Death of a Journalist

The Death of Tim Russert, last week, sent me off on an emotional treadmill that involved Peter Jennings, 9.11 and my father. Just days before father’s day, I thought first of all of Russert’s family – Russert, who died in a way similar to the way my father died just this past year: suddenly, without warning, and in his fifties.

I thought about the absolute pain and feelings of loss – and not just the void that losing a person creates in the heart; but also the aimless feeling of rootless-ness and of being, oneself, “lost” in the world now, suddenly unable to make sense of anything -- that are brought on by death.

I don’t ever mourn for celebrities – but somehow, this one was a bit different. Mostly because he was a TV journalist – I’m not sure I should call him an anchorman, though he was, in fact an “anchor” in many a household on Sunday mornings.

The reason I think it’s different – why I feel different for TV newsmen/women, than for other celebrities when they die (for instance, I didn’t shed a tear for Yves Saint Laurent, though god knows he feasted my eyes with his designs many a time) is because of what these TV journalists mean. For me, I can bring it home most clearly with Peter Jennings. When the towers came to a crumbling, dusty crash one early morning in early September, I was in New York, and Peter Jennings was there with me – he was there to talk me through it, to inform me, to give me the most peace I could get anywhere, from anybody, while at the same time, agitating my momentarily shocked person. I’ll admit – I got an unbelievable crush on the man…and when he died…when he died I was sad, even though I hadn't ever, literally met him. I mourned him; I think I might have even cried.

I never cry for people I don’t know…but somehow we know these men, we know them through their work and their presence is part of their work, and hence, there is a very real human connection to what they convey to us.

My heart is with Russert’s family.

Heartbreak, Writing, Birth & The Mop

This mid morning I’m not going to write about Obama, or Hillary, or even Obama’s potential running mate – Webb, which was my other option for today. No, I’m not going to write about them because, well, because I’m heartbroken and I can’t think straight – and it’s best not to do write about these things in haste or while going through chest pain (the figurative kind that feels, truly, physical). Instead, I’ve decided to give my apartment a good cleaning. And, truthfully, I’m cleaning because of two reasons. The first is that I’m heartbroken. This is what is leading to the second reason which is a stop in the flow of creative juices. I’m almost done with the first draft of my novel, you see…and this morning I can’t seem to write. It’s never an issue because I usually force myself. And I realize, more than I realize anything else, that writing is like birth – it’s the excitement of conceiving; the ninth months of working towards a draft; the contractions of writing the end of that first draft; and then it’s the hard part – the labor. The pushing and pushing and pushing through until the damn thing’s finally out. And when it’s out – when it’s out, god does it feel good – a miraculous little bundle of bliss. Perhaps this is what letting go will be like, as well -- perhaps this is what it feels like when the heartbreak is over.

Oh, god, please heal my heart…

Well, back to the mop – and then to then onward towards the pushing. Next time I hope I have something more meaningful to say…My apologies. Forgive me gods of politics, arts and science – today I have given into the gods of love.

Sweet Talk & the Uphill Battle

A Night of Speeches

Last night, listening to John McCain’s speech before Hillary decided “not to make any decisions,” and Obama claimed the nomination, I kept thinking about how awful it would be to have to hear McCain talk for four (or, god forbid, eight years) as our president. Not only is the man a god-awful orator, but he’s also the opposite of what they so-often call him – the opposite of that “straight shooter.”

In fact, I think I would leave the country if the man got nominated to office. When he talks, it feels like he thinks he’s back in his ‘football days’ in high school; like he thinks the American people are the stupid cheerleader he’s trying to woo with his “suave” smile, convincing her, years later (and one divorce later), to get the plastic surgery that will make her look like a Steppford wife, rather than a first lady. While Obama makes us think, and enriches us with vocabulary of worth and weight, McCain talks down to us and smiles that strange, canned, and twisted smile. Truth is -- the man freaks me out.

As for Hillary. The way I feel about Hillary is almost how I feel about Sex & the City. It’s a strange combination of contradictions. Powerful women that, instead of empowering us, make us look bad, for instance. There are so many paradoxes in Hillary, it’s hard to know where to start.

Last night, listening to Hillary’s speech – at the beginning of it – I regained all my lost admiration for the woman. She seemed to be that feisty woman I had once liked, speaking with sincerity. She seemed to be addressing issues, no matter what – you have to admire that kind of perseverance. But, and this is a big but – the fact that she did not “make any decisions,” that she didn’t gracefully bow out, makes me feel like she’s waiting and waiting in order to gain some kind of deal-making leverage. It’s depressing and ungracious, and selfish, and not in the best interest of the democratic party, or the country…and it’s almost as bad as her biggest gaff: “well, we all know that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June…” What?!!

While McCain thinks his pseudo-charming smile and “straight-talk” -- which is really just arrogant “down-talk” -- fails to seduce us; Hillary “struggles” through her words -- angry at times, bitter at others, but always “working” so evidently and obviously hard. Isn’t the trick to make us think it’s easy? Isn’t the trick, to make us feel, as Americans, that we aren’t going to have to “struggle” anymore when you’re president? Listening to Hillary makes me feel like four (or eight) years with her would be uphill, yes, but it would be, as is everything with her, an intense uphill battle.

Meanwhile, Obama makes it seem so easy. We know it’s not. We know that no matter what it will be hard to reverse the years of damage created by the Bush Administration(s). But, it feels possible with him; it feels like less of a struggle. And, mind you, this coming from a black man in America who just became the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Point is, he doesn’t, to use one of his words, bludgeon us with his “struggle,” he tells how to use it and learn from it, and what we will do with that struggle to make a better tomorrow. For me, that tomorrow is today, already. This is such a historic event that the Goosebumps from last night still haven’t left me.

And with that, I leave my computer, to say a little prayer for my country. That she is blessed with good judgment, so that the world, just like John McCain, might stop viewing the American People as a group of spoiled children.