At 9:11 PM, on 9-11-03, I was using a two-liter bottle of Vanilla Coke to roll out a large piece of dough to make a pie crust.
(I am well aware that nobody MAKES pie crusts anymore. Well, I do. Whatever. Obviously, since nobody makes pie crusts anymore, nobody owns a rolling pin. Coke bottles work great...)
It's September 11th, that dreaded day where everybody either gets weepy, or patriotic, or something in between. It's been two years. But I really wasn't expecting anything but weepiness and patriotism.
I have no problem with weepiness if you lost a loved one in the attacks on New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC. Or if you couldn't make contact with your loved ones, and you were frightened. Hey, be my guest and weep. Helena will be your personal Kleenex-hander.
If you didn't lose anybody, and you don't know anybody from New York, and you weren't for a minute worried about relatives or loved ones, I have slightly less sympathy for you if you spent the day being weepy. I'm aware that that sounds callous, but what is there to be weepy about NOW? Something terrible happened, two years ago. And it's done. If it doesn't affect you directly, it's sort of sick to pretend it does. Politician rhetoric: "What has happened affects ALL Americans!" Well, yes, it does. Because now all Americans are under seige at airports, and it takes, like, five hours for a Greyhound bus to pass through Fort Lewis, and your government may be tracking what books you're taking out of the library.
(Please take note of my book list, and try to understand a bit of why I'm worried... Although I know a few people who really ought to be much more worried than myself for similar reasons...)
...But it's really no reason to be weepy.
"The United States of America" is a ridiculously abstract concept. Of course, nearly everybody buys into it. Even I have a collection of dozens of postcards with different states' names on them. But, when it comes down to it, the United States of America exists tangibly only as a hunk of land. Same with any nation, really. You think squirrels know when they've crossed over into Oregon? These boundaries really mean nothing of any real importance to survival or anybody's well-being. We could all get along just as well if there were no such boundaries, if we didn't have to name every parcel of land and claim it as being under the authority of such-and-such group with such-and-such ideals. If I'm going to be entirely crude, using the words "United States of America" to designate a piece of territory of which one can be a member, is almost exactly like a dog taking a leak on a mailbox. It's his way of naming a piece of property, after all.
Some of the ideals are beautiful. But the ideals are not "The United States of America." Not literally. "Freedom" is not synonymous with "The United States of America." Neither are "justice," "courage," or "liberty." In my country, there are many people who aren't free. There are many people who have no courage. And, obviously, justice rarely stands on its step stool long enough to see over the top of The United States of America's red tape. Freedom, justice, courage, etc., are all grand things, but they're aspirations. They should not be used as idols to worship one's nation.
And -- I know I'm probably going to get kicked for this one -- the fucking FLAG is NOT "The United States of America." It is a symbol. It is a symbol that represents a history -- not a very long history, but an interesting one, anyway. I happen to have a certain amount of respect for the American flag. Don't think I'd ever burn one, because the flag represents history, and people, as well as government, and wars, and other fucked up things. And I respect most symbols to a certain degree, even awful symbols, like Nazi swastikas, because all symbols are metaphors, and metaphors are beautiful, just because. But again, using the American flag, a symbol, as an idol is really sort of sick.
So, what IS "The United States of America"?
I read in somebody's guestbook a few days ago, a comment that was something to the effect of: "...even though I'm a liberal, there are some things to like about The United States of America."
If someone had actually said that to my face, I would have screamed at them for being so damned ignorant. Yes, of COURSE there are things to like about The United States of America. And being liberal has nothing to do with anything. Cripes. Do people really believe this Fox News bullshit about all liberals hating the United States? That is SUCH DISGUSTING IGNORANCE!
What is there to love about The United States of America, really? What IS the United States of America? It's not a set of boundaries, it's not a set of ideals (after all, "freedom," the great American ideal, isn't exactly being nurtured in the way that it should be some alleged authority figures who want to find out what I'm reading in the library...), it's not a government or a governmental system (gahd HELP us if The United States of America was synonymous John Motherfucking Ashcroft -- really ignorant people think that it IS, which is most unfortunate...), it's not a flag... What IS The United States of America, and why love it?
The United States of America is:
Greyhound busses; the house your grew up in; apple pie and hot dogs; backyards; wild buffaloes in North Dakota; soda and wings in Tacoma; bad drivers; black people; Asian people; indigenous people; middle-eastern people; white people; Indian people; Latino/a people; immigrants from all parts of the world, and their kids, and their kids; smelly pregnant meth-heads on Intercity Transit; coffee; videos; guitars; churches; temples; forests; tofu; corn in Iowa; paintings and tall buildings in Chicago and New York; the oceans; casinos; your mom; your dad; your siblings; your pets; yucca plants in Amarillo; seven-foot snowdrifts in Buffalo; people who do not pronounce "pen" and "pin" differently; lumberjacks; onion rings (and, yes, french fries too -- they're not really French... not really...); Amish people; electricians; big old tractor trailers; sunsets; grocery stores; teenagers sloppily making out in public; dentists; Mormons; aspen trees in New Mexico; the sweet smell of hot rain in San Diego; trains; drugs; AA meetings; Jews; foster care; cemetaries; horses; people who wear too much make-up; cheeseburgers with bacon; the Hoover Dam; marmots; homosexuals; heterosexuals; Muslims; cheerleaders; murderers; soldiers; eight billion television stations; Girl Scouts; salespeople; activists; the mountains of Idaho; wild sheep in Nevada; retarded people; fast food; incredibly old, irritable, mean people; people who think they're vampires; teachers; people who you see all the time but never talk to; unemployed History majors; Hindus; pralines in Georgia; the delicious stink of hotel rooms; good cops; bad cops; sidewalks; vanilla screwdrivers; beautiful people; ugly people; laundromats; husbands and wives; milkshakes; doctors and nurses; endless Washington rain; gainful employment; sweet little mice; lawyers; pizza; summer camp; bookshelves; rose quartz; Carnegie libraries; lakes; THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE; people who wear a lot of tie-dyed clothing, and insist on urinating in public; Catholics; receptionists; high schools; girlfriends and boyfriends; clotheslines; entire stores full of greeting cards; amusement parks; cows; fireworks; garbagemen; baseball games; endless fields and skies in Montana; the world's largest sandhill crane in Steele, North Dakota; people who can't read; iced tea; Pagans; apple trees; John Motherfucking Ashcroft; cute kids; elevators; goats in petting zoos; "Wizard of Oz"; hairdressers; combat boots; DENNY'S; people who wear pants under skirts, and sandals with socks; Greek diners; Episcopalians; rocks in Colorado; the mighty Mississippi; shopping malls; English majors; Baptists; pretty damned much NOTHING in Ohio; macaroni and cheese; communists; endless commercials for hand moisturizers; people who talk to telephone poles; really stinky bodies of water in New Jersey; professors; vegetarians; lettuce; mental hospitals; poppies; cancer patients; playwrights; courtyards with fountains in them; bricks;---
I'm getting sort of tired... I'm going to sort of end that list there... Feel free to add to it, if you want.
Right.
So, this is America, kids. We're livin' it. If you think you're not supposed to love America because you're a liberal, you're sort of saying that you don't love any of the above things that I mentioned. THESE are the things that make up the United States of America. These and many, many more things. Of course, nobody loves everything about The United States of America. I don't like lots of the things I've listed. But it's still a damned incredible entity, and I love it.
Today, I did not weep.
Today, I was patriotic.
I didn't wave a flag around, or go to some rally (although I really sort of wanted to), or vote, or whatever...
America is what I'm living. I don't need to go too far out of my way to be patriotic.
Jake drove me down to the Nisqually Reservation, and we picked blackberries. They were the last of the season, and therefore incredibly mushy. Somehow, we ended up smearing blackberry mush all over each other. And when we got home, Jake, exhausted, fall asleep, and I made him a pie, for our one-year anniversary tomorrow.
I submit that that's one of the most American things it's possible to do.
And of course, it didn't necessitate any tears.
I'm going to bed now. Sorry if this is a little rambly.
~Helena*
"It occurs to me that I am America." --Allen Ginsberg