Being on a budget, I thought nothing of accepting a 36-hour,3-flight journey in order to save a few pennies. Being on a budget, therefore, I take with grace the 60-hour epic that eventually unfolded.
After the first 10 hours I emerge in San Francisco. Grey, drizzling, cold. I actually find myself dreaming of the sun I left in London. I somehow entertain myself for 8 hours. Return to the airport at 10pm to be told one flight is delayed, another cancelled altogether.
Time to whip out the sleeping bag. Other travellers eye me with jealousy as I steal my first 3 hours sleep in 24 hours on the airport floor. A further 3 hours stretched over free seats on the plane and I can be almost be counted as awake when I stumble out in sunny Atlanta, Georgia.
My mind twists as I try to work out what day it is and what time my body clock is following. But in the third time zone in thirty three hours it is only 9am and I know better than to capitulate to the heavy eyes this early on. So I check into a hostel. Shower. Leave.
Despite the dragging mind, I'm glad I had this extra time in the states. It reminds me of why I'm not staying.
I still have a lingering sense of attachment to the American Dream. I still associate the ideal with the safety and love of my childhood. Its almost a forbidden vision of a possible future. And, goddammit, that makes it exciting.
As I child I believed I would settle in the Promised Land. As an adult I find myself torn between this dream and the rejection of the whole concept of the country. I simultaneously love and despise the excessive use of fast food. I hold myself back from the glitter of the malls. I don’t want anything they offer - but the advertising works so well.
But today I had a revelation - aside from idealism, a true reason why I can never settle here. A reason I can accept, and be at one with, without feeling like some kind of opinionated idiot. The clincher?
It starts when I realise I am walking the streets of Atlanta alone. My only pedestrian companions are the crazy and the homeless, of which there are an extortionate number.
And then I remember. 'Outside' is a strange concept, here.
Everyone drives everywhere. Every single shop has its own parking lot. The consumption of space is ruthless. I have been to city upon city, West, deep South, South East and North East and all of them sprawl, eating up the landscape. Away from small downtown hubs, sheer distance gives people no option other than be slaves to their vehicles.
And they are happy to. Billboards everywhere preach fear.
The first sign to greet me at the airport: "there are other ways to lose your life than dying".
The metro voiceover: "surveillance cameras cannot guarantee your safety."
When I tell the hostel people I will walk (*shock!) downtown: "Keep your hand on your wallet. Don't talk to anyone."
Everyone is scared of everyone else.
The answer to their fear is to keep behind doors - the airconditioned doors of offices, the sliding doors of shopping malls, the slamming doors of cars.
I feel like I'm in an apocalyptic video game. I walk the streets avoiding stumbling meth-twisted zombies, countering their approaches with English politeness and a smile that cracks my airplane-dry lips. I cast my eyes over the concrete Olympic Park and swerve to avoid Coca Cola World.
I'm almost relieved when my legs start to give way from exhaustion. I can legally (my own rules) go back to the hostel. I buy myself a pot of Ben and Jerry's and curl up in front of Friends.
Well, it ain't awll bad...
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label USA. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Is anybody else scared of America?
The week has passed like a slow-time camera shot of a highway; red and white headlights smearing into lines of hurried intention.
I've rushed from here to there in a smooth path from Lago Atitlan in Guatemala to San Cristobal in southern Mexico, and then to Mexico City via that old favorite… the womb-like night bus.
On Tuesday I will be flying to San Francisco, California, via Miami, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois. The decision, like most of mine, was fluid and fast, and the reasons why I did it have escaped me, like perpertrators at a crime scene.
Wednesday brings a new kind of life.
I am scared of the States. Simply the nickname 'America' makes me nervous - that pseudonym so easily grabbed, with no attention for the fact that Mexico and Canada are also both part of the continent of North America. I find myself face to face with the bully of school - a bully in the form of a too-clean, polished blonde with sharp nails and an alarming ignorance. I can feel her already looking down her nose at my ragged clothes, scraggly hair, small wallet.
I feel my loneliness when faced with her - that longing to be both at once a part of her and as far away from her as possible.
And yet she resides within me. Politics and stereotypes aside, I cannot deny my roots.
My mother's family is from Connecticut. I spent a shiny string of shimmering Christmasses there as a child, my once-a-year reconnections fading with the death of my mother in 2004. Since then, I have had little contact with her brothers and extended family, who still live along the east coast, and other than my brief sojourn to Texas at new year, no basis for adult interpretation of this country whatsoever.
Thus I am torn between the eyes of an impressionable child and an empassioned young woman - two fires within one girl.
America used to be magical. Literally.
One uncle had a mountainside log cabin in Vermont, the other a mansion in Virginia with a jacuzzi on the deck.
We would traipse through snow-glittered maple woods, ice-skating on frozen lakes and warming up by a log fire. My sister and I would have gifts lavished on us by my grandmother's friends, enraptured with the two little English girls who skipped through their neighbourhood every festive season. We were princesses and this land was everything our doodling imaginations could create.
America was fairy lights and snow boots, ice-cream parlours and new clothes, McDonalds happy meals and as much food as a greedy child could eat.
All that seems like another world. It has been frozen in black and white and archived deep in my mind, crumbling from reminiscence. The strange and unintentional severance of contact with half my family has had the effect of killing this country in my mind.
Mom's ashes are buried in Vermont. One day I will go.
Until then, my attitude has been to reject everything that country represents. Frequently mistaken as an American in the latin world, I quickly refute: "No soy gringa!" (I'm not a yank!)
I hide my passport like a sin.
From where comes this racism? For indeed that is what it is; just because the US is part of the 'first world' doesn't mean this worldwide xenophobia isn't in most cases as grossly misplaced as all other instances of race-based stereotyping.
Of course, aside from the bible bashing, gluttony and consumerism, the glaringly obvious answer is their interference overseas. They have become the world' s police force. And no one likes the pigs.
The sentiment, however, rather than outright racism, stems from a kind of advanced resentment borne of fear and helplessness.
It has grown surely and in many cases fiercely over the last years, particularly amongst my own generation of Europeans - which is of course the only voice I can really lay claim to understanding at this stage.
It appears to be fairly common to view Americans as, in the (fairly derogatory) words of my favorite comedian, "happy idiots." The natives themselves largely do not help their case, often remaining ignorant, particularly regarding the appalling state of international affairs wherever the US military is involved. Most of them do not even own a passport and show little interest in the world around them.
In contrast to skin-crawling atrocities such as Guantanamo Bay or the US funding of wars worldwide, the Americans we see on television build themselves an image of a happy, simple zombie, cooing under the power of the fluttering stars and stripes. They do not appear to have noticed that the governmental hold on their country is alarmingly similar to that of Germany in 1938.
Never has patriotism been so terrifying.
But. The big but.
I shrink from such wide-spread accusations of a nation.
How can I possibly write the above, let alone brand it to my name on the internet?! How could I possibly judge a nation of 300 million people on George Bush's delightfully-punchable face?
If this is the face of the States as seen from the outside, I cannot wait to see it from the inside. I cannot wait for my stereotype to be disproved. I cannot wait to meet the freedom-fighting gringos bubbling under the dead-pan of the newsreader's face.
I know that for whatever reason, my heart is drawing me there - even despite my somewhat irrational fears.
Yes, I am scared of returning to the 'real world'. In my eyes, I've been swimming happily in raw life juice for the last nine months. Those cold, clear waters are where I belong. I don't want to be drawn in to the sparkle of the new world. The idea of getting off the plane and spending a week's worth of Mexican accommodation money on a meal, just because its what people do, makes my breathing shallow.
Bigger fears lurk over the superficial ones. I am running out of money and don't know how to make it back. Thus America might be the end, at least for a while. Plus, facing the dream means disturbing it. Even if it is wonderful, it will still never be the same as it was as a child.
Even more daunting: Michael is getting ever more successful with his music. If he wants to pursue it, it seems like life will make it easy for him to do so in the Promised Land. But I don't want to settle yet.
So, once again, the bigger flows make themselves felt and having committed to following my own goals and heart there is nothing I can do but relax into them and see where they take me this time.
Your world is what you make of it… as every day here teaches me. If I'm scared, then those things will drill into my brain and leave holes, just as I fear. I need to remember that wherever my heart takes me I will be safe.
And what about Mexico… my love, my home.
In Mexico I feel like I have discovered the heart of the world.
There is just so much. I struggle to express the feeling Mexico inspires in me. It is universal love. I look at her swooping mountains, wild beaches, stark deserts, chattering jungles, and I can feel my whole body contract with yearning and respect.
More than just love, this feeling alone has led me to places previously unachievable during meditation and has been critical to my spiritual growth.
This kind of love is something I've only ever felt for the land around my house in Cornwall.
The energy fields across this enormous country sway and band like ribbons, streamlining the people underneath it and drawing them to exactly where they need to be.
There is a deep knowledge here, rising with the lava in its volcanoes.
Many things will come to pass in Mexico in the next few years. I feel the imposition of a future pushed and pulled by enormous forces; earthquakes, hurricanes, political explosion, people's rebellion. Water flows. Spirituality. The knowledge of the ancients, returning to imprint its symbols on a modern day nation of passion and raw beauty.
Somehow I know there is more for me here. Thus, I sign out under the knowledge that these winds will blow me right back here where I belong, as soon as I've gathered what I need from its bigger bitch of a sister.
Mexico, Mexico. I do not abandon you for her.
I leave as a messenger, of the strongest intentions. I will stay only long enough to pluck what I need for you and your people. I leave to learn - for how can I form a full picture of the world without having been?
Reading over the strangeness of these words, I wonder what I have to learn that is so important to bring me to California?
I've rushed from here to there in a smooth path from Lago Atitlan in Guatemala to San Cristobal in southern Mexico, and then to Mexico City via that old favorite… the womb-like night bus.
On Tuesday I will be flying to San Francisco, California, via Miami, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois. The decision, like most of mine, was fluid and fast, and the reasons why I did it have escaped me, like perpertrators at a crime scene.
Wednesday brings a new kind of life.
I am scared of the States. Simply the nickname 'America' makes me nervous - that pseudonym so easily grabbed, with no attention for the fact that Mexico and Canada are also both part of the continent of North America. I find myself face to face with the bully of school - a bully in the form of a too-clean, polished blonde with sharp nails and an alarming ignorance. I can feel her already looking down her nose at my ragged clothes, scraggly hair, small wallet.
I feel my loneliness when faced with her - that longing to be both at once a part of her and as far away from her as possible.
And yet she resides within me. Politics and stereotypes aside, I cannot deny my roots.
My mother's family is from Connecticut. I spent a shiny string of shimmering Christmasses there as a child, my once-a-year reconnections fading with the death of my mother in 2004. Since then, I have had little contact with her brothers and extended family, who still live along the east coast, and other than my brief sojourn to Texas at new year, no basis for adult interpretation of this country whatsoever.
Thus I am torn between the eyes of an impressionable child and an empassioned young woman - two fires within one girl.
America used to be magical. Literally.
One uncle had a mountainside log cabin in Vermont, the other a mansion in Virginia with a jacuzzi on the deck.
We would traipse through snow-glittered maple woods, ice-skating on frozen lakes and warming up by a log fire. My sister and I would have gifts lavished on us by my grandmother's friends, enraptured with the two little English girls who skipped through their neighbourhood every festive season. We were princesses and this land was everything our doodling imaginations could create.
America was fairy lights and snow boots, ice-cream parlours and new clothes, McDonalds happy meals and as much food as a greedy child could eat.
All that seems like another world. It has been frozen in black and white and archived deep in my mind, crumbling from reminiscence. The strange and unintentional severance of contact with half my family has had the effect of killing this country in my mind.
Mom's ashes are buried in Vermont. One day I will go.
Until then, my attitude has been to reject everything that country represents. Frequently mistaken as an American in the latin world, I quickly refute: "No soy gringa!" (I'm not a yank!)
I hide my passport like a sin.
From where comes this racism? For indeed that is what it is; just because the US is part of the 'first world' doesn't mean this worldwide xenophobia isn't in most cases as grossly misplaced as all other instances of race-based stereotyping.
Of course, aside from the bible bashing, gluttony and consumerism, the glaringly obvious answer is their interference overseas. They have become the world' s police force. And no one likes the pigs.
The sentiment, however, rather than outright racism, stems from a kind of advanced resentment borne of fear and helplessness.
It has grown surely and in many cases fiercely over the last years, particularly amongst my own generation of Europeans - which is of course the only voice I can really lay claim to understanding at this stage.
It appears to be fairly common to view Americans as, in the (fairly derogatory) words of my favorite comedian, "happy idiots." The natives themselves largely do not help their case, often remaining ignorant, particularly regarding the appalling state of international affairs wherever the US military is involved. Most of them do not even own a passport and show little interest in the world around them.
In contrast to skin-crawling atrocities such as Guantanamo Bay or the US funding of wars worldwide, the Americans we see on television build themselves an image of a happy, simple zombie, cooing under the power of the fluttering stars and stripes. They do not appear to have noticed that the governmental hold on their country is alarmingly similar to that of Germany in 1938.
Never has patriotism been so terrifying.
But. The big but.
I shrink from such wide-spread accusations of a nation.
How can I possibly write the above, let alone brand it to my name on the internet?! How could I possibly judge a nation of 300 million people on George Bush's delightfully-punchable face?
If this is the face of the States as seen from the outside, I cannot wait to see it from the inside. I cannot wait for my stereotype to be disproved. I cannot wait to meet the freedom-fighting gringos bubbling under the dead-pan of the newsreader's face.
I know that for whatever reason, my heart is drawing me there - even despite my somewhat irrational fears.
Yes, I am scared of returning to the 'real world'. In my eyes, I've been swimming happily in raw life juice for the last nine months. Those cold, clear waters are where I belong. I don't want to be drawn in to the sparkle of the new world. The idea of getting off the plane and spending a week's worth of Mexican accommodation money on a meal, just because its what people do, makes my breathing shallow.
Bigger fears lurk over the superficial ones. I am running out of money and don't know how to make it back. Thus America might be the end, at least for a while. Plus, facing the dream means disturbing it. Even if it is wonderful, it will still never be the same as it was as a child.
Even more daunting: Michael is getting ever more successful with his music. If he wants to pursue it, it seems like life will make it easy for him to do so in the Promised Land. But I don't want to settle yet.
So, once again, the bigger flows make themselves felt and having committed to following my own goals and heart there is nothing I can do but relax into them and see where they take me this time.
Your world is what you make of it… as every day here teaches me. If I'm scared, then those things will drill into my brain and leave holes, just as I fear. I need to remember that wherever my heart takes me I will be safe.
And what about Mexico… my love, my home.
In Mexico I feel like I have discovered the heart of the world.
There is just so much. I struggle to express the feeling Mexico inspires in me. It is universal love. I look at her swooping mountains, wild beaches, stark deserts, chattering jungles, and I can feel my whole body contract with yearning and respect.
More than just love, this feeling alone has led me to places previously unachievable during meditation and has been critical to my spiritual growth.
This kind of love is something I've only ever felt for the land around my house in Cornwall.
The energy fields across this enormous country sway and band like ribbons, streamlining the people underneath it and drawing them to exactly where they need to be.
There is a deep knowledge here, rising with the lava in its volcanoes.
Many things will come to pass in Mexico in the next few years. I feel the imposition of a future pushed and pulled by enormous forces; earthquakes, hurricanes, political explosion, people's rebellion. Water flows. Spirituality. The knowledge of the ancients, returning to imprint its symbols on a modern day nation of passion and raw beauty.
Somehow I know there is more for me here. Thus, I sign out under the knowledge that these winds will blow me right back here where I belong, as soon as I've gathered what I need from its bigger bitch of a sister.
Mexico, Mexico. I do not abandon you for her.
I leave as a messenger, of the strongest intentions. I will stay only long enough to pluck what I need for you and your people. I leave to learn - for how can I form a full picture of the world without having been?
Reading over the strangeness of these words, I wonder what I have to learn that is so important to bring me to California?
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