Let’s see if I can recreate the passion that I felt when I was planning this blog yesterday. I was out for a walk and inspiration was flowing through me. I got home and got tired and took a nap. This is the story the current state of my psyche. I’ll try to work up to the passion. If not, I’ll still write.
Yesterday had a weird start. At about 11 I decided to start on breakfast. Oh great, now I want to stop writing and eat. No, I’m going to write first. On my way to the kitchen I realized that I didn’t have time to make breakfast as I had therapy at 11:15. I figured I’d just make coffee so I’d be awake for my session. That’s when it hit me how much I needed that coffee. Yesterday was Monday, I have therapy on Friday. I wonder if these things happen to other people or just me.
I had to get a prescription filled which I used as motivation to get out of the house. Before the pharmacist I walked over to North Bronx Central Hospital to get my first COVID-19 test since August. It’s still free and simple. The people are uniformly nice. The actual test is unpleasant, my right nostril always hurts more than my left, but it’s not terrible. If I had to get it every day in order to work or go to school I would not complain. I expect my results tomorrow. I expect them to be negative. I’m being careful but I owe it to my roommate and fellow New Yorkers to confirm that I’m not spreader.
I have not been getting any exercise, so I decided to make sure I got my 6000 steps in by circumnavigating Williamsbridge Oval Park. I didn’t amble I walked at a good pace for exercise. My legs were striding but my mind was ambling. I got lost in the people. Urban parks are wonders. This is not a nature park as I usually favor but a recreation area. There’s a rec center, that’s closed due to COVID-19, but also playgrounds, tennis courts, a track, athletic field, skate park, dog run, and basketball courts. It was a beautiful day and as always happens on beautiful days the neighborhood was taking advantage of it. There were people all over enjoying being out. You want to feel better about the world, watch children playing.
Just as when the winner of the election was announced I found myself loving, humanity, America, and New York City. For many people, America means Norman Rockwell’s America. While that is part of America, the scene before me in Williamsburg Oval was just as quintessentially American. It makes no difference that most of the faces I saw were shades of brown or that the four-year-old stalking a squirrel was speaking some Slavic tongue with her mother. There is a small outcrop of rock and of course there were children atop it. Why? Because it’s there. I know that’s something I would not have been able to resist. There was a cone made of rope netting that kids were climbing because it’s there. The little girl nearest the top was wearing a hijab and the boys and girls below her had ancestors from around the world, but they all scrambled with the same joy. These scene in a Rockwell painting would be the same, except for the dress and color of the children.
I passed two tween girls making a TikTok video with their phone resting on a bench dancing as if no one were watching. The athletic field was filled with soccer games with no apparent order. I suspect the playing fields intersected. Every swing was filled. At the skate park you saw some kids taking risks as if they were invulnerable while others timidly skated on the flats. Some were building up their courage at the top of he ramps. This was not the Hellscape or ghost town that Trump describes nor was it the hopeless oppression as a few on the left say. It was people enjoying the sunshine, the fresh air, and other people.
I can never understand anti-immigrant feelings. They are the ultimate Americans, Americans by choice not accident of birth. I see my grandparents in them. America is the rescue dog of nations. People from around the world pointed at it and said, “I want that one!” Rescue dogs are the best. We’re going to have one at the white house in two months. The ancestors of some of the people I saw came here not by choice, but in chains. They had no choice, they were enslaved and then once freed abused, reviled, and suppressed. Yet they became Americans, helped build the country and died defending it.
I thought of Walt Whitman, the most American of poets. I’ve always been disappointed that I do not enjoy his poetry more. I love the man, but he did say what I am trying to say.did say what I am trying to say.
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
America by Walt Whitman
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
I’m not fooling myself. I know that America is far from perfect. Madison was wise enough to write a constitution whose goal was a more perfect union, not a perfect one. So it has to be of any nation made of humans, an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing, who yet feels himself to be a symbol and the frail representative of Omnipotence in a place that is not home. We see Utopia over the next hill but when we get there we find we’re not there yet. We never get there, but as we cross each hill we get closer.
The best part of the walk was that everyone was happy. They knew that all you need to be happy is sunshine, fresh air, and a rock to climb, a ball to kick, a dog to walk, a squirrel to stalk. Sonia is right, America shines.
Wise Madness 