Hey Kid,
So I was cleaning out my shelf in the closet today, so as to make things a little more accessible and grown-uppy looking (HA), and, as I dug through the clothes I realized that with every old piece I pulled out I was thinking, "Yeah THAT one never worked either SIGH." Actually, that wasn't what I realized. What I realized was that what I MEANT by that, somewhere inside, was: THIS SHIRT DID NOT SUCCEED IN TRANSFORMING ME INTO SOMETHING OTHER THAN MYSELF.
Son of a bitch. WHAT A DAMN SHAME.
My dear kid, CLOTHING IS JUST ANOTHER THING THE GOVERNMENT MAKES YOU DO. Like wearing a bicycle helmet, or elementary school. It has nothing to do with who you are. In case I forget to mention this later: don't take it too seriously.
I love you,
C.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Friday, August 11, 2006
Our Nation
Hey Kid,
I've just come from weeping over a buttered bagel. Not that it helps, but I've got greasy cheeks from pushing tears off my face with each new internal wave of telling you how sorry I am, so fucking sorry.
I shouldn't be allowed to read the newspaper.
So the governments of here and there announced yesterday that they have foiled (so they claim, so they claim--can you hear the weariness of that refrain?) another massive terrorist plot, which of course did nothing to foil the actual terror that was intended all along. Our privacy will be compromised a little bit more, "temporarily," they say, and we'll go along with it like the Jews at the start of the Third Reich, agreeing with the logic of it, waiting it out for better times, unable to imagine where it all would lead.
I am so angry that you will grow up not knowing what it's like to believe in the irrelevance of a phone tap on your wire. I am furious that your first plane ride will be like an incarceration. I hate that you will grow up in an America that has capitulated to evil, where every purchase you make, whatever job you take, will ultimately contribute to funding this nightmare of corruption and self-congratulation and greed.
I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to stop it.
Forty years ago, in the sixties, the youth weren't afraid like we are. Their protests were born out of anger, and you hear it reflected in their music: Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, music wild with joy and fury, unvanquished. But my generation lives in fear. The most-lauded sub-culture musicians of my time are Iron and Wine and Death Cab for Cutie, musicians with one note, one tone, whose greatest quality is their utter inoffensiveness. We are a generation crying out for lullabies and nightlights, a numb fuzzy blanket to cuddle us to sleep.
What I want this morning is to be able to be optimistic for you, but nothing seems more dangerous or willfully ignorant at this moment than optimism. I reject these fuzzy blankets to keep my outrage strong, for you.
I recognize how childish it is that I should insist on the privilege of keeping America isolated from the bloodshed and terror that it has inflicted on the rest of the world for so many years. We can no longer ignore the fact that we are directly engaged in injustice and terror. Maybe this is how a nation grows up. We are finally being stripped of our illusions.
Then, too, this is not the worst point to be born in human history. The Napoleonic wars were probably a bit worse. Hygiene was definitely worse. We can give thanks for clean armpits.
What else is good about the world I still fully intend to bring you into? There are more opportunities now than ever before for writers, artists, and storytellers of all kinds to create and have their voices heard. The internet has created a world community that allows the individual to contribute to something greater than herself. And with that pronoun shift, I can also say that little girls grow up now believing they have options for their lives. And, with the world now united by our experiences of terror, we can no longer pretend or be forced to believe that we are alone.
I do not want you to be raised sustaining your sense of community on terror. But I am just as determined that you will not grow up believing you are alone. There is another world not in the newspapers, where people plant backyard gardens and have long conversations on lawn chairs and do not capitulate to the fears of what they are told is inevitable.
They are a secret nation, and they are still free. We'll find each other. I'll find them for you.
I love you,
C.
I've just come from weeping over a buttered bagel. Not that it helps, but I've got greasy cheeks from pushing tears off my face with each new internal wave of telling you how sorry I am, so fucking sorry.
I shouldn't be allowed to read the newspaper.
So the governments of here and there announced yesterday that they have foiled (so they claim, so they claim--can you hear the weariness of that refrain?) another massive terrorist plot, which of course did nothing to foil the actual terror that was intended all along. Our privacy will be compromised a little bit more, "temporarily," they say, and we'll go along with it like the Jews at the start of the Third Reich, agreeing with the logic of it, waiting it out for better times, unable to imagine where it all would lead.
I am so angry that you will grow up not knowing what it's like to believe in the irrelevance of a phone tap on your wire. I am furious that your first plane ride will be like an incarceration. I hate that you will grow up in an America that has capitulated to evil, where every purchase you make, whatever job you take, will ultimately contribute to funding this nightmare of corruption and self-congratulation and greed.
I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to stop it.
Forty years ago, in the sixties, the youth weren't afraid like we are. Their protests were born out of anger, and you hear it reflected in their music: Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, music wild with joy and fury, unvanquished. But my generation lives in fear. The most-lauded sub-culture musicians of my time are Iron and Wine and Death Cab for Cutie, musicians with one note, one tone, whose greatest quality is their utter inoffensiveness. We are a generation crying out for lullabies and nightlights, a numb fuzzy blanket to cuddle us to sleep.
What I want this morning is to be able to be optimistic for you, but nothing seems more dangerous or willfully ignorant at this moment than optimism. I reject these fuzzy blankets to keep my outrage strong, for you.
I recognize how childish it is that I should insist on the privilege of keeping America isolated from the bloodshed and terror that it has inflicted on the rest of the world for so many years. We can no longer ignore the fact that we are directly engaged in injustice and terror. Maybe this is how a nation grows up. We are finally being stripped of our illusions.
Then, too, this is not the worst point to be born in human history. The Napoleonic wars were probably a bit worse. Hygiene was definitely worse. We can give thanks for clean armpits.
What else is good about the world I still fully intend to bring you into? There are more opportunities now than ever before for writers, artists, and storytellers of all kinds to create and have their voices heard. The internet has created a world community that allows the individual to contribute to something greater than herself. And with that pronoun shift, I can also say that little girls grow up now believing they have options for their lives. And, with the world now united by our experiences of terror, we can no longer pretend or be forced to believe that we are alone.
I do not want you to be raised sustaining your sense of community on terror. But I am just as determined that you will not grow up believing you are alone. There is another world not in the newspapers, where people plant backyard gardens and have long conversations on lawn chairs and do not capitulate to the fears of what they are told is inevitable.
They are a secret nation, and they are still free. We'll find each other. I'll find them for you.
I love you,
C.
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