Fourteen some-odd months ago, the Seventh Borough News was last published on this site, urging our fellow Americans to get out and vote, on the eve of a national election of epic scale and vitriol. Little did I know at the time, that GOTV effort would galvanize over 3 million ‘illegal’ votes to be cast for one of the candidates. I had no idea my readership was so impactful.
But then things went dark.
And there’s been no blogging for a year and change. And it’s not for lack of interest or lack of desire. I even considered starting a second blog, with a different theme – wait, I know what you’re thinking, this blog has a theme?? – but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t do everything all at once. Or even any one thing at once, most days. So I tell my half-dozen loyal readers to go vote and then I leave you in the lurch with no comment on the outcome.
It went a little something like this: Election day comes and I take the kids to the polls with me, and the hubs, because he’s off to the Amtrak right after we vote for a business trip. We’re at the polling place for six AM and I’m voter #13. I took it as a lucky sign. Drop the kids off, drop the hubs off, go to work, come home, pick up the kids, eat dinner, put them to bed and turn on the news.
Turn off the news, go to bed, wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom (welcome to life after two c-sections), check my phone and see who was declared the victor and 45th president of the United States. Oh, it was that guy who graced all the local NY papers throughout my childhood for being obnoxious and ostentatious. Classy. You know how the rest of this went down.
The next year was bumpy, contentious, border-line humane and full of so much anger. There’s rioting in the streets, and crying in the streets, people being mowed down in the streets, gunned down at church, at concerts, there are wildfires, mudslides, multiple hurricanes, major confusion as to which Caribbean islands are American territory and tiki torches being used for non-tiki like purposes. I read a full and recently published article on how to survive a nuclear bomb attack. The good news is that my basement has thick concrete walls and is below ground level. The bad news is that I work in a glass high-rise in Times Square. It was a rough year to be a person. And that’s just the first world.
This time doesn’t seem like a year, but a string of days fading in and out. There’s always more to do, deadlines, responsibilities, a reason to get out of bed, a reason to stay in bed a little longer. Lie in and listen to the scrape-scrape of metal shovels against icy flagstone front steps in the dead of winter. Listen to the sweet birdsong of spring through open windows. Listen to the tipsy banter of a neighbor’s gone-way-too-late summer backyard soiree. Listen to rustle of dry fall leaves and the revving-up of leaf-blowers. Listen to the soft whirring of the motors of those oversized blow-up Christmas lawn decor balloons, only a true outer-borougher could love/tolerate/encourage. And here we are again, listening to the chained wheels of the snowplow barreling down the slushy street.
Over the past fourteen months, we were all telling each other to get out and have your voices heard, scream louder than the next guy, shout it from the rooftops! And beneath much of the noise was anger, and beneath the anger is fear, and beneath the fear is misunderstanding and mistrust, and beneath all that is our inability to be united and collective, and which leaves only the capacity for self-interest and single-mindedness.
Over the past fourteen months, we were all telling each other to get out and have your voices heard, scream louder than the next guy, shout it from the rooftops! And beneath much of the noise was anger, and beneath the anger is fear, and beneath the fear is misunderstanding and mistrust, and beneath all that is our inability to be united and collective, and which leaves only the capacity for self-interest and single-mindedness.
So for 2018, let’s try to stop out-talking each other, out sound-biting each other, out-raging each other and just listen. Listen to your neighbors, Listen to the change of the seasons. Listen to the world outside your own echo chamber. Listen to the sound of someone else's voice, and the emotions buried within. Listen to what’s being said, and especially to what’s not being said. Let’s listen to each other, and therein, we can be heard.
