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.

Obama in Miami

Rhetoric at the CANF: Obama speaks to Cuban-Americans

On May 23, I heard Senator Barack Obama deliver a speech for the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) during a luncheon at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami. The luncheon was in remembrance of Cuba’s independence. What I took away from this day I learned, more than anywhere else, in the long line waiting for the valet to deliver my car. It was here that the unedited responses of many a guayabera-clad-young-professional-Cuban-American was overheard by my always open ears.

In this line, the general reaction did not surprise me, though I had hoped for better. “I loved Jorge Mas’s speech; and Marco Rubio never disappoints, but what did you think about Obama? I thought it was a bunch of rhetoric.” That was the general flow of conversation. And suddenly I was filled with a flood of sadness.

I realize that it will be difficult to penetrate what is a thick and stubborn coat of dogma long in the making. I wonder how it is that these people, my people, don’t realize that their stubborn, single-minded ways of thinking about Cuba have not gotten them anywhere in over forty years. Isn’t it time to change the course of thought and come to an understanding that diplomacy is key in dealing with Cuba?

Diplomacy. This was one of Obama’s points, among many. Obama’s point was also to, not only deliver a single-keyed keynote on Cuba, but to talk also about the Americas as a whole. With an understanding that America will not, and cannot, become “a more perfect union” if it does not, in fact, call upon the unity required in the Americas. Those that have heeded the call of the Globalized world have grown with it – the Euro is strong because of a union – the European Union. If America does follow suit, and lead in the Americas toward a similar union then we will fall back (and I daresay,we have already fallen a ways back).

In the same vein: if Cuban-Americans do not meet the changing pulse of the world, then Cuba will never have the freedom these self-same Cuban-Americans have so sought after, so long-talked-about. Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the CANF, said, in a speech leading up to Obama's, that change will come from within the island. But, how can change come from within an island that is sealed off? In order to peel away the layers of imprisonment and barriers, we must seek diplomacy and infiltrate in this way – get inside, before we can “make a change from within.” Without this diplomacy, change will never come.

House Speaker, Marco Rubio, said (also in one of the speeches leading up to Obama's) “we will always be the sons and daughters of exiles.” This is true, and I include myself in this group. I too love the island of Cuba, without ever having set foot –sadly -- on its shores. I too want to see justice for the eight years my grandfather spent as a political prisoner. The only difference between myself and the men in guayaberas in the valet line at the Intercontinental is that I am open to the idea that change is necessary, especially at this juncture in time, when the seemingly infallible voice of Castro has quieted to the lesser force of his brother Raul. Change is inherent to the situation of Cuba, and hence our policies must change.

The men in the valet line mentioned “rhetoric.” They said that Obama was using “rhetoric.” However, Obama’s speech was a clearly outlined and well-structured speech based on FDR’s “Four Freedoms.” Adopting these to the Americas, Obama expressed how he would bring about (using clear examples), Political and Religious freedom; Freedom from want and Freedom from Fear in the Americas. He then went on to say that it would be easy for him to come here to Miami, and do what other leaders have done and offer a slew of false promises to Cuban-Americans: tell them what they want to hear, and then ignore them when they get to Washington (AKA: George W). Instead, Obama voiced his desires for speaking with Raul, using the embargo (which he would keep) as leverage in discussions to advance the purposes of the United States. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio and Jorge Mas Santos claim that even speaking with Raul would be a dramatic “surrender.” Which of these, I ask you, is the “rhetoric?” Rhetoric which is, according to dictionary.com, “an undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast.”

Yes, I too am the daughter of exiles. I too own a guayabera, and I too have defended my Miami-Cubans many times over. The only difference is that I take the advice that Jorge Mas Santos gave to Obama: to “Listen.”

I vow to listen to the times; to the world; and to the need to change our course of action, considering that that which we have clung to for so many years has not allowed us to progress. I hope that our leaders will do the same.

Jorge Mas Santos, when he addressed Obama, told him, very cleverly, that he too had been shaped by the “dreams of [his] father.” His father was Jorge Mas Canosa – which, as his son so eloquently expressed, brought the Cuban struggle from the streets of Miami to the Halls of Washington. The trick now is to take that struggle into the new millennium, appending changes where need be. Listening.

Giving Birth in the Time of Obama

In the past several weeks, I have gone from a villa in St. Thomas to a theatre in Amsterdam, to a Nobel Prize laureate’s home in Abeokuta, Nigeria to the garbage ridden, and beautifully chaotic world of Lagos, Nigeria. And yet, everywhere I went, we spoke about the place where I am from: America. And, for once, it wasn’t solely in scorn – everywhere, we were speaking about Obama.

In St. Thomas, my friends, newly-wed, and cheerfully swaying away early marital bliss at a Caribbean destination wedding, discussed the promises of what it might mean to have Obama as a president. While putting on a play in Amsterdam, the Dutch told us they might stop hating us (Americans) if Obama won. And, perhaps the most interesting – in Nigeria, where I was lucky to be in the company of writer and Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, we lunched and dined – our dinner conversations revolving around the comparison of current corruption in Nigeria and America (under Bush – seemingly not so different from that of Nigeria. American corruption being more disguised, but just as powerful). And, then, later, in a marketplace in Lagos, when I was standing, buying old silkworm strands of cloth with a friend, the vendor asked us if we had any children. My friend is 27 and I am 29 – both of us are unmarried and childless. We explained this to the vendor and the vendor said: “Oh, I see, you are waiting. When Obama is president then you will have children.” And then he smiled, enormously. As if, in his own way, uttering the very essence of Obama’s campaign: hope.

In a world where Bush claims God told him to invade Iraq; when there are t-shirts of a monkey eating a banana with the slogan Obama ’08 inscribed (sold in Georgia), Obama is America’s only hope. It is also, our most difficult feat – to get him elected, under such circumstances. I can only hope that the vendor in Africa was right – that within the next eight years, I will live an America that I am proud of, under a president that I admire…and that I will, indeed, give birth to my children under such a state.