The Hands that Build America

Oh my love, it’s a long way we’ve come

From the freckled hills to the steel and glass canyons

That’s actually what my ancestors looked like – well a good portion of them, at least.

My ancestors were mail carriers and fire fighters, and you know what that means?

They were lucky.

My ancestors never pounded the nails that built America.

We never picked its crops.

We never reclaimed land only others would be able to afford.

Many others hold ownership over this portion of the tale, and I’m grateful for each of them.

Sadly, the romantic idea that America was somehow built carries with it the toxic implication that this construction was somehow completed.

America is still being built today.

That Ellis Island has been replaced by airport Immigration only examples the transitional nature of this wonderful nation.

The hands are, let’s get it out there, less Caucasian than we feel they once were.

Does this mean we should celebrate them any less?

Should we suspect our more-recent arrivals because they look less American than… Who? My ancestors when they arrived?

(I get it, each of us has ancestors who were suspected and mistreated upon arrival, but)

Would any of our ancestors ask that we remember them by treating those coming to build tomorrow’s America with fear and disdain?

Do we now have so much that we cannot fathom another wanting to get their share?

Mao’s tactics were vile, but perhaps a few of us could use a re-education as well.

America takes hard work. It always has.

I, for one, am cognizant (and grateful) that me sitting in an air-conditioned room as I type on a laptop is not all it will take to carry America to the tomorrow I fully intend on enjoying.

The hands that built America had the names of saints, kings and prophets; they even had names that we who arrived before them assigned our 'property' against their will.

The hands that are building America have their own names.

These names sound 100% as foreign to yesterday's immigrants as the names which my ancestors called themselves did once upon a time.

They sound just as foreign, but not one ounce more so.

American is being built as I type this today.

It will not be completed by the time you read this tomorrow.

May we celebrate and welcome those taking on the jobs we should be grateful no longer fall to our delicate hands.

Of all of the promises

Is this one we can keep?
Of all of the dreams
Is this one still out of reach?

From 10,000 Feet (Writer's Block II)

10,000 some odd feet is apparently this writer’s sweet spot.

There’s something spectacular about being above it all, and yet very much able to make out what’s below.

Flying home from a short business trip Sunday morning, I was mesmerized by the normalness of it all.

Traffic marching like ants around pretzel hoops of highway brought me to a startling realization.

All these people I’ll never meet, and yet whom I was close enough to count if I had so desired, each of them had a story to tell.

What’s more, of course, is that we are not any of us (lest the Write-a-Novel-in-Just-Ten-Weeks crowd has its way) in possession of just that one novel tale.

I personally am keeper of not only any number of my own tales, but also of the tales of those who most affected my journey.

My life-defining tale of the Middle School Vice Principal who took a liking to my misguided angst is really a sequel to whatever left Mr. so-and-so with his savior complex in the first place.

The point is that there should never be a lack of stories, though of course we all feel that the world is at times dry.

This is for a few reasons:

First, we don’t actually speak to strangers anymore. (And we even less often truly listen to them.)

One of the reasons that we feel like we have heard every story before is that we are only listening to people whose very outlook on the world was formed by their interactions with us.

Second, we have, collectively mind you, a fear of commitment.

Starting a story is easy, it’s finishing them that is a bitch.

Love those stories about the author who scribbles a story on a napkin in the middle of the night (or, who, in my case, pretends to make phone calls so he can dictate scenes into his phone on Metros)? Sure you do. But what any writer really loves is the story of the girl who just finished her fifth and final draft.

What I call writer’s block is really an admission that I don’t have it in me to abandon another tale.

Better not to talk to the girl across the bar if I already know that my next night off is in 2019, right?

Wrong.

To finish a story, you have to start it. Borderline Yoda, perhaps. Yet makes untrue this, it does not.

From experience, I can tell you that abandoned one-time heroes become deeply fleshed-out characters in future tales. Weep not for the hero who never was – He ends up guiding the tale in next year’s thriller.

So what does all of this mean?

Pick up your pen religiously, but even more stridently never stop looking around. Write stories in your head even if there is no way you’ll reach paper before forgetting half the details.

The most verbose of us spent years talking to ourselves to hone our craft.

Let your writing be the same. What may seem glib is occasionally Zen. May this be one of those times:

Writer’s write.

The characters are out there, even if it takes reaching cruising altitude to identify them.

More Than Just a Vowel

Today was but the first time of many.

‘Prince is…’ I began, before stopping to correct myself. ‘Prince was…’
The transition from ‘is’ to ‘was’ is a confounding one.
On the surface, it’s the changing of a vowel (i to a) and the addition of a consonant (w).
Looking closer, though, one can’t miss the symbolism of removing the ‘i’ – how this one fewer “I” in the world perfectly mirrors the passing of one we held dear.
Even the addition of the ‘w’ – a consonant that feels somehow forced from within the depths of us (for who would choose to designate another as past tense?) – represents an unmistakable crossing of that barrier to a place from which none returns.

I guess I should’ve known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn't last
- Little Red Corvette (1983)

We knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Why then do all of our actions argue against this fact?
Few got the meaning of Prince before it was time to say goodbye. Few noted the songs, versatility, lasting impact and pure Statement of Prince Rogers Nelson before we found ourselves standing here – wondering how best to tie things off.
Miles Davis waged protest through his horn, but Prince wore defiance in his facial hair.
However, if Prince was a call to action, many of us seem to have hit Snooze.
We’re awake now. But to what end?

Closin' time, ugly lights, everybody's inspected
- U Got the Look (1987)

So where do we go from here? Once again, we have collectively missed out on the essence of another.
Will we react to this loss by elevating one who fittingly (oh so fittingly) refused to join Apple Music by buying 1993’s The Hits back into the Top 10 for a week? (We will.)
Will we pay more attention to yet another funeral than we did to yet another life? (We may – you have to wait for funerals… Autopsies? We and cable news LIVE for those, however.)
Will we change our ways before missing out on celebrating yet another of our beautiful brothers and sisters while still they walk among us? (TBD.)

Dedicated to my good friend Shawn – one of the rare souls who got Prince long before the eulogies told him how to