to see the world the way I see it now
(Most Recent Entry)
introduction to poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
-- Billy Collins
Every tear you cry
Every doubt you have
All of these things will pass away
All of your big mistakes
Your little old heart would break
Wishing that i could take them back
Write down the things you don't want
Burn them in a glass
Write down the things you dream of
Make a paper plane that flies to Heaven
-- Jann Arden
Friday, January 21, 2005
the nature of freedom
I am fascinated by the founding of this nation. Today was a day when the beginnings were in the air. As President Bush delivered his second inaugural speech today, each word competed with history to make it into the annals of time.
“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
He had a lot to compete with.
Freedom. Liberty.
What do those things mean? I wonder if, because I’m not American, I have less of an appreciation for the true significance of those words. I don’t mean that I’m not free or liberated. I come from a free country. I was born into a liberal society (some might say even more liberal than this in many ways, although in others more conservative, more traditional). And yet freedom and liberty are keywords that are somehow ingrained into the American soul, along with the Stars and Stripes, hand-over-heart, American-Pie dream. It’s a mindset where the key phrases are different. While Britain has a wide expanse of history before it—history that merges back in time so far that we can’t pick a place where our national identity arose and we can’t hark proudly back to the philosophies and ideals of the “founding fathers.” Freedom and liberty are part of the very framework of this land—they were written into the constitution and they are alive today perhaps just as much as they were when a group of men got together to bring together what they saw as the best of the political and social ideals from around the world and added a spice of something unique, something new. America is a lesson learned and a new road built toward a new tomorrow. When Britons look back to the past, they see a myriad of different ideologies; they see monarchies that chopped and changed the national religion as often as the sun rose. We still retain a great deal of tradition—perhaps more than America—with our pomp and ceremony, our monarchy, our great national pride (“Rule Britannia”) rooted in the old-school approach to life. But when Americas look back, they see a unity of purpose, and it’s a purpose that continually strives toward the future. America is so vast. It has so much space, so much potential for expansion. There is no doubt that it will surge forward toward tomorrow because its past is so much in the here and now—so real and current. Perhaps that’s why I tend to have so much more understanding for America than I do for my own country. Britain is so complex (yes, America is too, but its complexities are more comprehendable, perhaps—laid out in the constitution and in laws, governed by principles with nomenclature like freedom, liberty, justice, peace, prosperity).
Or perhaps there is a simpler reason behind my inability to put my finger on the true nature of Britain and Britishness—because I’m an insider there, and because the last few years—when I was actually paying attention and showing interest in the world around me—have been spent across the ocean. I feel out of touch with what makes England England, with what makes me British. Over here, I am very English—there are the accent, the cultural marks, the childhood memories—but when I return home, I loose those marks of uniqueness that give me an identity as English. It’s then that I need to grasp on to something else. I never had that need before—the need to feel a national identity. Perhaps that’s because in America, national identity and national pride are inbuilt notions, culturally defining and socially real. The British Empire is no longer real, and Britishness is slowly giving way to Europeanness. When I see the American flag, I feel a tinge of national pride. When I hear the Star Spangled Banner (or “Proud to be an American,” oddly enough), I sing along. I do the same when I hear the British national anthem, but there is a difference in emotion. I understand American patriotism more because I have been here for so long—because I was here when the Twin Towers crumbled and when torn American flags were hung in desperation and pride around the wreckage. In Britain, the only Union Jacks or St. George’s crosses I see flying proudly are when the country goes to the World Cup.
And yet it is unfair of me to make these judgements, these comparisons, when I perhaps don’t really know enough about my own country to have a valid opinion. Perhaps patriotism is alive and well in England and I just haven’t been there to experience it. It is unfair to compare the national pride of a country so strongly based on its forming principles to the national pride of my own country—which has been through so many years of turmoil and greatness of its own. Part of me wants to take a peak at life during the World Wars in England—to experience the jingoism I have so often read about and heard the older generations reminiscing over. I want to see a time when the women of Britain empowered the country and themselves by pulling on trousers, rolling up their sleeves, and going to work in the factories. I want to experience a world where even the simplest gestures, like cultivating a small vegetable patch, are considered patriotic—the birth of Victory Gardens. I want to experience the pride of my own nation joined together against a common enemy. A strange comment, I know, since I certainly wouldn’t wish to return to a world of war. It fascinates me, though.
political ramblings and direction
Today the 43rd President of the United States was inaugurated. I watched President Bush take the oath of office on the steps of the Capitol Building. I watched the motorcade crawl down Pennsylvania Avenue, four secret service agents flanking the corners and more men (and women) in black standing platforms attached to limousines. Moments before, he stood on the steps of the Capitol Building for the military review, and it struck me what a small man he is. He’s just like any of us. Just a man with dreams and ambitions, with faith and hope, and yet with so much to live up to—too much responsibility for one man. It made me angry to watch the protestors waving banners of hatred at the limousine with “USA 1” written on the front—messages of personal hatred thrust directly in his face. Whatever the man has done in the last few years, it grates on me to see people enthusiastically shouting hateful messages and waving hateful signs at this man who—despite a media craze around the world that portrays him as a tyrannous leader—is still just a man. A man with a vision. He may have his faults (don’t we all?), but the truth is that the American people elected him back to the White House for four more years. That’s democracy at work. There comes a point—and if that’s not at an inauguration then when is it?—when you just have to learn to live with the truth, the facts, the reality of a situation and bow out gracefully. The protestors waving signs, pretending to be dead on the road, throwing fruit across the road, exposing themselves in public, and turning their backs on their leader are only spreading hatred. And as I watched the coverage today on CNN and FOX I thought to myself—a protest is one thing, but what they were doing today was a personal attack and it was highly out of taste.
Having spouted all that, I have to say I was intrigued by today’s celebrations. I was surprised at how many times the commentators compared the inauguration to a British coronation. The last coronation in England took place before most people had televisions, when my Dad was a child and watched the Queen receiving her crown on a neighbour’s box TV—a novelty back then. Still, it is fascinating to see the trademarks of America on a day like today. It is the first inauguration I have seen, and as an “outsider” I see it as something of a learning process. I was certainly glad to be over here to watch it. I can pretty easily imagine the coverage on the BBC news: a few “well chosen” clips from the speech, a shot or two of Bush looking proud, and the rest of the coverage focusing on the protestors. Then perhaps there would be a comment from the reporter on the “feeling” in the crowd today (no doubt noting a feeling of unease, of division, of disquiet, and other choice phrases), moving swiftly ahead to the poll conducted by the BBC today which showed high levels of disrespect and disappointment about the president and this inauguration.
According to an editorial in the New York Times today, the French have decided that all Americans are completely stupid. During Bush’s first term, they just thought the citizens of America were being duped by a stupid president. Now that they have re-elected him, the French have thrown up their hands at the imbecility of Americans everywhere and are voicing their overwhelming opinion that they—yes, the French themselves—should get the right to vote in the United States elections because the president of the United States has just as much control over their lives as their own government. Well, excusing for a minute the incredible Francophilic nature of the article itself, I have to say this. President Bush has as much control over Lori’s life—as an American citizen—as he does over mine: very little. The United States of America was founded under the principle that, yes, the president should have power. But that power cannot be used without checks and balances, and at the moment those checks and balances are pretty strong because, as the protestor’s at today’s inauguration illustrate, half of America dislikes the president.
And another thing, while I’m on the pro-American stance (it seems four years in this country has seriously effected me!), I would like to say one more thing. It drives me crazy that whatever goes wrong in this world, Americans are blamed for it. (The USA hasn’t responded yet to the tsunami disaster? Despicable! They have only given $32 million? Atrocious! Britain has given the most. Spain has given the most! Japan has given the most! Oh, America is giving a billion? Well… so they should! Should have done it sooner! By the way, how dare they outdo us in their giving? They just want to rub it in to the rest of the world that we don’t have as much money!)
I have come to the overwhelming conclusion that politics takes all the eloquence out of me. But I’m not writing here to be eloquent, to find the right words or to linger over each sentence to measure its weight in relation to its predecessor. I just want some sort of record of my thoughts. They run through my head so quickly and so often that I am sometimes afraid that if they find no channel they will leave me with no room for more, or—and this is more likely—they will disappear into an abyss never to be seen again. At 22 years old, I am at a crossroads in my life. I have no idea—no earthly idea—what the next year alone will bring. It scares me so much to be out of control of my own life. I have always had a direction—controlled and dictated by education and dreams—but now I am in a quagmire. This month I am in my apartment in Mississippi for the last time. In a couple of weeks we will pack up and move out—leave this chapter in our lives behind. My Dad would tell me to be optimistic—to look on this period of my life as the most exciting, when there are so many possibilities, so many roads to choose from. But that’s the problem—I don’t see any roads… I just see a foggy blur. So perhaps part of my hopes that by writing my mind out, I will eventually discover that part of myself, deep down inside, that knows the right direction to take.
Direction is the key word at the moment.
It’s not so much a feeling of hopelessness that plagues me at the moment, because I do have faith that my road is there waiting. I just haven’t found it yet. I know that God has a plan laid out for me. He knows what’s going to happen, and I have confidence that He will tell me in good time. It’s not that I doubt His will in my life, I just doubt my own ability to find it and to know it when I do find it. Is it work? Is it more studying? I feel I have come to the place where I can give it over to Him and know in my heart that whatever He wants for me, I am willing to do it. It’s just a matter of knowing.
I’m not saying that I am going to just wait around to find out what is going to happen. I will search. I will seek. I’ll knock as hard as I have to.
Enough about all that.
