Choosing Rain

The other day I had a strange thought. I wished, for a moment, that we were back in the days where we had arranged marriages. It seemed to me, at that moment of uncharacteristically conservative thought, that there was something beautiful about the idea of learning to love somebody that your parents had picked out for you -- believing that they, as your parents, knew you well and would know who could be a good match for you. In other words, giving Love a chance to grow and build; and not, not ever, giving up on it simply because one didn’t have the choice of giving up. Love seemed, in these thoughts, all the stronger. Of course, this is a fleeting thought that carries many different repercussions – I don’t think I’d be very happy if my parents imposed a groom upon me, in all truth. It’s just, it seems like people, having the choice of divorce, and of so many people in the world to play with and choose from – it just seems that people mess up by giving up too easily and relying to readily on the glamour of over-rated choice.

As I was having all of these thoughts, I recalled something I saw at a supermarket about two years ago. There was a man, looking like he had just come from Cuba yesterday (or the day before, or the day before that) and he was staring at row of canned foods. He seemed completely overwhelmed by the variety of companies and brands offering the same food. And so, bogged down by choice, he just stood there – unable to choose; motionless. “In Cuba, we’ve got corn. Corn is corn. Peas are peas. Jamon es Jamon.” I could see him thinking this in his head. And the expression on his face told me he wasn’t so sure whether all this choice was as great as he thought it was going to be. I know Cubans (as a Cuban-American it is part of my daily existence to know many generations of Cubans from different migration waves) that come to the States and want nothing more than to go back home. Just as I know Cubans that come to the States and think: this has to be some kind of capitalist heaven. And in these latter cases, choice becomes the end all be all…a way of life. How many things can I acquire? Why not buy one of each? Why not? If I can…If I’m free to do so…If the market allows me…well then, why not? Why in god’s (or is it Dios, or Chango, or Allah ….you get the idea) name not?

Choice is a funny thing. Like today, for instance…

Today, I decided to go for a run, despite the fact that I knew a storm was approaching. Perhaps there was a slight feeling of invincibility about me this morning. So I went out, and I ran for fifty minutes before the dark clouds that were looming above me opened up their wide mouths and gushed spear-like rain in my direction, hurling its arrows in the face of my seeming invincibility. And in that moment, I thought about how little choice I actually do have. How little autonomy in the world I truly practice. I cannot control the clouds and the way they spin in and out of my life; the ocean and its currents; the sun and the way it scorches or soothes. Of course, I do have a choice to go out in the rain, or stay home. But who is to say that at home a tree would not fall through my window, trashing every bit of machinery, literature, and whatever else I have so gathered and possibly horded? And who is to say it might not even give me a bit of a thrashing.

I tried to run home, fast as I could, making my long-distance running legs sore -- Soon, however, the rain lifted, but not before taking with it whatever certain thought I may have had about the nature of choice.

The Life of the Mind: A Sign of the Times

Thoughts for the day (or at least for the past couple of hours)

1. Thinking about how I just played my first hand in the stock market...this could be fun.

2. Thinking about a friend I met not very long ago who is in “the desert” – at war in an undisclosed location.

3. Thinking about how I am inching away from agnosticism and into a true belief in something greater than myself and how it’s a shame to feel to have to excuse a belief in a greater force at work in our lives and in the world.

4. Thinking about how I asking that greater force to be by the side of my friend in “the desert.” Also at the side of my good friend who is about to have a baby. Her third girl.

5. Thinking the person I love. How there were two times I lost my virginity, with two different people. How the first time, it was simply an act, the breaking of tissue. And how the second time it was more gradual, over days of sex and champagne and conversation. How the second time felt like it was the true loss of virginity along with the very real gain of something else. This second person is the person I still love.

6. Thinking about how my first love was a platonic one – not too very long ago, full of a unique kind of hunger – a literal physical hunger, a sexual hunger, a desperate hunger. Love should never be desperate. I’m glad we remained friends and didn’t, at that moment in my life, become lovers – it might have ended in disaster. It was a wise decision on his behalf.

7. Thinking about how the Chinese Gymnasts look so young and how Phelps has to consume 12,000 calories a day in order to keep up with those speedy laps. Every time I watch him swim I think to myself: is this man human? And then that leads me on a train of thoughts about humanity and where we come from and how our gymnastics are not so far from fantastic documentaries like Planet Earth…and how really we’re just mammals with minds. But then isn’t that combination a very powerful thing? And then I say, ok, ok…avoid the philosophizing and BS, move on, move on.

8. Thinking about another set of human acts: creation and commerce and how that comes together in the selling of a $26 dollar grape ($910 for the bunch) in Japan.

9. ...Obama, Mc Cain, Paris Hilton. Georgia and Russia. Putin. Hijo de Puta?

10. Back to Japan; how I love Japan. And how in Kyoto I had a spiritual experience that’s difficult to express in a bullet point. Thinking about the book I’m reading by Murakami about running. And how I’m training for a marathon and how all of these thoughts came to me while I was just outside running. And then thinking about how all these thoughts come full circle…and how tomorrow there might be another circle to ride.

11. Thinking about traveling, in circles in lines, across borders and boundaries, cities, states, and countries…Hawaii (I want to go back to Hawaii...). Thinking about love, the roundness of my life, about fruit (like the grapes), and the fruit of the earth and the fruit of my mind, and the fruit of my efforts, and my second love, and all whom I love, and my life; and then I think of death…as always, the day has not gone by without thinking about the death of my father. The anniversary of his death is next Friday, the 22nd…I think I want to add him, my father, to number four on this list…that the greater force be also with him, to guide him through what I don’t yet understand, in whatever transition of self and form he might be going through…

…There are always more thoughts…but, today, I’ll end here.

Cerebral Celebrity

Ce*leb"ri*ty\, n.; pl. Celebrities. [L. celebritas: cf. F. c['e]l['e]brit['e].]
1. Celebration; solemnization. [Obs.]
The celebrity of the marriage. --Bacon.
2. The state or condition of being celebrated; fame; renown; as, the celebrity of Washington.
An event of great celebrity in the history of astronomy. --Whewell.
3. A person of distinction or renown; -- usually in the plural; as, he is one of the celebrities of the place.

c.1380, "solemn rite or ceremony," from O.Fr. celebrité, from L. celibritatem (nom. celebritas) "multitude, fame," from celeber "frequented, populous." Meaning "condition of being famous" is from 1600; that of "famous person" is from 1849

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The world has taken to “celebrating” Obama. For some reason, McCain seems to think this is a bad thing. McCain believes that by equating Obama with Britney Spears he is making some kind of a negative statement about the way in which the world (particularly its “kids”) are viewing Barack Obama. But perhaps he has missed the point. The fact that we, the people, are turning an intelligent man; a brilliant orator that seems to be evolving into a unifying presence and leader not only for America but for the world; as well as someone who, up until now brandishes an untarnished record is, I’d say, a good thing. The fact that “kids” are placing Obama’s name above the ranks of troubled singers like Spears or Winehouse in daily conversation is a hopeful sign. It is also a signal towards the world America’s youth wants to live in.

That’s my general idea – a positive one about the seemingly negative celebrity advertisement McCain ran on Obama in recent days -- but, just for fun, let’s throw in a quote that complicates things a little:

“We choose presidents, but we do not choose them on the basis of their experience or even their political views. We choose them based on how well they tap into our basic beliefs, how expressive they are of our own deepest national mythologies.”

This is a quote by Russell Banks recently in his own published oration on America called Dreaming up America. It is also a statement that seems to envelop all the criticisms as well as positive compliments that have been said and given to Obama regarding his candidacy for president of the United States. First, he was not experienced enough and now he was too “presidential” – a “celebrity.”

Strangely, Banks’ quote is also a quote that seems to envelop the reasons America voted for Bush. Americans chose George W because he joined with the Christian Right to tap into the dream and mythology of “American Values.” America chose him not so much because he was experienced, but rather they chose him because of a certain “charm” (one which I never found, but which most of America seemed to have clicked with). And yet, this was a “charm” that was also capable of leading us straight into a war most of America is now against. Moreover, Obama’s “charm” is also somehow experience-less and he’s tapping into an American Mythology -- an older, more basic American Mythology – that we are “all created equal” and that we all have the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The truth is that we have no idea what Obama will do when he takes office, if he manages to take office. I am not clairvoyant and cannot tell yet whether the man will “charm” us into ill as W did…but I, along with America’s “kids” remain hopeful. And I think that to celebrate, for now, this man; to “frequent” and repeat and make “populous” his message is not a bad thing. A couple of months ago when I visited Nigeria, I saw that Nigerians held in great esteem Wole Soyinka – that they made of celebrity of him. And I thought: wow, if only Americans would make a celebrity out of a writer like that, instead of out of Madonnas. But isn’t that just what we are doing? In fact, what McCain might be admitting to is that he is too much of an “oldster” to understand America, America’s “kids” and, hence, America’s future – children of the Baby boomers, Gen X and Yers, and whatever comers there are next into the fold.

Drawing Blood & Bridges

If you saw me walking down the street this past Tuesday, you’d think I was a heroine addict – my arms full of track marks, my face pale with exhaustion. The reason: two incompetent nurses that poked me four times and still couldn’t find a vein to draw blood from. In fact, I had to go back to my doctor’s office on Wednesday, when finally a more competent nurse found her way to my juice.

I felt horribly insecure at the end of my Tuesday visit, as the first, incompetent, male nurse fiddled and told me how “spidery” my veins were and how I had to “relax.” I was perfectly relaxed (I’ve never been afraid of blood), until I realized he had NO IDEA what he was doing. Then things started to get scary. He didn’t seem like the brightest berry in the bush, and it got me to thinking, as (Ouch!) there went one poke, and then (Ouch!) another. Then came another nurse who said: “wow, this is hard!” And I thought: What is going on? And I’m not just saying “what’s going on with American Healthcare?” I’m going beyond that. “What’s going on with America? And can we trust the kind of people we are producing in this country?” This is a bigger question and one that feeds straight into healthcare and all of American life (a life which spreads globally due to the ways of the 21st century).

Not too long ago I wrote an article about how the healthcare profession is becoming popular because it is “recession proof;” but what kind of nurses and health care professionals are we dishing out when the only reason they enter the field is because they are secured a job? What happened to the days when nursing was a vocation? And, more importantly, what are they teaching kids (or not teaching them) in elementary and high schools that prevent them from understanding their lessons (for instance the one about drawing blood) when they get to nursing school (and other kinds of schools)? Have we totally lost it?

I read recently a quote by Bette Midler in which she was asked her greatest fear and she said something to the tune of: “I fear the best days of my country are over.” It’s a bleak thought. But, I thought, on Wednesday: maybe she’s right. As bridges collapse around us, and our infrastructure weakens (both physically and intellectually) I have to ask myself whether Midler isn’t right to ask herself this question.

However, and there is always a however in this double-faced and contradictory land we call America, there are a number of hopeful elements to our story as American path. One of which is what leads me to my next blog (which I’ll enter right above this one) – the very idea that McCain finds so negative, and which I find quite positive – that the junior senator from Illinois and presumptive Democratic Candidate for President is a “celebrity.”

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.

Sporting Obama

I've never worn a candidate on my chest -- well, at least not in public; no hearts on my sleeve. There was that time, I'll admit, when I was in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the Clintonmania (for Bill, not Hillary) was so infectious that I bought a t-shirt from the Clinton Library Store -- a jersey-type T, with a big number 42 on it. Truth is though, that I was more excited about the design of the Clinton Library than anything else at that moment. Then there was the time when I was on the verge of buying a sticker that said: "Bush stay out of my bush." But then I thought: no -- that's just not my style. Generally, I stay out of the sticker, button, and t-shirt battles -- It's too alfalfa-sprouting-hippy-like to fill my car with flower-power, or wear shirts that say: "war is not healthy for children and other living things." Perhaps I've been a cynic...

Until now -- this morning I woke up, went straight to Barack Obama's official site ( http://www.barackobama.com/index.php ) and I bought myself a T-shirt -- a khaki affair of a thing imprinted with the face of the man I hope will be our future president. This says quite a bit: it says the cynic in me is hopeful; the cynic in me is excited...the cynic in me is dying.