The world does not revolve around us

How creativity and community is the antidote to despair.

I was out of the country when 9/11 happened. Stranded in Caracas on a business trip and desperate to come home, there weren’t any planes flying into NYC that week. I don’t speak Spanish and spent my evenings alone in a hotel room glued to reruns of Friends because it was the only English-speaking show I could find. It might be sitcom fluff about fake New York, but it made me feel a little less homesick, a little less lonely. It feels a bit self-centered to say that as a New Yorker, I grieved that I wasn’t in the city when 9/11 happened, but it’s true. Being surrounded by voices in a language you don’t understand is a surreal kind of isolation and it’s absolutely humbling.

Our wealthy client kept sending us off to places in Venezuela on small aircrafts, which was the last thing I wanted, but they didn’t know what to do with us. I kept bursting into tears at their offices but was too bereft to feel embarrassed that I was crying in front of them. Ultimately, they pulled some strings and got me on an empty flight a week later. It was the only time I ever flew first class.

I was thinking about 9/11 because it feels like the last time I can remember the country having some semblance of unity—with a caveat and acknowledgement that this was not the experience of Muslim Americans who experienced backlash and Islamaphobia. Twenty four years later and the wounds are still weeping. This country has always had this need to pit ourselves against groups it wants to vilify. Being othered and having to prove again and again that you belong here is the American experience. It’s been my experience at various times in my life too. That said, it felt like we had more compassion and empathy back then for our fellow Americans, perhaps because it was driven by shared sadness, fear, and yes, patriotism, after an unspeakable tragedy.

When my family and I landed in London two weeks ago and checked into our hotel early Wednesday morning, the front desk clerk mentioned something about fires in California when he learned that we were Americans. We had no idea what he was referring to and thought he was making a comment about climate change and wildfires in general. Odd, but ok. Who could have predicted that over the course of a seven hour plane ride that tens of thousands of acres in L.A. would burn down?

The lack of choices in news coverage about the fire on my hotel TV was frustrating at first, but only because I’m used to 24/7 coverage from a multitude of media outlets. It wasn’t until I logged onto my social media feeds a few days later that I saw the ugliness of the American blame game and a lack of compassion for Californians already set ablaze. A shitstorm in the middle of a firestorm.

Everything in our country is fodder for politicized battles. Climate tragedies, shootings, vaccines, our gender, our bodies. It’s blue states vs. red, urban vs. rural, the haves vs. the have-nots. While we’re not technically at civil war shooting bullets at each other, we’re increasingly split along political lines, cultural divides, and sociopolitical ideology. So it was refreshing to be outside of the American bubble for even just a week and see for ourselves that the world does not revolve around us. I felt a similar respite when I was in South Korea two years ago. To get outside perspective that the American way is not the only way. It felt like being able to breathe.

I acknowledge that visiting is different from living and we’re insulated from the dysfunction of other governments and systems. There may be “happier” countries and certainly safer places to live, but no country is a utopia. The reality of our government setting a dangerous precedent for other democracies that are equally as fragile underscores how our elections have global implications for geopolitics and the environment. This is why the world watches.

But the world also questions how we can allow ourselves to live this way and expresses gratitude that they do not. They do not envy our politics, our guns, and our healthcare system (and I got an earful of that when I had to unexpectedly go to the hospital in the middle of the night in London). Once admired, now we’re pitied. When confronted with these hard truths, it hurts. I don’t know what to say. I can’t defend our country anymore. We have no answers other than to shrug and point to greed, lack of education and critical thinking, apathy, and a percentage of Americans who voted it all in and the nearly 90 million who didn’t vote at all. Our government is now owned by the rich for the benefit of the wealthy.

I don’t know what the point of this week’s newsletter is other than to share with you my thoughts and extend a hand to others who are also feeling adrift and sad at this moment. I’m guessing this is why some of us still doomscroll on social media in the hopes of finding some community and hope.

And this is how we’ll get through the next few years: local and state elections, donating time and money, and checking in on your friends and neighbors who are directly affected by the executive orders. Community is critical right now, whether it’s with one other human or ten or one hundred. These are our safe spaces.

This is how L.A. will heal and rebuild, and this is how we’ll hold hope during a time filled with uncertainty. Small acts of kindness and humanity can break through indifference and weariness. Communities and third places used to anchor our relationships; technology has had a role in their decline. But creativity and community is still the antidote to despair. Check in on your people. Lean on each other. It’s where real change and moments of joy can still happen.

Europeans are built different. It was freezing cold the entire week we were in London (mid 30s as a high) and Londoners still dined outside.

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Related reading

Decoupling

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A huge roundup of links

What I read this week:

• How Art Lost Its Way - An unserious culture lacks the ability to sustain high art. (Persuasion)
  An essay exploring the importance of criticism in the arts, how it led us to new and challenging work, and why art in America has stagnated.

• Factchecking Trump’s inauguration speech, from inflation to healthcare (Guardian)
  No, I did not watch the inauguration, but yes, I did check in with the news later that evening. Oof. I found this factchecking helpful.

• An Odyssey By Rail - Witnessing America and ourselves as Trump takes office (In Retrospect)
  Just read it. A beautiful soul searching essay from Frederick Joseph about an encounter with a stranger on an Amtrak that opened vantage points into two different lives.

• The tech billionaire war on "woke" is really targeting workers - Mark Zuckerberg wants "masculine energy" and "aggression" at the office—sounds like a toxic workplace. (Salon)
  I have so much to say about this, but won’t right now.

• Indivisible - Resources, local groups, and action items in response to this administration. What I also found really helpful is this primer on how our constitution works. How many of us remembers civics from high school? I don’t! We can all use a refresher.

What I watched:

• We lost a great creative visionary in David Lynch. I went back and rewatched this conversation about ideas with Paul Holdengräber at BAM:

• Arrival was the movie I watched on my flight last week (that and the new Alien—guess there was a theme to my in-flight entertainment). Released in 2016, I hadn’t even heard of it before. It was such an interesting, slow-burn sci-fi film about language and how it shapes us. Amy Adams stars as a linguistics professor hired by the U.S. government to decipher an alien language when a dozen spacecrafts descend on earth.

What we ate:

• Miso Mushroom and Leek Pasta (NYT Cooking—hope the gift link works)
  My 20 year old made this for dinner one night and it was so hearty and delicious. Miso was the surprise ingredient here, coating the noodles to make a complex flavored sauce that really brought out the mushrooms.

Supporting L.A. fire victims:

Lots of donation link roundups out there and the news cycle has largely moved on, but people still need help. Here are a few that may not have made the rounds:

• Eaton Fire Found Lost Pets (Instagram) An account to connect lost pets to their owners.

• Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory – Altadena is a historically Black community and a lot of history and generational homeownership was lost. Here’s a directory of families in need of assistance.

• Find Resources and Support for L.A. Artists Affected by the Wildfires (Colossal)

And lastly…

• This thread gave me life and lots of laughs. The comments were GOLD.