Ok. So I think, in the middle of my second West Wing rerun this morning, I've just felt an "aha" thought shoot its way into my ear and take a seat somewhere in the cognitive portion of my brain. "Aha!" I watch tv from time to time (sometimes more than others) to anesthetize myself and escape. That's a fact. But why, when I watch West Wing reruns - which I started to do during the final weeks of the election - do I feel not so much a sinking into short term oblivion, but instead, a rising of some kind of need. Aha! I just watched C.J. Craig sitting there in front of the tv monitor with Josh Lyman (the Rahm Emannuel clone, I've just learned - talk about another aha! - sure - should have known - but that's another topic). Anyhow, they were sitting there, watching Jed Bartlet (my very favorite President in my dream world -at least, he was until Barack Obama came along - and he may very well take Jed Bartlet's place). And, as I was saying, Jed Bartlet is rehearsing for the State of the Union, and he doesn't look well, and C.J. is fondling and sometimes sipping from a paper cup which I assume contains coffee, and Josh say something like "He doesn't look so good - sweaty and not so good. Do you think he has swollen glands?" and C.J. says something like"Omigod! I forgot! I didn't check the President's glands today." And Josh says "Ok. Perhaps your joke reflex is what is keeping you from keeping a man." and then, "seriously." and they discuss it for a bit, until the President collapses onto the floor (I don't remember whether he has a flu, which is what the doctor thinks, or whether this is an early season precursor of the M.S. thing).
Anyhow, I started thinking. And "aha", I realized that the reason I started watching them so regularly, even to the point of putting on the dvds late at night when the early morning reruns weren't on was not only the reason I allowed myself to think and told others during the campaign -that I was so worried about the possibility of things going wrong, I wanted to watch a Presidential election that felt similar (with Matt Santos and Arnie Vinick - which I discovered later, after recognizing something in Santos' speeches and checking on google, WAS similar, since apparently Jimmie Smits had talked to Barack Obama as he was preparing for the role, and, also, David Alexrod was a close friend of the writer who wrote the character. Hmmmm). Anyhow, I used these reruns to dream, and to pray to whatever is out there (or just cross fingers and toes) that reality would follow fiction, since (what with the Obama/Smits thing) reality had already followed fiction which had followed reality etc.l - particularly when I saw, during that last Florida campaign spot, the one with Bill Clinton, that Matt Santos - or rather Jimmie Smits dressed as Matt Santos - was there on the stage with them!)
So, anyhow, that was one reason. I wanted to sink into the wonderful dream world of a Jed Bartlet presidency (rather than George Bush) flowing into a Matt Santos presidency, so I could stop being a basket case about what I feared was the very real possibility of a John McCain/Sarah Palin administration. It makes a shiver run up and down my spine just thinking of it now!
Now, for the second reason - the one I just hit on. The one that makes sense, seeing that I am also listening to the audiobook of Merril's biography of Obama while racewalking, and reading "Team of Rivals" when eating (finally - since I love Doris Kearns Goodwin, ever since I read "No Ordinary Time" years ago, and had dinner with her just before she spoke at the NAWBO annual luncheon - and have had the book on my shelf since right after it came out). Therefore, my reading has exacerbated my dissatisfaction with the lack of meaning in the parts of my life outside of my family. I am spectacularly satisfied with my children, their choices in spouses, and the grandchildren. I am not so satisfied with the rest.
Perhaps that is part of the proclivity for sloth and procrastination sometimes. I cannot get energized about helping a wealthy person get richer, or acquire more real property, or acquire or dispose of a business, or win a fight with another wealthy businessman. Yes, I'm good at it, and will need to continue doing it , probably forever, since I have yet to develop the discipline, regularity, and perhaps talent (I don't know - perhaps I have that, and have not had sufficient levels of the other qualities to accomplish anything with it). In any case, simply, my writing is going nowhere, certainly not where I can make a living at it.
And I remember when my high school friend/college roomate was first elected to Congress, and I went to D.C. for the installation, and walked into her office, and saw her happiness and energy. She was thinking, clearly, that now she could really do something - and I was thinking the same. And there she is, rapidly becoming a leader in the party, and appearing on the Rachel Maddow show, and being considered for the Senate. And here am I worrying about whether a client for whom I have just converted a four unit building into condominiums will be able to close two units in time to fight off his foreclosing bank! Wow! What an awesome issue with which to be involved.
And there is C.J., with whom I relate. Sure, she knows so much more than me. (Rather, all of the characters on West Wing are capable of rapidly, machine gun style, spewing well structured verbiage with historical, economic, literary and biblical content. They are all so damned smart and educated! -Or at least, the writers have made them so). I know I'm as smart as them. Absolutely! But I don't know anywhere near as much.
So, as I read (listen to) the Obama biography, and "Team of Rivals" and for the first time, ever (starting with my need to be "talked down" during the last months of this electoral cycle) I'm watching CNN and MSNBC and even Fox, and reading the important sections of thenewspaper (or more often reading them online - New York Times, Washington Post,Huffington, Politico.com, TNR, The Economist, etc.).............................as I do all of this, I feel that maybe I COULD learn enough - or I could have. But it's probably too late. I'm old.
And I want to be C.J. or Josh or Sam or any of them, or my friend Jan. I want to work in the White House, or in Congress, or in a think tank, or to be a reporter, or an important writer. I want to make a mark in this world. I had a taste of looking out at a crowd and talking, and feeling good at it, when I was president of a major business organization ten years ago. I liked it.
I feel good about talking to people about important issues. I feel good when I can help someone, even a homeless guy for whom I purchased some new blue jeans last year, or friends I can put together to help each other in business, or when I helped a friend last week to revise her proposed contract so she could retain some business with a government agency.
I write well. I talk well. I have a huge reserve of energy and strength when I decide that whatever I'm doing is important enough, or urgent enough (more often than not, it is the latter not the former - I'm too often in the wrong "Seven Habits" quadrant).
So, C.J. reminds me of who I could have been had I not been lazy, or willing to follow the path of least resistance.
Unlike Barack, I had it too easy for too long, and never had to gain the qualities that he needed in his life (discipline and organization and a strong need to better the world). He and I both have a strong intellect as well as intellectual curiosity . But he also has an ability to get things done and a much stronger, life moving desire to help others (I have that, but not often enough) . Barack has a unique background - a deep inner turmoil with too many competing definitions of self needing to be resolved, the lack of a father, a mother who idealized his absent father and his black heritage until he discovered through the real world the half truths he had been told, the experience of being the only black face in a white private school with Asians as the only historic minority , the experience of being a small child living among abject poverty in Indonesia, etc. etc. My background has been easy and simple - too simple - a loving and protective set of parents who paid my bills and covered bounced checks in college and told me it was ok when I was too shy to go to summer camp and therefore I didn't go, and were always there for me even well into my forties; growing up in a 98% Jewish and white neighborhood where almost everyone was just like me, my only problem being that I was short and late to develop and maybe too smart so I felt I could not be a part of the "popular" crowd even though, in retrospect, I now know that I probably could have; an intelligence and ability to learn quickly that helped me to become salutatorian in my high school class and to do well (though not spectacularly) in a very good college, and a nationally revered law school, all without ever working very hard at all . I never had to push myself, so I didn't, and therefore I grew up being successful, but only to a point, with the realization that I could have been very successful and changed the world (I truly believe that) but never did, due to my very own inability to kick myself in the pants and do what I had to do to get there!
When I wanted to finish Ulysses and go to the 100th Bloomsday in Dublin - I did.
When I wanted to become a part time citizen of the world by travelling periodically to France, and writing articles for an online publication, I did it (and still do). My dearth of recent articles come from my lack of writing them, not from the publication's refusal to accept them.
And now, with my becoming truly interested in the daily workings of the world, and observing Barack Obama's fantastic success, and working so hard for his election and worrying so much about it - I am back to watching West Wing, and living in a dream world where I am an integral part of Jed Bartlet's administration.
I speak French, because I'm good with languages, but I am far from beingh fluent, because it came too easy, and it is enough for my trips to Paris.
I write decent short stories, because I'm good with words, and my friends, and now, even a professional writer likes them - but I haven't written one since 2006, and have only sporadically edited the old ones for possible publication.
I write pretty good travel articles, because, again, I'm good with words, and particularly good when I'm writing about something that excites me (and going to France and sometimes to places like San Francisco and New York excites me) and I attended a course this Spring where I found that I am probably as good as those who make a living at it, and came back with a plan on how to take steps to get published, a plan that I have not even started to follow.
I was once a pretty good runner, because it came easy despite my having done nothing athletic until then I started running in my mid thirties, I ran farther and faster, and became semi competitive in my age group in my early forties, and then stopped doing it as often, and now, for a number of years, not at all, because it was easier not to, and I've gained weight and feel fat and slothful and no longer fit as I once did.
When I wanted to learn Polish, I quickly learned enough to talk to the folks at a wedding in Poland, and then forgot it through non use.
When I wanted to learn Russian as a teen, I did, and have now forgotten most of it.
I've written pretty decent poetry, and expository articles, and travel articles, and short stories, and legal documents, and I've journalled, and I've succeeded acquiring what my clients needed in negotiating rooms with antagonistic and aggressive lawyers, and I've accomplished legal tasks in areas where I had to learn from scratch, and developed friendships with people from many different parts of society.
I am a deep and wide well of potential - of unused potential - and I'm bursting at the seams with regret.
I've done so much, and still do, but never enough. Not nearly enough. And it's all from my own lack of doing.
This is not a good blog, but I had to get it out. It's very poorly written. Some of that bad writing that the journalling experts tell us is good for us anyhow. I've been writing for an hour. I shouldn't publish it, but I will, and then I'll go get some coffee, and I'll perhaps make today a better one (I've told myself that so often - but here again I have that blank notebook that is a new day,and the sky I see through the window when I raise my eyes from my laptop starts out at the horizon with a thick grey cloud but with the gold of a morning sun breakng through since up near the top I can see the orb of the sun through some thin layers, and through an opening further down a bright blinding light escapes, but just barely. It is visible in front of a backdrop of cloud , and emits some rays that it aims downward towards the lake . The planetarium is in dark relief at the far end of its equally dark spit of land, but the lake around it is a smooth surface on which someone has painted several long, narrow streaks of shimmering light starkly apparent under the dark sky at the horizon and the dull blue grey of the rest of its quiet speckled surface.
It's 9:24 and time to start the day.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
On Creativity and Sloth
Random thoughts.
Just now I am watching a biography of Janis Joplin,running on the tv just to the left of my shoulder as I face the computer screen, and as she rehearsed “Down on Me” with the Holding Company, and I turned to watch the grainy black and white video and felt her energy and heard her strong voice, so full of life and vigor and feeling, I felt again (as I did the last time I heard Janis – months ago- and danced to her in my living room) – I felt again an excitement, a thrill, something in my stomach and chest, wanting to be , maybe not her, but someone like her (the full of life, funny, powerful, talented part of her , without the drugs and insecurities, of course)– remembering me in College – wearing my tight or short clothes, my long hair, my white lips and eye makeup, drinking beer and dancing with a wildness that I had not been able to show in high school (or I had been afraid to show then)………..it comes back………….the exciting freedom of movement – and this has been a morning for that, since prior to this biography, there had been one of Jimi Hendrix, and though I came into the show during his final phase, just before his death, nevertheless, during the few moments when his music was played, I felt a bit of that emotional rise, but not so much. Now, with Janis, I want to move all of the crap from the floor and surfaces of my living room, all of the bags and files and books and boxes and furniture, to make room to move, and to put Janis on the stereo (on the Bose), and let my hair out of its ponytailed band, and just move!
And I know that both Jimi and Janis were sad, lonely people who died young of drug overdoses. But when they flamed, when their fires were still lit, their flames were so blindingly bright that you couldn’t stop yourself from being drawn to them, and moving your body and feeling your soul rise from the sheer excitement of their sounds and their personas. The purple pants and the feathers and the high full notes followed by gutteral emotion or the squealing and erratic guitar riffs -just writing about them brings back those sounds and feelings swirling through my aging body and catching in my throat.
Now, interestingly, when they (and I) were in our primes, I had no interest in them – I think that I felt they were too far out there. I loved the beatles and such. I loved music you could dance to. My wild abandon was mostly relegated to the dance floor.
But in recent years, whenever I hear their music, I regret having missed them – I am angry at myself for having let myself miss it – and I feel that emotional high, that almost orgasmic need to move, that I should have felt back then.
And I wonder, had I let myself feel that way when my life was as blank a slate as this Sunday started out being - back then, would I have skipped law school, and taken a guitar and a notebook and a pen and wandered through Europe? (Instead of sitting on a beach in high school with a ukulele for a short time, and sitting in my living room with a soprano recorder and some bongos, but otherwise following the path of least resistance through college, and a teaching degree, and law school, and employment). Would I? I feel so much stronger a connection to that life then my current life.
If I had let myself succumb to the joy and excitement of Jopin and Hendrix would my life have moved into the creative mode that I now regret having bypassed? That I keep promising myself I will find and work with ( but then put aside for tv or the newspaper of a client project? )
Yesterday, as I fast-walked between three and four miles to my daughter’s house (to sit with her cat recovering from surgery – maybe a bit more on that later) , I listened to that Obama biography by David Mendell – “From Promise to Power” – and heard about his desire to leave the world a better place then when he entered it – and the optimism inherited from his mother, along with her conviction that there was good in everyone, and a commonality to all humanity, and I related to those feelings, as I have always felt the same, and I remembered having first heard him in 2004, and read his book in 2005, and how I loved the beauty of his way with words and the beauty of his introspection and raw emotion; and then I came to the part of the book where Mendell described Barack’s proclivity to write down his thoughts and observations and his feelings and insecurities in a notebook, and that he was doing such as early as his college days in New York, and that he later continued to do the same in a leather bound notebook, and that he probably wrote (and perhaps still writes) short fiction, and how he used those notes to write “Dreams of My Father”
And I hated myself for having umpteen partially filled notebooks, sometimes written in with regularity for days, weeks, or perhaps months at a time, and then abandoned for many more months at a time, and the good stuff I often find when re-reading them but hardly ever use for any regular writing activity, and my disciplined starts and lazy stops, two steps forward, one step back, perhaps then another step back, the short stories I haven’t written since 2006, the books of short stories I have intended to read in order to learn my craft, and the political books and great fiction that I sometimes read and sometimes just start, all as contrasted to Barack’s control and energy and discipline and organization and voracious and diverse reading habits, and his writing (which left me in tears when I first read “Dreams”) .
And so here I am sitting at my desk, looking out at what appears will become a cold, overcast dismal day smothered with a blanket of thick and dreary clouds hiding the sun and sky. Here I am, once again with another blank canvas - another Sunday – another day in which I could possibly move forward and accomplish something and do something fulfilling or useful – another Sunday, now at 7:37 a.m., and this morning I have so far slowly and slothfully and sadly risen from my quilt – my warm, thick, slightly dirty quilt where I awoke to feel the soft, sweet, silky curve of my kitty China’s body (sheesh – is there some reason for all of that alliteration?), watched some tv, spotted the sky beginning to lighten from across the room and therefore moved to my desk where I could look out across my laptop towards the Lake – and at first saw that the sky was crowned with narrow steel grey clouds floating thinly across its top, over a deep and wide strip of dark orange at the horizon, below which the bright rows of lights in Millennium Park glowed and sparkled out of a dark background – and it felt exciting and calming at one and the same time, but I didn’t feel that I had the strength or the muse to describe it – not this time - so I took out my camera and photographed it , and took photographs maybe 10 minutes apart as the sky lightened, and it remained beautiful for a while, until the day really arrived with its dingy presence.
But now,as I write, it is 7:56 a.m., and up to the left, just at the edge of the Prudential, a yellow glow started shining through the grey………only to be swallowed up again.
I think I’ll walk across the street to get something to eat – my usual excuse to walk out of my lair, and put off starting anything – then I’ll return and perhaps put on some Janis and dance, then read some of the morning’s newspaper, or go upstairs to a treadmill with the Obama book, or go outside with jogging shoes with the Obama book, or maybe just wait till almost 11:00 when I have a work out scheduled with Luis, my trainer, or……………..
It’s an open book, this Sunday, with many blank pages, just a few less than when I started this entry…………..and I haven’t blown it yet………..net yet………………….
Just now I am watching a biography of Janis Joplin,running on the tv just to the left of my shoulder as I face the computer screen, and as she rehearsed “Down on Me” with the Holding Company, and I turned to watch the grainy black and white video and felt her energy and heard her strong voice, so full of life and vigor and feeling, I felt again (as I did the last time I heard Janis – months ago- and danced to her in my living room) – I felt again an excitement, a thrill, something in my stomach and chest, wanting to be , maybe not her, but someone like her (the full of life, funny, powerful, talented part of her , without the drugs and insecurities, of course)– remembering me in College – wearing my tight or short clothes, my long hair, my white lips and eye makeup, drinking beer and dancing with a wildness that I had not been able to show in high school (or I had been afraid to show then)………..it comes back………….the exciting freedom of movement – and this has been a morning for that, since prior to this biography, there had been one of Jimi Hendrix, and though I came into the show during his final phase, just before his death, nevertheless, during the few moments when his music was played, I felt a bit of that emotional rise, but not so much. Now, with Janis, I want to move all of the crap from the floor and surfaces of my living room, all of the bags and files and books and boxes and furniture, to make room to move, and to put Janis on the stereo (on the Bose), and let my hair out of its ponytailed band, and just move!
And I know that both Jimi and Janis were sad, lonely people who died young of drug overdoses. But when they flamed, when their fires were still lit, their flames were so blindingly bright that you couldn’t stop yourself from being drawn to them, and moving your body and feeling your soul rise from the sheer excitement of their sounds and their personas. The purple pants and the feathers and the high full notes followed by gutteral emotion or the squealing and erratic guitar riffs -just writing about them brings back those sounds and feelings swirling through my aging body and catching in my throat.
Now, interestingly, when they (and I) were in our primes, I had no interest in them – I think that I felt they were too far out there. I loved the beatles and such. I loved music you could dance to. My wild abandon was mostly relegated to the dance floor.
But in recent years, whenever I hear their music, I regret having missed them – I am angry at myself for having let myself miss it – and I feel that emotional high, that almost orgasmic need to move, that I should have felt back then.
And I wonder, had I let myself feel that way when my life was as blank a slate as this Sunday started out being - back then, would I have skipped law school, and taken a guitar and a notebook and a pen and wandered through Europe? (Instead of sitting on a beach in high school with a ukulele for a short time, and sitting in my living room with a soprano recorder and some bongos, but otherwise following the path of least resistance through college, and a teaching degree, and law school, and employment). Would I? I feel so much stronger a connection to that life then my current life.
If I had let myself succumb to the joy and excitement of Jopin and Hendrix would my life have moved into the creative mode that I now regret having bypassed? That I keep promising myself I will find and work with ( but then put aside for tv or the newspaper of a client project? )
Yesterday, as I fast-walked between three and four miles to my daughter’s house (to sit with her cat recovering from surgery – maybe a bit more on that later) , I listened to that Obama biography by David Mendell – “From Promise to Power” – and heard about his desire to leave the world a better place then when he entered it – and the optimism inherited from his mother, along with her conviction that there was good in everyone, and a commonality to all humanity, and I related to those feelings, as I have always felt the same, and I remembered having first heard him in 2004, and read his book in 2005, and how I loved the beauty of his way with words and the beauty of his introspection and raw emotion; and then I came to the part of the book where Mendell described Barack’s proclivity to write down his thoughts and observations and his feelings and insecurities in a notebook, and that he was doing such as early as his college days in New York, and that he later continued to do the same in a leather bound notebook, and that he probably wrote (and perhaps still writes) short fiction, and how he used those notes to write “Dreams of My Father”
And I hated myself for having umpteen partially filled notebooks, sometimes written in with regularity for days, weeks, or perhaps months at a time, and then abandoned for many more months at a time, and the good stuff I often find when re-reading them but hardly ever use for any regular writing activity, and my disciplined starts and lazy stops, two steps forward, one step back, perhaps then another step back, the short stories I haven’t written since 2006, the books of short stories I have intended to read in order to learn my craft, and the political books and great fiction that I sometimes read and sometimes just start, all as contrasted to Barack’s control and energy and discipline and organization and voracious and diverse reading habits, and his writing (which left me in tears when I first read “Dreams”) .
And so here I am sitting at my desk, looking out at what appears will become a cold, overcast dismal day smothered with a blanket of thick and dreary clouds hiding the sun and sky. Here I am, once again with another blank canvas - another Sunday – another day in which I could possibly move forward and accomplish something and do something fulfilling or useful – another Sunday, now at 7:37 a.m., and this morning I have so far slowly and slothfully and sadly risen from my quilt – my warm, thick, slightly dirty quilt where I awoke to feel the soft, sweet, silky curve of my kitty China’s body (sheesh – is there some reason for all of that alliteration?), watched some tv, spotted the sky beginning to lighten from across the room and therefore moved to my desk where I could look out across my laptop towards the Lake – and at first saw that the sky was crowned with narrow steel grey clouds floating thinly across its top, over a deep and wide strip of dark orange at the horizon, below which the bright rows of lights in Millennium Park glowed and sparkled out of a dark background – and it felt exciting and calming at one and the same time, but I didn’t feel that I had the strength or the muse to describe it – not this time - so I took out my camera and photographed it , and took photographs maybe 10 minutes apart as the sky lightened, and it remained beautiful for a while, until the day really arrived with its dingy presence.
But now,as I write, it is 7:56 a.m., and up to the left, just at the edge of the Prudential, a yellow glow started shining through the grey………only to be swallowed up again.
I think I’ll walk across the street to get something to eat – my usual excuse to walk out of my lair, and put off starting anything – then I’ll return and perhaps put on some Janis and dance, then read some of the morning’s newspaper, or go upstairs to a treadmill with the Obama book, or go outside with jogging shoes with the Obama book, or maybe just wait till almost 11:00 when I have a work out scheduled with Luis, my trainer, or……………..
It’s an open book, this Sunday, with many blank pages, just a few less than when I started this entry…………..and I haven’t blown it yet………..net yet………………….
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
My aunt sent me another bunch of those e mails this morning. You know the kind. "This is a keeper" and "This is important" etc. Jokes and cute pictures and thoughts of the day set to flowing pictures of water and mountains, surrounded by smarmy music. And I am tempted to write to her, but it would get nasty, and she doesn't deserve it. She is retired and has time on her hands, and thinks this stuff is cute and /or important, and that the rest of us are grateful to receive it. I need to figure out a way to tell her, without hurting her, that each day I have to rapidly erase 20-50 e mails, a number of times each day, so my box does not get clogged and refuse to admit others; that I am feeling overwhelmed with projects I have to do to serve my clients, with documents I need to review for volunteer work, with my current resolve to again to fit in some daily work out time (which has been difficult for so long, but at my age is truly a life and death issue ) with the need to do my billing (of which I am solely in charge, and if I don't do it, then there is no money coming in, and bills cannot be paid), and the fact that my apartment is an unsightly pile of clothing and books and files and papers since I can't (or won't) find the time to clean it up - probably because when I do get to it, periodically, I cannot let myself just do a half job, but need to really organize things so that it takes a very, very long time - time that I just don't have. So I'll just hit the "delete" button over and over, and take a deep breath, and get up to the treadmill for a bit, maybe, and grab a healthy 250 calorie Vivanno with green tea matcha powder across the street at Starbucks, and then work on revising the joint venture agreement that I really have to complete by this afternoon, and enter time into the Timeslips program so that I can print out at least a few bills, and read two files for my volunteer work because it is overdue, and review a client's proposed consulting agreement that another lawyer revised by rewriting so I have to look at it and my earlier draft side by side rather than reviewing redline sections, and do a favor for a friend/business contact by going through her documents with a litigation attorney to find out if she has a prayer at resurrecting a judgment, and go through the rest of the loan documents for a client facing foreclosure, and call a client whose check to me bounced but who I cannot ignore because he needs me to help him finish the development and sale of units in his condominium before his foreclosing lender can take further steps against him, and go back to editing some of my short stories so that I can stop avoiding the self publishing company representative who keeps calling and put them together, finally, into a book, and write the three travel articles for Bonjourparis.com that I took notes on during my last trip to France a month or so ago, and find the time to wash my face and brush my teeth and get a salad for lunch, and call my son to see if he still wants to go out this evening to celebrate his birthday, and ...........................................
No, Aunt G, I really don't want to yell at you - but I cannot read your cute, fun, important e mails. I hope you understand.
No, Aunt G, I really don't want to yell at you - but I cannot read your cute, fun, important e mails. I hope you understand.
Some Post Election Thoughts
This was actually started Sunday, November 9, but finished yesterday, so I'll date it November 10
It is now six days after the election, and we are all coming down just a bit from our high. I wrote an article that Sunday morning was featured on http://www.bonjourparis.com/ entitled “I Guess I’m Not Moving to France” in which I described both my neurotic fear the evening of November 4 that something would, yet again, go wrong, and my euphoric celebratory mood when our guy prevailed . I really, for the first time, had trepidation about living under a possible Presidency. Bush had won two elections, as had his father and Reagon and Ford and Nixon, and even though I have always been a progressive Democrat , I have never felt this level of naked fear when confronted with the spector of a win by one of the candidates ( or quite this level of optimism when thinking of the other candidate - at least not since John F Kennedy).
I found myself so nervous during this election cycle, for the first time ever, that I repeatedly throughout each day turned on CNN and MSNBC and Fox (to get all sides and, thereby, the “truth” if possible – whatever inexact and uncertain level of “truth” that had to be until the availability of the only real truth ( if not impacted by theft and fraud) – the actions of voters in the booths on the first Tuesday in November.) I also spent a ridiculous amount of daily time reading blogs and news reports online (sometimes several times a day) , including the Tribune, New Yorker, Washington Post, Politico.com, Huffington, and even Newsmax and other sites and emails, and even a daily (and sometimes twice daily) e mail with poll results. I tried in this fashion to calm my stomach so I could concentrate on other things. It never worked except for short spurts of time. Otherwise, I was for months swinging between various levels of nervous-wreck and basket-case.
No, I can’t remember ever feeling this level of fear around an election. Perhaps, it was because of the high level of anxiety produced by the international and national circumstance of wars and terrorism and economic cataclysm. I am sure that is part of it. Perhaps it is because I am more aware now of the world and government and how much danger we are all in on both a physical and social leverl. However, reflecting on it, I've decided that the biggest part was the clear distinction between the personas of John McCain and Barack Obama.
I first heard of Barack Obama several years ago, introduced at a meeting by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who I have known for 56 years. At that first meeting, he appeared to be a shy, slight, underwhelming person. Then, like the multitude, I heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic convention, and like the rest, I was floored, impressed, and touched. I heard that he had authored a book after law school, and I looked for it online. “Dreams of My Father” was long out of print I discovered, and selling for astronomical prices on EBay. So I waited. Not long after that, a new paperback version came out, which reproduced the Convention speech in the front. I was one of the first, I think, to purchase it at Borders - sprinting down Michigan Avenue when they called to tell me it was in stock finally. I could not stop reading once I had started. I was enthralled. As a writer, I could respect and adore his way with words. But also, I felt the real emotion and attention to truth in that book. He really wanted to tell his story the way he felt it. I was impressed with his ability as a writer, with his intellect, and with his lack of artifice even when delving into his inner self. It was a revelation.
Though I followed his career, I was generally too involved in my law practice and my personal stuff to read very much about him, or even read more than the most important articles in my daily newspapers.
One time, I did call his state senate office when I needed to get some help for the local grocery store; and I voted for him when he ran for U.S. Senate.
Then, I talked one day to someone in government who is a friend, and who told me that she felt that he would be the best candidate to finally arouse the excitement in the Democratic party that had long been missing.
At first, I thought it was too soon. He was too young.
Nevertheless, I too felt that we all needed to be aroused from our lethargy. After two Bush wins, and six years of gritting my teeth every time his thin lipped arrogant face appeared on the tv screen, of wondering how someone with so little sense of what is required of that office, someone who never had a big thought, someone led around by self promoting father figures with repugnant values and moral vaccuums in their souls; after six years of turning his face to the wall whenever I walked through Borders……………..of watching two pretty good men (who I voted for) lose, and being disappointed, but realizing that I wasn’t particularly excited about either of them in the first place…………….I guess I could relate to the concept that I wanted my heart to be aroused…………………………
(I just remembered a poem I wrote in High School for the literary magazine – about needing leaders. Real leaders. I’ll have to look for it. I think I wrote it at about the same time as Jan Schakowski wrote a poem for the same magazine, about running for office. Have to find that one too. )
Then I started reading “Audacity of Hope” and for the first time, I discovered someone with the capability of analyzing the great issues of the day in a way that reached out to me. He wrote with a heart and honest introspection and an accepting mode , he believed strongly that no one needs to be demonized – or should be – since all sides of various questions need to understand that they are not really on opposite “sides” but more often than not various gradations. Though I found in each chapter places where my head nodded up and down and I punched my fist on the table and said “yes”! (that hasn’t happened in a very long time while reading a book by a politician), I think that the one thought permeating the book that got to me the most was his insistence that the way in which parties, and people have been forced to be “for” or “against” each other on issues – because of the enforced polarization that this political world has decided is the norm –that this was just, plain, dead wrong. That we should all listen to each other . That while we cannot and should not necessarily find a “middle” ground (splitting the difference is not a way to resolve issues, just a way to share pastries), but talk about where it is that we can agree, not necessarily where it is that we differ. And there were many examples. At this point, I may be combining parts of the book with his wonderful speech at the time of the Reverand Wright fiasco. It's not relevant. What is important, is that it is clear that he could understand the white man without a job who was afraid, and therefore became antagonistic towards all affirmative acation, as much as the old black man who couldn’t forget about past injustices and embarrassments . I loved that idea. That had always been my idea. So many of the thoughts in that book were just more articulate ways of saying what I had always felt. I connected with him.
During the election, I always carried a copy of the book with me, and when confronted with someone who said “well, I may vote for Obama, but just because he is thelesser of two evils” or someone who really was afraid of Obama, or thought him not sufficiently experienced – anyone who I thought could be convinced, I would give away the book, and go buy another.
And then there was John McCain –
Every time the spector of a possible Obama loss made me totally crazy, I would snarl or scream or just flatly state to friends (or whomever was around to listen) something like “If McCain and Palin win- I’m out of here! I’ll figure out some way to move to France!” McCain scared the shit out of me – even more so than George Bush, would you believe. I could not picture feeling safe in this dangerous world with someone in the White House with McCain’s characteristics. Sure, I didn’t agree with his policies – many of them, such as his pro life positions. And he had changed positions on some of his historic policies for the purpose of the election (a bit frightening in itself). But that wasn't the derivation of the fear and anger. At one time I had sort of liked his quirkiness and his apparent maverickness and independant stance on some issues. But what made me shake now was the man himself - what we saw of the man of today, his demeanor, his methodology of dealing with problems, his temperament, his decision making skills, etc. !...............................It is clear that many issues needing to be dealt with in this complex and ever changing global community are those not previously handled by our chief executive (9-11, and the New Orleans disaster, for example), and whoever is in that position MUST be a person who is grounded, and smart, and educated, and willing to think things through and listen to other smart people, but also make quick decisions when necessary – someone with a moral compass and an understanding that complex issues cannot ever be reduced to sound bites – someone that exudes the confidence and strong underpinnings of a leader.
John McCain had showed strong character many years ago when he was a prisoner of war, and from time to time in the past showed himself to be spunky and willing to buck those in power, but ever since he won the primary – which must have been an unexpected jolt, and required him to kowtow to the Republican party “base” and the Bushies – out came McCain’s phoniness, his little thin lipped smirk or nervous smile , and his well documented petulance and lack of anger management, and, most importantly, the most desperately horrific characteristic that jumped out during these last months was his proclivity to make seat of his pants decisions just for their shock value rather than thinking anything through – maybe a fun trait in an also- ran but a frightening and deadly trait in the “leader of the free world.” He lost any of the credibility derived from his past spunkiness and honor , and became an almost robotic characature of a politician, talking in preconceived regurgitated vitriolic bites, choosing an unqualified running mate because she could draw excited crowds, incapable of hiding his disdain for Obama (because of his age? his race? or just because he was unexpectedly standing in the way of this, his last chance to rise to the top?) showing a willingness to take an “I’ll do or say anything” tactic in order to win……………………..
And now Barack Obama is President Elect. He is not a perfect man, none of us are. But he wants to make it better, and he wants to listen, and he wants to act, and he knows that he doesn’t know everything, and he is willing to take baby steps when necessary and big steps when needed, and he wants to be inclusive, and he has come from so many different places – racial, economic, national – that he is truly capable of understanding so many points of view.
I don’t think we can do better than that..
Whether I can be labeled – a progressive, a humanist, a Democrat, an Independent, who knows………or , ignoring labels, someone who just believes that government needs to make the world a better place for everyone, to the extent that it can, since this inures to the benefit of all – and that freedom of choice is a basic and critical part of being an American – choice in sexual and marriage partners, choice in whether or not to carry a child, choice in occupation and business whether or not you are female or someone of color or someone with an accent. ( Is that a Progressive? Is that a Democratic? I don’t know. ) , for the first time in years, I really have hope.
. Bill O’Reillyof Fox News is still saying “The guy is still a mystery, so our oversight will be intense.” And another pundit on Fox News yesterday morning railed against the liberal press, opining with vehemence and furrowed brow that the Press elected Obama by favoring him so strongly and giving him such a pass. And Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Republican who just squeaked out a victory (having problems partly because of her Obama statements) had told Chris Matthews of MSNBC that, when it came to Mr. Obama, “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” but she is now saying that she is “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year,” and calling the Obama win (including in her state) “a tremendous signal we sent.”
Some things are still the same, but I feel that things are changing, and I don’t want to miss any of it.
It is now six days after the election, and we are all coming down just a bit from our high. I wrote an article that Sunday morning was featured on http://www.bonjourparis.com/ entitled “I Guess I’m Not Moving to France” in which I described both my neurotic fear the evening of November 4 that something would, yet again, go wrong, and my euphoric celebratory mood when our guy prevailed . I really, for the first time, had trepidation about living under a possible Presidency. Bush had won two elections, as had his father and Reagon and Ford and Nixon, and even though I have always been a progressive Democrat , I have never felt this level of naked fear when confronted with the spector of a win by one of the candidates ( or quite this level of optimism when thinking of the other candidate - at least not since John F Kennedy).
I found myself so nervous during this election cycle, for the first time ever, that I repeatedly throughout each day turned on CNN and MSNBC and Fox (to get all sides and, thereby, the “truth” if possible – whatever inexact and uncertain level of “truth” that had to be until the availability of the only real truth ( if not impacted by theft and fraud) – the actions of voters in the booths on the first Tuesday in November.) I also spent a ridiculous amount of daily time reading blogs and news reports online (sometimes several times a day) , including the Tribune, New Yorker, Washington Post, Politico.com, Huffington, and even Newsmax and other sites and emails, and even a daily (and sometimes twice daily) e mail with poll results. I tried in this fashion to calm my stomach so I could concentrate on other things. It never worked except for short spurts of time. Otherwise, I was for months swinging between various levels of nervous-wreck and basket-case.
No, I can’t remember ever feeling this level of fear around an election. Perhaps, it was because of the high level of anxiety produced by the international and national circumstance of wars and terrorism and economic cataclysm. I am sure that is part of it. Perhaps it is because I am more aware now of the world and government and how much danger we are all in on both a physical and social leverl. However, reflecting on it, I've decided that the biggest part was the clear distinction between the personas of John McCain and Barack Obama.
I first heard of Barack Obama several years ago, introduced at a meeting by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky who I have known for 56 years. At that first meeting, he appeared to be a shy, slight, underwhelming person. Then, like the multitude, I heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic convention, and like the rest, I was floored, impressed, and touched. I heard that he had authored a book after law school, and I looked for it online. “Dreams of My Father” was long out of print I discovered, and selling for astronomical prices on EBay. So I waited. Not long after that, a new paperback version came out, which reproduced the Convention speech in the front. I was one of the first, I think, to purchase it at Borders - sprinting down Michigan Avenue when they called to tell me it was in stock finally. I could not stop reading once I had started. I was enthralled. As a writer, I could respect and adore his way with words. But also, I felt the real emotion and attention to truth in that book. He really wanted to tell his story the way he felt it. I was impressed with his ability as a writer, with his intellect, and with his lack of artifice even when delving into his inner self. It was a revelation.
Though I followed his career, I was generally too involved in my law practice and my personal stuff to read very much about him, or even read more than the most important articles in my daily newspapers.
One time, I did call his state senate office when I needed to get some help for the local grocery store; and I voted for him when he ran for U.S. Senate.
Then, I talked one day to someone in government who is a friend, and who told me that she felt that he would be the best candidate to finally arouse the excitement in the Democratic party that had long been missing.
At first, I thought it was too soon. He was too young.
Nevertheless, I too felt that we all needed to be aroused from our lethargy. After two Bush wins, and six years of gritting my teeth every time his thin lipped arrogant face appeared on the tv screen, of wondering how someone with so little sense of what is required of that office, someone who never had a big thought, someone led around by self promoting father figures with repugnant values and moral vaccuums in their souls; after six years of turning his face to the wall whenever I walked through Borders……………..of watching two pretty good men (who I voted for) lose, and being disappointed, but realizing that I wasn’t particularly excited about either of them in the first place…………….I guess I could relate to the concept that I wanted my heart to be aroused…………………………
(I just remembered a poem I wrote in High School for the literary magazine – about needing leaders. Real leaders. I’ll have to look for it. I think I wrote it at about the same time as Jan Schakowski wrote a poem for the same magazine, about running for office. Have to find that one too. )
Then I started reading “Audacity of Hope” and for the first time, I discovered someone with the capability of analyzing the great issues of the day in a way that reached out to me. He wrote with a heart and honest introspection and an accepting mode , he believed strongly that no one needs to be demonized – or should be – since all sides of various questions need to understand that they are not really on opposite “sides” but more often than not various gradations. Though I found in each chapter places where my head nodded up and down and I punched my fist on the table and said “yes”! (that hasn’t happened in a very long time while reading a book by a politician), I think that the one thought permeating the book that got to me the most was his insistence that the way in which parties, and people have been forced to be “for” or “against” each other on issues – because of the enforced polarization that this political world has decided is the norm –that this was just, plain, dead wrong. That we should all listen to each other . That while we cannot and should not necessarily find a “middle” ground (splitting the difference is not a way to resolve issues, just a way to share pastries), but talk about where it is that we can agree, not necessarily where it is that we differ. And there were many examples. At this point, I may be combining parts of the book with his wonderful speech at the time of the Reverand Wright fiasco. It's not relevant. What is important, is that it is clear that he could understand the white man without a job who was afraid, and therefore became antagonistic towards all affirmative acation, as much as the old black man who couldn’t forget about past injustices and embarrassments . I loved that idea. That had always been my idea. So many of the thoughts in that book were just more articulate ways of saying what I had always felt. I connected with him.
During the election, I always carried a copy of the book with me, and when confronted with someone who said “well, I may vote for Obama, but just because he is thelesser of two evils” or someone who really was afraid of Obama, or thought him not sufficiently experienced – anyone who I thought could be convinced, I would give away the book, and go buy another.
And then there was John McCain –
Every time the spector of a possible Obama loss made me totally crazy, I would snarl or scream or just flatly state to friends (or whomever was around to listen) something like “If McCain and Palin win- I’m out of here! I’ll figure out some way to move to France!” McCain scared the shit out of me – even more so than George Bush, would you believe. I could not picture feeling safe in this dangerous world with someone in the White House with McCain’s characteristics. Sure, I didn’t agree with his policies – many of them, such as his pro life positions. And he had changed positions on some of his historic policies for the purpose of the election (a bit frightening in itself). But that wasn't the derivation of the fear and anger. At one time I had sort of liked his quirkiness and his apparent maverickness and independant stance on some issues. But what made me shake now was the man himself - what we saw of the man of today, his demeanor, his methodology of dealing with problems, his temperament, his decision making skills, etc. !...............................It is clear that many issues needing to be dealt with in this complex and ever changing global community are those not previously handled by our chief executive (9-11, and the New Orleans disaster, for example), and whoever is in that position MUST be a person who is grounded, and smart, and educated, and willing to think things through and listen to other smart people, but also make quick decisions when necessary – someone with a moral compass and an understanding that complex issues cannot ever be reduced to sound bites – someone that exudes the confidence and strong underpinnings of a leader.
John McCain had showed strong character many years ago when he was a prisoner of war, and from time to time in the past showed himself to be spunky and willing to buck those in power, but ever since he won the primary – which must have been an unexpected jolt, and required him to kowtow to the Republican party “base” and the Bushies – out came McCain’s phoniness, his little thin lipped smirk or nervous smile , and his well documented petulance and lack of anger management, and, most importantly, the most desperately horrific characteristic that jumped out during these last months was his proclivity to make seat of his pants decisions just for their shock value rather than thinking anything through – maybe a fun trait in an also- ran but a frightening and deadly trait in the “leader of the free world.” He lost any of the credibility derived from his past spunkiness and honor , and became an almost robotic characature of a politician, talking in preconceived regurgitated vitriolic bites, choosing an unqualified running mate because she could draw excited crowds, incapable of hiding his disdain for Obama (because of his age? his race? or just because he was unexpectedly standing in the way of this, his last chance to rise to the top?) showing a willingness to take an “I’ll do or say anything” tactic in order to win……………………..
And now Barack Obama is President Elect. He is not a perfect man, none of us are. But he wants to make it better, and he wants to listen, and he wants to act, and he knows that he doesn’t know everything, and he is willing to take baby steps when necessary and big steps when needed, and he wants to be inclusive, and he has come from so many different places – racial, economic, national – that he is truly capable of understanding so many points of view.
I don’t think we can do better than that..
Whether I can be labeled – a progressive, a humanist, a Democrat, an Independent, who knows………or , ignoring labels, someone who just believes that government needs to make the world a better place for everyone, to the extent that it can, since this inures to the benefit of all – and that freedom of choice is a basic and critical part of being an American – choice in sexual and marriage partners, choice in whether or not to carry a child, choice in occupation and business whether or not you are female or someone of color or someone with an accent. ( Is that a Progressive? Is that a Democratic? I don’t know. ) , for the first time in years, I really have hope.
. Bill O’Reillyof Fox News is still saying “The guy is still a mystery, so our oversight will be intense.” And another pundit on Fox News yesterday morning railed against the liberal press, opining with vehemence and furrowed brow that the Press elected Obama by favoring him so strongly and giving him such a pass. And Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Republican who just squeaked out a victory (having problems partly because of her Obama statements) had told Chris Matthews of MSNBC that, when it came to Mr. Obama, “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views,” but she is now saying that she is “extremely grateful that we have an African-American who has won this year,” and calling the Obama win (including in her state) “a tremendous signal we sent.”
Some things are still the same, but I feel that things are changing, and I don’t want to miss any of it.
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