****It is important to me that anyone who reads this post understands that I do not hate Republicans, or all members of the Tea Party movement. I hate ignorance. It is a disease that exists on both sides of the aisle, and that I recognize as breeding in recent years. My writing below is admittedly passionate, if only due to my growing concern that the 2010's are looking eerily similar to the 1860's. Let this not be a condemnation but a call. Not to arms, but to minds.
"The God I believe in worked on a campaign trail." - Brand New
The roads of Washington, D.C. are on the grid system. Sort of. It's an exercise in controlled chaos, a roadmap I get in theory but don't really understand. More accurately it is an array of splintered streets and fractures. It is looking through the singularity of a lens and viewing the multitude of a kaleidoscope. From one, many.
I can't relate one episode to capture my time in Washington, D.C. My long, long overdue inaugural trip to our nation's capitol. I want to bring it all back, every second, every shared laugh with my friends here I was able to reconnect with. Every bite of the burgers at Good Stuff, the half-smokes at Ben's Chili Bowl, the sips of the orange slushy drink served in Mason jars known simply as Awesomeness at Little Miss Whiskey's, or beers at James Hoban's. I wanted to pack every tear shed during "Taps" at Arlington National Cemetery, not merely by me but those around me. The collective emotion that simple, familiar notes on a trumpet can conjure. From one trumpet, emotion and gratitude released by many.
The trip to D.C. is atypical of my travels so far. It lacks the exotic mystique of Southeast Asia or alien concrete of former Soviet bloc countries, but more than that it was not an exercise in solitude. I have friends there. My arrival delivers me to a setting where there are people that care about me. Not the spirit of frontier but of familiarity. That's something acutely vital to me, especially now as I'm so far removed from my close friends. Three months into my new life in New York, I only recently have felt I'm beginning to settle into a community whose niche I am tailoring myself. This reunion of friendship also means that many of my experiences in D.C. were shared. The memories are not solely mine to relate.
Near midnight Wednesday, my good friend Joanna and I visited the Lincoln Memorial on the 145th Anniversary of his assassination. We ascended the steps to where the giant gleaming statue of our nation's greatest hero sits perched, eternally looking out over the picturesque modern city, the capitol of the nation that he saved in its most desperate hour. As I walked up the steps, I thought only of one word: vigil. The spirit enshrined in that chamber, the one that fills those who visit for more than just a snapshot or a postcard- it is with this ever-present aura that he still keeps us safe. In the vacuum of that chamber by night, when the tourists are absent, that spirit is palpable. The central emotion of what kept our nation alive despite the depths of adversity is enveloping, penetrating. Hope. 145 years later, at a time of the worst division and partisanship in our history since the Civil War, the icon of Lincoln delivers hope.
I needed this the following day. Desperately. For curiosity's sake, I attended a Tea Party rally in D.C. There, I saw the fervor of total ignorance. I saw denial and bigotry masquerade as patriotism. I saw white face after white face after white face after white face coupled with the proclamation that this is the true representation of America. A bit later I was back at the Lincoln Memorial, descending the steps as Tea Party tourists ascended them, hands clutching signs that called our current President a tyrant. The same exact word that John Wilkes Booth hurled at Lincoln's already expiring body after he cowardly shot him in the back of the head. I felt like talking to these people, telling them "Stop. Turn around. Clearly you don't get it. Your presence here, in front of this statue and what it stands for... It is beyond a joke. It's blasphemy."
I couldn't. For the sole reason that this is not my country alone. We are a tapestry. From one flag, many stars. From one nation, many ideas. I have no doubt that of the two mindsets at the rally or on those steps, I'm the one upholding Lincoln's spirit. The one embracing healthy debate. The rational discussion of valid ideas rather than the hurling of hyperbolic and cliched insults. I want bipartisanship more than anything. I want a better America through union, not a tug-of-war government. Because of President Obama's historic victory, it's spewed by the right-wing these days, but no matter which side is saying it, the phrase "Take our country back" enrages me more than I can possibly express. To all those that say it, whether pundit or lemming, to every bumper sticker that proclaims it should be affixed another one:
Go fuck yourself.
This country was never yours to own. Just as it isn't mine. It does not belong to you, and the arrogance of your assumption only ratifies just how unworthy you are of it.
If you read even a few words of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, and if you truly get what those documents are saying, you realize how absurd such a statement is. You realize that we are a kaleidoscopic nation, not by accident or modern evolution, but by the design and principles of our founders. From many, we are one.
I watched footage of the 9/11 attacks at D.C.'s Newseum and saw the faces of those around me in the packed room echo my emotion. This brought me back to that unforgettable Tuesday afternoon as I sat in an overcrowded hospital waiting room attempting to give blood. I don't remotely care what ideologies those around me had, on that day in 2001 or this one nine years later. My patriotism in the blooming of many diverse petals from the one stem of our nation is surpassed only by the union when these many synchronize into one force, one action, one hope. One singular wonder, like that of the U.S. Capitol illuminated against an ink sky.
Joshua: "Are you ever NOT completely amazed when you see that? I mean, does it ever get old?"
JoJo: "Nnnnope. Never."
My faulty, idealist wish would be that from the many that visited Washington, D.C. during the time that I did and all those who will in the months and generations to come, one emotion of congruency and compromise would spring forth. Or to reverse the paradigm, that the one sight of Lincoln keeping nightwatch over the city that is the cradle of our nation, that many individuals will take up his burden, and carry on his legacy.
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