Open Letter to Red States Revisited

Here we go again…

There is a letter going around. An updated version of the same letter that came out after Barack Obama was elected in 2008. It goes on and on about what is wrong with the red states, many of them southern, and what is right about the blue states, many of them northeastern. The only problem with its logic, or lack thereof, is that blue states are mostly blue cities surrounded by red countryside. Granted, this is coming from someone who now lives in Ohio, in a blue city, who was born in Florida, in a blue town, and who was raised in Louisiana, in the bluest city ever, which has as much to do with the surrounding water as with political preferences. 

The “open letter” is supposed to be funny, I know. And yet, I take it now just like I did in 2008: as divisive, troublesome, wrong-headed, and not really all that funny. Besides, if the blue states separated themselves from the red states, they’d miss out on Delta blues, Mardi Gras Indians, Dixieland jazz, hushpuppies, cornbread, soft-shell blue crab and some of that other gorgeous seafood that only comes from the Gulf of Mexico and the gorgeous meals that are only cooked up and served in the south, and a way of life that is based on a sense of place and a slower rhythm and neighbors that call to each other from their porches and stoops to come have an iced coffee, a slice of pecan pie.  

The south defines who a lot of us are, and despite what self-righteous, blue-minded folks might think, I would move back home in a minute, to the big bathtub of wrong-minded, red-tinted fools. Because no matter where we live, we surround ourselves with like-minded friends, and if you have to color your friends, mine are of many hues, none of which include blue or red. How about the black and gold of a football team?  How about the rose-gold of a sunset over the Mississippi River? How about the dark brown roux of a shrimp-and-okra gumbo? Those colors make a lot more sense to me.  

There’s no less appreciation for all that is northeastern. When we want to see Broadway shows, hear Harvard lectures, eat Maine lobster, we’ll go and visit our friends in the so-called blue states, which are perhaps known better for their wry humor, intellectual asides, and cerulean waterways. We don't have to live there to share the same views. But we also don’t have to be unkind to each other, based on where we live or come from or would rather be.

Just sayin’.

Annie, Sandy, Chloe

Annie Liebovitz’s exhibition of her Master Set opened at the Wexner Center for the Arts in September.  Hordes of beautiful and not-so-beautiful people showed up for the opening night to view the beautiful and not-so-beautiful people, the made-immortal icons of Annie’s art.  The Cashes and Carters, the Obamas, the Neville Brothers.  Meryl, Nicole, Whoopi.  Emmylou, Lucinda, Roseanne, Patti.  John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Billy Carter and Margaux Hemingway, Meg and Jack White.  Soldiers, heads of state, longhorn steers, poets, politicians and their brothers, singers, dancers, cyclists, weightlifters, actors, artists.  Indeed, Annie has described hers as “a life through a lens.”

Then came October, which ended in a storm of the century, though we seem to be having a lot of those lately.  Katrina, Ike, Isaac, others in between.  And then, like a sister that no one paid enough attention to, that sat around and fed off too many wrong-headed ideas about hurricanes, who loaded up on fistfuls of salted fish and seaweed, Sandy punched her way through the Caribbean and past the Carolina coast to fall hard on the Northeast, slapping Virginia and D.C. on her way up to New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.  Not a nice girl. 

Chloe is complicated, but November seems to have given her enough room to settle in.  Not that she wasn’t already settled in.  A tuxedo cat of large proportion and larger personality, Chloe seems to have decided that biting is indeed her preferred form of communication, the food bowl can never be full enough, and reaching through the open back of a chair to swat at fine-spun sweaters or corduroy trousers or whatever passes by is terribly pleasing.  Much more pleasing than chasing the field mouse up the serviceberry tree and hours later giving up the pursuit to boredom.

Three autumn months gone, gone, going.  Three names.  Annie, Sandy, Chloe.  Artist, storm, feline.  Each has owned the world in her exceptional way.  Vision, destruction, insistence.  Focus, deluge, seduction.  Film, surge, teeth.

What I've Been Meaning to Say

There's so much I've been meaning to write, say, sing, dance that I've become overwhelmed and haven't written anything. Instead of veering away once again, I'll forgive myself and report less eloquently than I'd wished and simply list what I've been meaning to write, say, sing. Dancing will just have to stay in the kitchen, where it belongs.

• Perigee Moon 2012 - afternoon shadows at midnight
• Kennedy Space Center - a kid's dream realized 40 years later
• Falcon 9 Rocket - how space exploration has evolved
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - "the Sixth Borough"
• Holding one's tongue - think of how thoughtful that is
• How amazing silence can be - proverbial pin dropping
• Not holding one's tongue - dangerous
• How some words are louder than others - fireflies vs. fireworks
• Drinking Blanton's bourbon - sipping, really
• Baseball! - the boy's final high school season
• The beach - fishermen at 6 am, sharing bait with a wounded heron
• Reading hundreds of manuscripts - exaggerating
• Longing to read the story collections and novels on my shelves, and then reading more manuscripts - not exaggerating - Megan Mayhew Bergman, Caitlin Horrocks, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Lori Ostlund, Myfanwy Collins, Claire Keegan, Nell Freudenberger, and Shannon Cain are just some of the authors whose books are waiting
• Spending far too much time on unimportant things - Facebook
• Proofing galleys - and compromising on edits
• Discovering "En Couleurs" - les chansons de Feufollet!
• Writing, not writing enough - the novel
• Thinking too much - the novel
• Submitting stories - not the novel
• Coming up with a plan - at the end of each day for the next
• Heading into days of graduations and goodbyes - how to cry while laughing
• Summertime - the weather and the song

And that list is long enough.