Inauguration Countdown, Day Five: Et lux in tenebris lucet

From my sketchbook, fall 2003:

“We bombed the fuck
out of this girl’s
country.
Chances are good
she’s dead now.
And yet I still find myself
checking out her
outfit
and her hair
and wondering
what it would take
for me to look
as good as her.
Welcome to
Amerikka 2003
Welcome to the dark
in which I’m trying
to sing”

What have we cost the world?

Put on hold the monetary drain, for a minute. Think of the lives. Think of the people—the upright-walking, knuckle-cracking, text-message-getting, grinning, bitching human beings—who are no more, due to America’s actions in the past eight years.

Think of those torn apart by our bullets. Blown into little pieces by our bombs. Think of those in the countries we’ve targeted, wrongly, justifying our murderous urge with terms like “raghead” and “sand n****r”. Look what we’ve done.

I don’t care if they hate us. We should be strong enough to withstand hate, without breaking down and earning it.

Think of those in the countries we’ve neglected, struggling to endure their unendurable lives, waiting for help from us that never came. Think of those in Darfur, in Tibet. It’s one thing that we destroyed a country out of spite. But to do so, mouthing platitudes about liberating a people and bringing freedom, all the while pointedly ignoring those who truly needed our help…it’s unjustifiable.

Think of the opportunities we missed, the treaties not signed, the goodwill not deepened, all because our president couldn’t find most countries on a map, and was encouraged by his handlers to scorn our allies for daring to think we needed their help.

Think, finally, of what we’ve done to each other. We have ravaged ourselves. We have let our fellow countrymen be beaten, tasered, screamed at, vandalized. For long years, we answered evil with passivity and rationalization. We answered tyranny with apathy and intellectual masturbation. One of our cities drowned. The mud is in all our lungs.

Our country under Bush hated itself, wished to destroy itself, and came very close to doing so. That’s wretched enough. But like all good basket cases, it also managed to bring others down with it—selfishly, petulantly, hatefully. We will never be done making amends.

There is too much to name. Every country on earth has been touched by our self-mutilating spree. Some have merely felt the barest touch of entropy. Some have been shaken to the ground. We are sorry. We are sorry.

We are sorry.

To all the world: I apologize for having so little courage. I apologize for valuing my life above yours, for getting tangled in the machine, for all the moments when I ran and hid, simply dove under and let it wash over me. Of course I could have done more. I didn’t know what to do—none of us did. To strike at the heart of the problem would have been to strike at the core of what we, as Americans, are. I could have taken a gun and shot Bush, shot Cheney. But I couldn’t see a way to that being right. Could you really have done it yourself?

I took eight years of risks, put myself in constant discomfort and occasional danger, to oppose this regime. I will never know if my efforts amounted to anything at all. I bore the brunt of the scornful, high-riding hate of my fellow countrymen in the early part of this decade, and braved a year in Europe when America was at its most unpopular. I protested, I wrote, I marched, I campaigned. I cried, and learned how to pray; and when no one was looking, I sometimes laid down on the floor and indulged in a few minutes of complete despair.

I could count the ways I’ve been tempered by this fire. I could come up with 1,001 spiritual triumphs that I, that so many of us, have been blessed to reach during this nightmare decade. Maybe I will write that post tomorrow.

Today is for the dead. Our dead. The missing human beings that will not be here to celebrate with us in four days, who will not be here to watch us commence our national penance. Who will not be alive to profit if, by some miracle, we turn this ship around. Who will not be here—by our doing.

Yesterday I anticipated. Tomorrow I will celebrate once again. But tonight I will grieve, and regret.

I could have done more.

That knowledge will be with me the rest of my life, will take its place as part of who I am. It will settle in amid my pride and determination. It will remind me. I will never forget.

photo uploaded to Flickr by the catalyst…

Inauguration Countdown, Day Six: Tolkienesque

Sometimes I forget, in the two months since the election, just how desperate I often felt in the past few years.

One can get used to anything, even hope and happiness; but it pays to remember, sometimes, those dark periods where the slightest sliver of light was welcome.

It feels silly, in retrospect, to blame Bush for all that has happened. Surely world events, and events in our culture, are caused by a perfect storm of elements; but it must be remembered how many of those negative elements seemed caused, or purposefully directed towards the worst ends, by our leadership. It’s too easy to forget, in light of our upcoming whirlwind era, how tight—how dark—how hateful a period we just passed through in this country.

I remember late 2004. Do you?

I was in art school, in Richmond, Virginia. My best hopes and efforts had just failed. Unbelievably, America had just elected to pull the poison needle out of its arm—and stick it in its eye. Life was cold. We were reeling, and there seemed no regrouping possible. The box was as small as it would possibly shrink–and there was no way out in sight.

There was nothing to do but focus down on what happiness we could find, and hold on. I zeroed in on what I could. Certain songs, certain websites by fellow stunned, snarktastic angels. Certain movies.

It’s time to come clean. The “Lord of the Rings” movies were up there on the list of stuff that got me through this wretched administration. I won’t disclose how many times I’ve watched them, but it’s in the double digits. There were lines in the movies that I listened to, and held fast to, and hoped like hell would come true in the world. And they have.

You can say what you want about the simplistic good-vs.-evil theme. It was more the courage of the characters that did me in. We all have it in us. We all have our reminders of that. This movie was one of mine—”when all other lights went out.”

Sam to Frodo, in “The Two Towers”:

“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights, we shouldn’t even be here. But we are.

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened?

“But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come! And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.

“But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

“What are we holding on to, Sam?”

“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

Inauguration Countdown, Day Seven: Europe Version

I was in France when the tide started turning.

Sunday, August 28, 2005: My 27th birthday. Katrina became a category 5 hurricane at ten a.m., and aimed itself at the Gulf Coast. I was packed, sitting on my suitcases in Tallahassee, waiting to see how far east the airport shutdowns would stretch. Should we try to drive to Pensacola, where I was due to meet my friend and get on a plane for a year in Europe?

If we left too early, and Pensacola’s airport was shut down, we might not make it back to Tallahassee in time for a replacement flight. But if we stayed in Tallahassee and waited too long to see, we’d miss the Pensacola flight if that airport stayed open.

I knew Katrina wouldn’t hit my family’s home in Tallahassee. Too far away, too far inland. But Pensacola, my hometown? Ravaged as it had been by Hurricane Ivan the previous fall, another storm was the last thing it needed. Plus, it was the home of the friend I was going to meet, and of his family. I remembered too well the trauma of watching Ivan unfold, stranded in Virginia with no way to get home and help my friends. The thought of that happening again—this time with me in Europe—broke my heart. Pensacola, Tallahassee, New Orleans: all cities I loved, all cities I had to leave in danger when I got on that plane.

They closed the Pensacola airport at noon. Our flight left from Tallahassee in the small hours of Monday the 29th, as New Orleans was being beaten to death. In Paris, we watched on our computers in a Montmartre hotel as the carnage progressed; we saw the flooding, and the burning, and I cried. We walked to the Tour Eiffel, and I marveled that such delicate strength could exist in the same life as such ugly brutality.

There was sniping. There were floating bodies. We heard the President of France, Jacques Chirac, had written a letter to Bush, offering assistance with this grandest of fuck-ups. We visited Notre Dame for the first time, and I wrote in the prayer book there: Priez pour les résidants de la Nouvelle-Orléans, de Biloxi et de Mobile, les Etats-Unis, svp. I saw the rose windows through tears.

A train took me to Aix-En-Provence. I passed the fourth anniversary of 9-11 in the kitchen of my Provençal host mother, watching the memorial on French television news. As they honored the anniversary with far more respect and dignity than I was used to from the American media, I burst into tears of shame. My host mother hugged me awkwardly and muttered, “Ne sois pas triste. Tous nos gouvernements sont terribles.”

I kept up with American news as best as I could, with shitty wireless internet and sites like AmericaBlog and Rude Pundit. In Giverny that November, I neglected my painting, celebrating the downfall of Scooter Libby and looking forward to Fitzmas with other liberal blogheads. And in Scotland the following January, I voiced my tiny protest against Justice Alito by posting the story of my abortion—one of the most personal things I’ve ever done over the internet.

I lived in Europe from late August 2005, to early May 2006. During that time, I received only the tiniest amount of personal hostility for being an American. Nevertheless, I had a constant feeling of oppressive embarrassment, of trigger-happy defensiveness. There was continual low-grade mockery of Bush, especially in the British media, which I suppose was to be expected…but it still grated on me. I knew people couldn’t tell just by looking at me, but I resented feeling the desire to blend in.

When I’d left the United States in ’05, I was sick to death of it. I was escaping it. But by the time I’d decided that November to return to Florida the following summer and pursue writing, I’d embraced my Americanness and become perversely proud of it. I wanted to take it back, that feeling of patriotism, that had been hijacked and twisted so violently by the Right. It was my country too. I decided to be proud of America, of what we had been and could be.

It was a difficult stance to take. It required a lot of soul-searching and courage. Who was I, in relation to this evil empire? What part of it was my fault? What did I have the right to ask of it, and what respect did I have the right to expect of others?

I came to some conclusions, as I painted and wrote and healed. I was an American, in the old-fashioned, original sense of the word. I was an American, in spite of our unpopularity in the world, and in spite of my own damn government.

I vowed to return, and take my fucking country back.

I left a nation that had just voted Bush a second term. I returned to a nation that was about to vote the Congress blue—and I participated. I saw a year of American history from outside the United States, while simultaneously feeling as though I had to act as an emissary and a defendant of my country. It changed me.

That year, bounded by Katrina and Pelosi, apparently changed us all.

I leave for Europe again before long. It may be too early to say, but I expect to arrive on a wave of goodwill—not in flight from a storm. Look what we’ve done, for better and worse. Look who’s about to be running the show. I expect American pride will come a lot more easily now than it did in 2005. I expect it to take a lot less courage.

I’ll never make a big deal about where I come from. Once again, I’ll probably be mistaken for European anyway—until I open my mouth. The difference this time will be internal. No more defiance, caught between the contempt the world had for Americans, and the hatred the Bush administration had for Americans like me. No more feeling like a woman without a country. This time, I will walk through the world as the citizen of a nation that belongs to me again, and that I am glad to belong to.

The quiet pride inside me will flow smoother than silk, winding around my memories of the victorious fight of the past two years.

Inauguration Countdown, Day Eight: Bush condescends to his replacement

BBC news online provides what I earnestly hope will be the last Bush-related facepalm article I’ll ever have to comment on.

The article states, “Outgoing US President George W Bush has warned his successor that a terrorist attack is still the ‘most urgent threat’ to the US.”

Really? I hope Obama takes that warning more seriously than Bush took Clinton’s warning. Oh wait–Obama already knows that, and has made revamping our international security one of his top themes.

Continues President Vegetable:

“I wish I could report that is not the case, but there’s still an enemy out there that would like to inflict damage on Americans. That will be the major threat.”

You know who’d most like to see Barack Obama fail right now? Who cares the least about any damage that would do to America? Hardcore Republican Americans. I have met the enemy, and they is us–dontcha know.

Here’s where the wheels really leave the ground:

“Questioned about America’s ‘moral standing’ in the world, he strongly disagreed with suggestions that it had been damaged by the war in Iraq.”

No, Mr. President, you’re right. It was damaged by the lies that got us there. It was damaged when we started torturing people, and spying on our own citizens, and harassing international tourists, and letting a major city drown…not to mention mocking our allies, and outing CIA agents, and wearing a “Staff” hat to Auschwitz.

In short, Mr. Bush, you wouldn’t know where to begin pinpointing where our moral standing was damaged. Here’s a tip: pick any year of your administration, and we’ll go with that.

“Mr Bush was supportive of Mr Obama, repeatedly saying that he wished him all the best and describing him as ‘smart and engaging’ and also ‘a much better speech-maker than me’.”

Facepalm. Again.

And just for coffin-nails…

“He predicted that the next president would suddenly realise the importance of being president of the US – either ‘the minute he walks in the Oval Office…[or] he may feel it the minute he gets sworn in’.

“He went on: ‘All I know is, he’s going to feel it. There’ll be a moment when he feels it.’”

Excuse me–you think the President-Elect of the United States won’t realize the gravity of his charge until he’s got his toothbrush in the White House medicine cabinet?

OBAMA REALIZED IT BEFORE HE RAN, YOU FUCKTARD. That’s why he won.

Eight years of this man. My exhaustion: can you feel it through your screen?

New Year’s Revolution

This year, I spent New Year’s Eve in my hometown, Pensacola.

It was a wonderful time. I took the trip with one of my newest friends, and met up with a couple of my oldest. It was interesting to see my city through the eyes of someone who’d never been there before—and to view myself through the eyes of folks who hadn’t seen me for a long time.

Old PC has come a long way since Ivan. I can still see the places where certain old oaks ought to be; some businesses that I loved have finally gone under, bankrupted by repairs. But many more new shops and restaurants have taken their place. An overall feeling of balanced prosperity has come to the area. It seems a compromise has finally been reached between Old Florida and New Money.

This year was the first downtown New Year’s celebration, complete with a street party, live bands, and the ceremonial lowering, at midnight, of a custom-built metal pelican. It was freezing cold outside. After sipping Jagermeister at my car and watching one of the bands, we retreated to the Elbow Room, a local bar, where we drank champagne out of a shoe at midnight.

You can’t accuse my hometown of normality.

I felt that this New Year’s was particularly auspicious. Not only did our cross-town search successfully turn up a boingy-antenna headband for me to wear, but it was fuzzy, lit up, and read “Party Girl” in hot pink plastic. Not only was I able to see various around-the-world NYE celebrations, but I actually caught the Moscow fireworks live on a television while dining on fine Whataburger cuisine. I didn’t get pulled over. I didn’t have a hangover. And I found a perfect little spiral shell on the beach for my friend, the last morning we were there.

***

This year, I resolve to move on. To get going with my life. No more waiting. No more hopelessness. We’ve seen what can happen when people have faith enough to work for what they really want. That’s a lesson I’ll keep.

This year, I vow to get happy. I took a risk, choosing to come back to Florida State and pursue a degree—and a career—in what my heart most desired to do. I was choosing what I loved, over what I should. It paid off, and many more chances have since presented themselves. I’m going to take them.

I am exhilarated by 2009. I am terrified. I am afraid I will run out of things to say. But I know I won’t.

Merry Christmas!

Time for our yearly GWAR post. Being as how I am in a good mood today, and the human race seems to have steered a bit away from self-destruction this year, I’ll post a cheerful song: “Fucking an Animal” (uncensored version).

Gather ’round, kiddies…sip some eggnog…and watch my generation at play.

Beware…the Plastic Mermaid Army!

Prepare for your annihilation, fleshbots!