BURNING THE FLAG

Sigh. Well, as I discussed in my last post, I can’t actually
stay drunk for the next for years, so I’ve had to find some
other way to cope.

(Pause for another deep sigh.)

It seems like all I want to do these days is sigh and shake my head. I mean, how could…? What are they…? How can this…?

Oh well (sigh again), life goes on in some form or another.

But how to cope? Since staying drunk isn’t an option and becoming a protest singer just isn’t my metaphorical cup of tea, what is there to be done?

For a while, I vacillated between being very sad and very angry, and frankly the latter was starting to scare me. At some points in my life I have tended toward extremism, bitterness and violence, and I just cannot go there again.

But what to do? What to do with that energy?

Nothing was not an option – there was too much rolling around inside of me to sit still through it indefinitely. Though in some part of myself I know that everything in this life passes in the blink of an eye, that very few things are so important that they will matter in two hundred years, there is another part of me which does keep track of the now and takes it at least partially seriously – especially when people are dying over it.

The worst part is the feeling of being stuck on a team of some sort, of having a uniform tattooed on my body that I can’t remove, which identifies me as One Of Them. Of course, I’m supposed to feel like I’m One Of Us, but I don’t – I want no part of a team which is going to tromp all over everyone in the world just because it can.

Karmically, I’m sickened by being associated in any way with the choices this country has made – I want off the team. This game is stupid and many of my teammates are mean, morally hypocritical bigots and I want no part of this anymore.

But I just can’t seem to take off this damn uniform…. It is my skin, it is the team I was born onto and it is the bench upon which I find my ass geographically parked.

Sigh.

So what’s to be done? If I do nothing I’ll just stew in my own stagnant negative emotions until I turn into a bitter, unhappy, ineffectual person. I’ve worked WAY too hard for my happiness to let anyone take it away from me – not even the force of an entire society has the power to do that.

But what is there to do? Most of the things which crossed my impulsive little mind involved either my inevitable death, life in prison or both. And, just as my happiness means too much to me to squander it for anyone or anything, my life and freedom are equally precious. I simply have too much to live for to throw it away for any reason, regardless of my passing extremist impulses.

I asked my partner if there were any organizations that I could join which are the antithesis of all that I despise about this country, that would make me a target fundamentalists could point at and say "you – you are what we despise." He recommended the ACLU.

It’s too bad that there isn’t an organization, preferably made up of Americans, whose sole purpose is to come together to express their hatred for America. I want a definitely anti-America club of some sort, though I have no interest in anyone or anything so off of its rocker that it is willing to kill or hurt people over ideals. No matter how much those kinds of impulses flashed through my mind early Wednesday morning, a few deep breaths were all it took for me to see the ridiculousness and counter-productivity of that.

My sentiments were summed up pretty well by James Wolcott as he was attempting to find a title for a piece he would write should Bush win the election. If he did (which of course he did), he was considering a title something like "Good, Go Ahead, America, Choke on Your Own Vomit, You Deserve to Die."

Sometimes it’s nice to know that one isn’t alone in one’s thinking.

And, I also have to thank Michael Moore for giving us 17 Reasons Not To Slit Your Wrists. It does cheer me up that even my mother knows who Michael Moore is now -- he's become a household name.

But still, what was there for me to do? Perhaps my partner will become a protest singer, but he is already a singer in the first place – it would be a logical fit for him.

Me? What do I do?

Well, I write. A lot. Especially in November.

I had still been dithering over whether or not to enter NaNoWriMo this year when November 1st rolled around. On one hand, I’ve entered and completed a manuscript the past two years and would like to continue my record. On the other hand, I now have a highly active and mobile infant daughter who must be attended to every thirty seconds lest she eat a piece of paper, shove a cat’s tail into her mouth or explore the contents of the garbage can. But, the rush of writing in November has always been so exhilarating…

Then the election happened, or failed to as the case may be, and I found myself on the brink of lingering disillusionment and bitterness – not a place I like to spend my time anymore. I used to live there, but I’ve since moved on to a much nicer neighborhood and don’t enjoy coming back – not even for a visit.

So what do I do when I’m pissed off? I write. (It’s also what I do when I’m happy, sad, bored, pensive, gassy, sleepless, well-rested or ecstatic, but those are other stories.)

And burn things… at least sometimes.

I’ve found that watching things disappear can be very cleansing, and though I haven’t ritualistically burned all that many things in my life, I’ve been known to do so in some instances. Mostly pieces of paper on which I’ve written down the thing that I want to get rid of / let go of. I put it in writing, make it manifest, then watch it disappear. In the past, this has always proved helpful.

So, I went out and got some flags. Flammable ones. Lots of them.

Creation and destruction, death and rebirth…

Fiction is a wonderful outlet because I can create a character who can do all of the things I would like to do if karma and jail weren’t realities. She can stomp around, spout off her mouth, blow up churches, or set herself on fire while I sit here in the comfort of my own home drinking tea.

Fiction also gives me the power of the gods right at my finger tips. If I want to, I can pull a garden gnome out of the air POOF! just like that. Or, I can summon a really fast car, roar down the street and never get caught. Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Now I know why mad scientists laugh!

The link between the worlds, the fictitious and the real, lies in the flames eating the flags. It is very gratifying… taboos are fun that way.

For instance, if you tell a kid not to stick peas up his nose enough times, eventually you’ll walk into the room to find his nostrils filled to brimming, a guilty look on his face as he tries to figure out what huge taboo rush he’s supposed to be experiencing to have been told so many times not to engage in such an act. No hair on his palms, no techni-color hallucinations… just an aghast mom standing in the doorway with her hands thrown in the air.

But sometimes, there is a rush – flag burning is just such an occasion.

I’ve always been creeped out by them… I’ve never actually touched an American flag in my life until I purchased a handful of them this past Wednesday. There used to be one in a place I frequented, and I caught myself several times unconsciously flinching away from it when I would walk past it so that it didn’t accidentally brush my shoulder. Its presence is one of the reasons I stopped frequenting that particular place – it creeped me out that much.

And now I have dozens of them, in MY house. But I can rest easily – I know their days are numbered.

It took some thought choosing them… I had to make sure that they were flammable and of a reasonable size – I didn’t want my neighbors calling the fire department, nor did I want a melted, gooey mess on my hands.

Of course, they were made in China, as are most quasi-patriotic knick-knackery. But, since they use slave labor (maybe they were out-sourced…) they were only forty-nine cents a pop – even I can afford enough to burn for weeks to come!

I can tell myself that it’s all in the name of artistic integrity, of being true to my narrative and connecting with my character. But in reality, it’s actually very healing, which is what the book is all about – both for me and for my character, though they go about it in slightly different ways.

It is all about intention, about letting go, about starting over despite set backs. It is about coming face to face with one’s negative emotions and taking responsibility and ownership of them, rather than trying to pin them on some external source. It is about finding light in darkness, hope in sadness, belief in disillusionment.

And, of course, about setting things on fire.

So, this month while my daughter is napping or engaged briefly in some stationary activity, I’ll be happily tapping away at my keyboard as I am every November. Even as I speak, she is fast asleep on my lap and doesn’t mind one bit if I rest my arm across her as I write.

Just think of the memories we’re creating… I’ll have my partner get the video recorder out, put my daughter in her backpack, then get footage of she and I out in the yard on a crisp autumn day. When she’s older we can replay it for her…

Remember when you were little and George W. Bush got reelected and you and mommy used to go outside and burn flags in the yard? Ah… weren’t those the days?

Oh say can you see
By the barbecue light
What so brightly flares
In the twilight’s last gleaming?

Oh say does that star spangled banner yet blaze…