In the wee hours of the morning, I finished reading this book, and was left with a sense that I do not know nearly enough about anything. At all. I am embarrassed at my lack of knowledge concerning the history of this country as well as the current state of affairs. I don't mean that I don't know what is happening, vaguely, with politics and the war and lies and cheating and that Lance Armstrong won the Tour, again, and is retiring. But I am more apt to do a brief once over of the NY Times headlines while I stand in line to get my coffee than to actually, heaven forbid, read an article--except the arts section. The moveon.org emails that come to my hotmail address, pretty much daily, go unread. Prior to the last election, sigh, I read every e-mail they sent and dutifully signed electronic petitions. Now, I check mark them for deletion without even opening them. Ugh. I just admitted that, out loud, so to speak--er, type, I mean. In her book, Sarah Vowell describes actually weeping as she joins in the singing of the National Anthem at the 1st Bush, Jr. Inauguration.
"Either you beamed through the ceremony with smiles of joy, or you wept through it all with tears of rage."
She is a true patriot, one who bothers to learn what this is all about, take action to change it and still recognizes and loves that this is the place where she can do it, despite the fact that it is so disastrously messed up right now. Read this book. Especially if you, like me, are often conflicted about how to articulate the love of a country that is acting like a big fat jerk and making life very, very painful for a lot of people in a lot of places. I don't want to walk around carrying my head in shame, and it's awfully difficult to hold it up, somedays--heck, most days.
My mom and I took a trip to Paris, this past spring. This was her first time out of the country-- unless you count that one day we went up to Vancouver and looked for a prom dress for my baby sister who wanted to have a dress that was different from everyone else's at Filer High School, but not too different. Just bought in a different country different. She, my mother, described to me comments made by various people in her home town that dealt, mainly, with curiosity of why you would want to visit a place occupied by those awful French people who didn't want to help kick Iraq's ass, or concerns that we would be pummled with baguettes the moment that we opened our very American mouths. And this is not just a product of small town-ism, either. I heard people in my big ole' little city express similar crazy ideas. I'm not afraid to travel. I love to travel. Especially outside of the borders of the U.S. of A. I see it as my duty to visit cities that might view all Americans as braggarts and loud mouths who complain about not getting enough, if any, ice in their sodas; or the waiters not stopping by their table every two minutes to ask "How is everything?". I want to be the ambassador of good will and When-in-Rome savoir faire. When I depart the bistro, having made my feeble attempts at conversing, or at the very least ordering in barely passable French, I want that waiter to say to himself, "Ahhh. Zat iz ze kind of americaine zat I like to see."
We had a great time, my mother and I.
I am now preparing to take another journey, in a couple of months. This time to Spain, to share a house for two weeks with several friends. (I know I sound like a jet setter right now, but these trips have come out of lots of toil, peanut butter sandwiches, a little credit card debt and making my own coffee almost every morning. Except when my sweet boyfriend says, "Let's go get coffee", which is code for "I'll buy you coffee and a donut, too, if you like." See? Sweet.) Once again, I look on this trip as an opportunity to spread the good word that many people residing in the United States are not complete ignoramuses. There are plenty of folks who really love the world. The possibilities of experiencing something completely new and out of their element. I'm really excited about this gift.
I'm not trying to fool myself into believing that by simply taking an airplane across the ocean and being respectful is the only way I can participate in helping to get the U. S. back it's good name. There are oh so many other avenues. And most of them take place on this side of the ocean. I was inspired by Ms. Vowell. I want to be more informed. I can choose to be. It's not even that hard, the internet makes reading local and national politics a breeze. From so many angles, too. One might even be able to glean the actual story by piecing together the various accounts and biases. Hmmm...what a thought...
That will be all for tonight, my children. I am now stepping out from behind my pulpit and turning on Letterman. He's all about current events, right?
