During my trip, I saw very little news online or on TV. It was beyond disheartening, then, to observe the celebratory back-slapping in the Rose Garden by a group of white men and a few white women who know perfectly well that the health care plan they are proposing will hurt their diverse nation. The heartlessness of it was sickening. I am white, yet I cannot resonate with any of these people or how they think. The hubris of it is so monumental, and I suspect that historians may look back on that moment, and that image, as pivotal.
I'll talk about the trip a little more in coming weeks, but ironically, one of the takeaways from it is how, given two days in New York City, my magnet drew me to the world's finest church music, John Singer Sargent's paintings of the "aristocracy," the Upper East Side, and some of the trappings of my supposed WASP heritage. I say "supposed," because most of my actual formative experience was far from coming out parties and the Social Register, more like returning home from college to find no food in the refrigerator or gas in the car. I've always lived between worlds, and continue to. These old constructs are in the process of being upended, clearly, and it's a good thing. But to the extent to which I actively tried to abandon my family's heritage along with church music, and to live in a sort of "opposite-land," I yearn to come home, even in some kind of new paradigm way. These two days felt strangely like a homecoming. Ultimately, it is a particular form of beauty that I still love and prefer. It's very, very confusing. I returned north to find mail from various worthy institutions asking me to add them to my estate plan. Little do they know that my "estate" is the $35 or so dollars I have to my name at this moment.
On this rainy Saturday, I should be gloomy, but I am not. Once again, I managed to get where I wanted to go, to see my choice of beauty, to hear my choice of music, to embrace my choice of loving friends, and to do it safely and happily. I lived my priorities for a little over a week, with a few dollars to spare. I am thankful.
