  They handed out the required boarding cards the US began issuing after 9/11 because they wanted to know where you were traveling and on what plane in case of some incident.  But this time no one collected them at Passport control.  Maybe it was an oversight, but I felt as if we were downgraded to second-rate status and our priorities no longer have respect or meaning.  Besides, Donald Trump couldn’t give a shit about me or anyone else who is not going to line his gilded pockets.

My friends here in Stockholm have visited New York as often as they could; they’ve always been interested in tracing the origins of contemporary pop culture, like a pilgrimage.  They come to see where Bob Dylan lived, where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death, where Nancy stabbed Sid and where Thomas Wolfe came to produce his thick volumes of prose. I’ve always had a certain ‘currency’, being a native New Yorker; I witnessed things they read about and brushed shoulders with their idols before they were famous.  My love for Stockholm is known; it’s my ‘holm away from home.  I’ve played and sang here, recorded music, been loved, appreciated and entertained.  It is maybe the most beautiful city in the world… and still, I’ve always still had the underlying longing to return to my New York.

Today there’s a photo of not-my-president on the front of one of the daily Swedish papers; this is a social democracy—it’s a liberal and fair society; in the place I’m staying, owned by a middle-class older couple, a sticker on the washing machine shows Michael Moore’s face with the caption ‘Take Back the White House!’  Stockholm suffered a terrorist attack recently but they go on as the free society they are.  I realize I don't feel quite the same as an American… I'm sick of apologizing for a massive political error and an incompetent administration.  I'm tired of the jokes; they're wearing thin.

One of the things I love most about Stockholm is its geography.  The islands all have their own character and are navigable by foot.  Crossing the various bridges is not just breathtaking but gives a unique sense of perspective on the city.  I have always loved bridges; in New York, my son and I walked the 59th Street, the Brooklyn—even the Hell Gate Bridge.  There is always a moment—half way maybe, where you feel ungrounded…suspended… free, in a way, but with that crossroads thing in your head—knowing on every bridge, everywhere, someone has stood and thought about the jump.  It adds another dimension to my bridge-crossing metaphor.

Today I was on an especially high crossing, where I could see the water beneath my feet—the blackish, still-wintry, restless current.  I thought about going home—the end of my stay coming up.. and suddenly I realized going back to my country at this moment of political chaos, shame… provided no comfort.  The gap between going and coming home is significant; this time I feel I’m returning, but not to a place of belonging or security.  It’s like the national rug has been pulled out from under us and replaced with a blanket of golf-course turf.  For the first time in my life, I feel vaguely homeless.  I can only imagine how our US immigrants are suffering—standing on their bridge, with nowhere to return to, nowhere to enter… ‘Send these, the homeless tempest- tossed to me…’ the poem says… but no longer.  I will go home, in name only, like an immigrant, hoping to find my old dream in a place where the symptoms of greed and selfish Titanism are consuming the heart of my city.  Not the world that produced me; not the world of any godly version of society.  Holding the return portion of my roundtrip ticket, I feel duped and stranded rather than safe and welcome.  Fortunately I still have a day to two to contemplate my view from the bridge.  Not so for everyone.

Fun House

So thank God Thanksgiving blend is finished. Jesus, that sounds so retro-jappy/Carrie Bradshaw. But when half your daily spending allotment goes toward that Venti bold no-room with the potential unlimited free refills (I am vehemently anti-Pike), a bad blend can seriously affect attitude. Maybe this is for my New-York-on-$4-a-day blog my gynecologist keeps begging me to write. Along with the comment that if I give him a really valuable piece of thrifty advice, he'll discount my pap smear accordingly. He did. $6.39. He probably didn't even send it in. Do I care at this point? Way cheaper to die than get a diagnosis. Quicker, too. Maybe I should call it 'Dying in NYC on $4-a-day'. I like the sound of that. But I've heard a cemetery plot anywhere in the 5 boroughs is like more expensive than the average UES coop. And smaller. No view, so maintenance might be cheaper. No electric. Low ceilings...etc. ad mortem.

I actually am developing a serious phobia of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, now that she is dated and maybe the same age I was when I swore an oath against ever watching a single episode, even shading my eyes when I saw them filming live in my 'hood, walking with their Tasti-D-Lites on the day my friend was hired as an extra and was furious when she witnessed me refusing to look. Actually she never forgave me. Actually I don't deserve her forgiveness, for other petty sins I've committed against her. Carrie Bradshaw wouldn't say peccadillos, would she? I wrote this same friend, when she mentioned she had flirted with one of my more dysfunctional exes, wanting a reference. I suggested she take out a personal ad saying "Tax deduction available. Will cook and clean (well, at least at first). Knows the lyrics to Castles Made of Sand and most early Dylan (this is where she begins to lie). Can tell Wolfmother from Led Zeppelin (Pinocchio-worthy). Has a vagina (actually, I've never fact-checked)." Maybe I'm becoming Carrie Bradshaw. I'm confused. Was she fictional or real? Was she the fictional version of the actual columnist? Can you fear becoming the fictional version of someone, or even a cartoon character? My mother used to remind me of a more elegant Edith Bunker. For a while I had fear-of-my-mother-turning into Marge Simpson. I have nightmares about the Simpsons. They terrify me. Even the baby. When I was small I feared the Classic Comic Quasimodo. I'd compulsively dare myself to open to a page, and then I'd feel like I had to vomit.

I have this new terror of early Alzheimer's, like my Mom. Not that she seems unhappy or frustrated. But she's totally lost her sense of humor, her edge. I have to keep checking to make sure I still hate Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

When I was there the other day, she was furious that everyone had rice pudding except her. But you've already finished your rice pudding, the caretaker carefully explains. 'No I didn't', she insists and stamps her foot in the most ladylike way, and then wrinkles her nose at us and says in her old snoot-voice: 'I HATE rice pudding!'

It was funny. I made me think, once again, that she is pulling the greatest marital practical joke of all on my poor father who nagged and criticized her for years, and has the patience of an angry flea. Also the fact that she defends Dancing with the Stars, even calls me when it goes on, like it is our private joke and worth the torture of it just to watch him writhe and utter non-verbal expletives.

Tonight I saw Michael Moore coming out of the 92nd Street Y. He is pretty fat. Does he do this to ally himself with middle-Americans who are fat? The ultra-rich, of course, like the extreme poor, are thin. I suggested to my newly-anorexic friend the other day that she is just trying to look rich. It is also easier for anorexics to do New York on $4 a day. I suggested she guest on my non-existent blog. She's not speaking to me either. I'm relieved.

Christmas blend. Blend. Everything is a compromise, everything is a hybrid-- diluted, cut with baking soda and corn-sugar, force-fed. People aren't black or white either. Black people are light brown and blonde, Swedes die their blonde hair Johnhy-Thunders black. Everyone's a blend, desperately trying to distinguish themselves with some pathetic fashion statement, women all incensed if someone has the same dress at an event and trying just as desperately to be exactly like everyone else with ther iphones and kindles and macbooks and shoes. I saw a girl at Sotheby's yesterday wearing literally 9-inch Christian Louboutins looking like a pathetic flightless bird with deformed bloody wings on her feet, walking like Barney in toeshoes, pretending her ass was not the bulgy ass of a 5'2" average Jill but the proportionally acceptable ass of a Victoria's Secret Angel. It was very Cindy Sherman, actually. Or Carrie Bradshaw.

Somehow my son's facebook page is now viewable by me. I don't read the posts, but I have noticed these girls with names like Summer Autumn Revere and Jessica Marble. They seem to be real people, but their names are like sculpted. Who are their parents? My son actually, completely accidentally, has a poetic name. His father's fault. I wonder sometimes if I didn't marry his father for the poetic last name...I mean, I think I was in love, but seem to remember feeling 'above' institutional traditions and probably would never have taken another name, except it sounded so nice... I was a little hypnotized... very Carrie Bradshaw. Then again, there was certainly no Vera Wang white for me. We were married (blended?)at the exact same office as Paul McCartney and his current. The woman who performed our ceremony had an enormous ass. Colossal. Proportionally speaking. My husband remarked on this, and I was convulsed during the entire brief ceremony, didn't hear a thing and he spoke for me-- said I was temporarily dumb-stricken. He was funny. I remember this.

I wonder if my mother forgets she's old, decides that grey face in the mirror is some old person who's come to clean the house. Madness is comforting, in the way that you convince yourself around Halloween that these people on the subway leering at you are just costumes and masks. In the way that you order your Christmas blend just like the Carrie Bradshaws behind you, and you get the same brew, no matter how much is in your wallet. There is some democracy. We all get old, we die, we get cancer, we go mad, we remember, we forget. We pay the same for our Christmas blends; it is not about the portion but the proportion.

Ipods and Benefit Cards

There’s this guy in my neighborhood with those arm crutches. He reeks of garlic and listens to NPR on some portable radio headphones. The few times I’ve overheard him he’s speaking about politics—maybe a Dennis Kucinich supporter. He has no observable handicap I can see—in fact he seems rather robust-- works out, no hint of a limp, often carries the crutches on one arm, gives me the eye and I give it back—that two dogs passing thing—the quick growl, slight rise of the lip-- just letting the other know…don’t even think about it. A bitter radical. Just over the hill…waiting for Medicare…maybe even pulling a disability scam on the MTA with those crutches, for the satisfaction of the half-price thing, sticking it to the system…yeah, that’s it, you cheap bastard.

Why does this guy bug me? Lately Writerless is acquiring this edge. A crust. Getting old-- crisping. Rarely accepting anything at face value. Maybe a good pint of American redblood replaced by something nasty.

I had to go to the ER last weekend…test the system which at its most shining is nothing less than rotten. I actually broke my foot, although the triage and admission staff relegated me to whiney white-bitch status immediately. I could tell. So I sat-- a little miserable. Huge families on welfare with the benefit cards—babies in strollers, aunts, uncles—like a party—all laughing, trading ipods, abusing the vending machines, filing in and out while I sat. No one even offered an ice-pack. I saw the diagnosis on the computer-screen: Sprained ankle. You go girl. You could sit all weekend with that one.

My hospital co-pay will be $50 if I’m lucky, and if I watch every move, I won’t owe more than a couple of hundred all told. For this --and the privilege of being last, I actually pay out-of-pocket $700 a month. Just for myself. Kids—with my musician’s income, get some state program-- great care, no money.

But for these families— those of the 400 pound aunt who forgot her albuterol, the fat girl who stubbed her toe, the baby with a slight fever--not a cent of co-pay. They each racked up maybe $3,000 for the State of New York while the unsick of them partied, consumed snacks and beverages, talked on their cellphones, told jokes and enjoyed a rent-free air-conditioned living-room for the night. There's even a decent film on the HD monitors. Kids running everywhere, screaming, jumping around, watching cartoons and playing completely unsupervised in the Pediatric ER waiting room. Heck, if one of them has an accident, they’re home-free here. And the women behind the glass-- the ones moving at 2 RPMs-- they ignored it all.

After 9 hours I somehow bypassed the front desk and went in. They claimed they’d called me hours ago….anyway, looked surprised when they saw the clean fracture on the film…and sent me home with another referral. Seems my insurance, unlike the free variety, doesn’t cover actual treatment in the ER. I’ll have to beg and plead and get additional electronic referrals to another free clinic which is the only place in this day that accepts my health insurance for which I pay maybe 1/3 of my annual income. 1/3. And I am just one slim asset away from the free kind. But I struggle and skimp and save and wear old clothes for this privilege. My kids hate me, I can barely afford basic cable, have no ipod or cell, and of course my $50 co-pay does not include use of the hospital phones to call someone to help me home because in my state of acute pain, I didn’t think to bring quarters. Vending machines are not an option for the likes of me. While the woman behind the glass is dispensing get-out-of-work-free notes to the families, because they were in the ER.

So on this eve of American Independence Day, I am looking for the meaning of a true American holiday. My teenager will be jet-skiing with his friends, dressed like a rich person and sipping lemonade on the South Hampton veranda of a brand-new mansion with a French name. Macy’s will be spending mega-millions on a fireworks display which could have fed the entire African continent. New York City will be spending more than the GNP of an average state on overtime for the beefed-up police force. I’ll be hobbling onto a stairless stage, docked $20 for making someone else set up my amplifier, going home on the train with my $100, thinking about freedom and independence. Thinking about these fat American families barbecuing steak they purchased with benefit cards, listening to their ipods and cellphones and enjoying the other fruits of their credit card debt, free American health insurance and instant disability payments because maybe they were too lazy to refill their free albuterol prescription.

Incidentally, the therapeutic boot-thing my foot requires is not covered and costs more than Prada, so I’ll rig up some old stiff-sole arrangement and hobble painfully on.

God Bless America. And Michael Moore.