Been thinkin’ about…
…fireworks, magic and America.
We’re over halfway through the year.
This being 2016, we’re not only past the six-month-mark of New-Year-resolutions-gone-sour but we’re also up to our ears in that most-American of all pastimes:
Getting angry about politics.
Sometimes, I think getting angry is what we do best. If it’s any consolation, little has changed over the past two hundred years. Our most independent of democratic societies seems uniquely fraught with argument — be it during the presidencies of Adams, or Jackson, or Lincoln, or Truman, or today.
Through it all, however, is an undercurrent of independence, of personal rights, deeply held opinions and open — but sometimes extraordinarily bitter — discourse. American politics, like American history and society, is not always pretty.
The cushier our lives get, the more time we have to be embittered about something. Embroiled, hopeful, angry, loving. Nothing but contradictions, it seems, but there is heart and love yet.
No matter what side we are on, some things remain constant — the desire to be understood. The desperate need to not be frightened of our opponents. Acceptance of humanity — if but for a moment —is a powerful medicine and in that medicine there is a quiet magic.
Because magic is yet real and still in the world around us — in the boisterous firework tents and in the night skies, in the mystery of hoodoo and all the supernatural of the dark hollers, in the silent flight of cliff swallows in a dark, watery cave, and of the sweet and terrifying monsters of our imagination.
Magic and art. “Censorship doesn’t allow the whole story be told,” said writer Lindel Gore last week and he’s right. For we do not live in a safe and sanitized world where all the proverbial bottles have safety caps. There is hate and violence and danger too. As a coiled copperhead at our feet doesn’t know the virtue of innocence, there are also dangers we cannot counter with endless debate but rather with action that is violent and dangerous too.
It’s a fine line.
We are a strangely complex, easily offended, and prudish people, looking over our shoulders to see if anyone overheard us swearing (or was that just me?). Our social complexities at times confuse even me — and demand a common question — to quote a great Sinead O’Connor album — How about I be me and you be you?
Surprisingly, understanding is just around the next corner, waiting for us to lower our guard and extend a hand.
Happy Independence Day. As always… thanks for readin’.
Joshua Heston, editor
