One Time On The Blue Line

Sometimes the City empowers me.

Makes me feel alive. Gives me a world that is diverse and serendipitous. A world that worships all things kinetic—that thrives off a constant energy and movement. The buildings in the sky, images reflected in the windows, the bright lights at night, the wide sidewalks, the passing cars and honking horns, the flashy downtown scene. Even the dirty city pigeons, their flapping wings and morning coo.

It makes me feel like I am part of something. And like I know the people.

My ears are filled with their voices—from the subway, to the street, to the coffee shop, to the café for lunch. I hear them on every corner, in every building. The pavement echoes their steps and conversations. We are not strangers, but exist in the same concrete elements of the City. There is no alone. There is no static. There is no pause. Never an hour that is still. And the commotion—I will always find, my loyal company.

But sometimes reflection evaporates; my thoughts become part of a white noise.

And then the City oppresses me.

Makes me feel disorientated. I get lost in that pandemonium and chaotic rhythm. My senses are numbed. Nothing comes through. Only a constant buzz of incoherent commotion. Sometimes I stop. Wherever I am. And I look around. I don’t know anyone. Nobody notices me. Nobody hears me. I am not sure what to listen for.

But today, I heard something. A tall figure came and stood next to me at the subway. He asked, “Did you hear that?” And I asked, “What?” He answered back, “That cricket.” “What; how can you hear that?” I asked. And he stated, “Because I chose to.”

I rolled my eyes. The City is filled with crazies too. I got on the Blue Line; the doors closed with a suction of air.

But did he really hear some damn cricket? As I stepped out into the morning city, in a moment of epiphany as my face felt the sunlight, I decided that he had spoken a truth.

Amidst all the noise of this place, within the limitations of our freedom and the boundaries of our life, in each day, there still exists that deliberation.

To some degree, deliberation about where to go, who to know, and what to hear, to see, to say, to do, to be…

Life is deliberation.

And that is another reason why I am in love with the City. Sometimes it makes me stop and think. Even if only for a brief moment. And I feel like I get it. Before the synthetic and artificial world continues to collapse and pursues its consumption.

Trips North

A few years ago I interviewed my grandparents for a personal project. In stamped envelopes, I sealed lists of questions asking about their lives, the people that had come and gone, the everyday mundane things, and the revelations of their eighty years thus far. I dropped these envelopes in a St. Paul USPS blue mailbox, to be carried to their P.O. Box up north.


In the fall of 2008 I made that trip north a few times, spending weekends with them in their quiet home. The sense of nostalgia I have on those northern roads, the surrounding and looming evergreens, and the dense, unruly growth of the maples and quacking aspens—it always makes me feel as if I’m in this faraway place, more than the short three hours it is from the Twin Cities. Those were some of my last visits while they were still in their own home.


Their yard was wooded and bordered by a slow-moving river. Birds twittered about feeders that my grandma always kept full. In the mornings my grandpa kept up with his morning routine of raking a 12X12 section of the yard. My grandma sometimes sat on a chair outside, her arthritic body bent over and digging out the fallowing leaves and stems in her flowerpots. Simple tasks, but how they brought accomplishment to the day.


Over the years, I’ve spent most holidays and many summer weekends in the northern parts of MN with my grandparents and family. But those fall weekends that I had alone with them were even more special than I expected. As we went over the questions, with my notepad in front of me, we talked…and talked. For hours! Into the night and beginning again in the morning. Mostly, I listened. Some stories were new and captivating; others were ones that I had heard many times before; and there were a few that took all my efforts to keep my attention to; but I listened.


The other day I came across an old black and white photo of my grandparents. It was one of the dusty shoebox treasures from those weekends. My grandpa had given it to me. In the photo they were young, no children yet, and picnicking on a checkered blanket. And so that photo just reminded me of those weekends. We have so much to share. What will we remember? I have their answers, and sometimes still look over them.


These are only a few of the discoveries that I made, but if I may share a few of their simple responses with you:


My grandma Sally told me:


My favorite scents are home baked bread and freshly cut grass.


My life motto is: “To they own self be true.” My father was the most honest person that I have known. The 10 Commandments were taken literally. He set a good example for me. We were very close. I was his favorite and I knew it.


My greatest fear is height. I am drawn, and I want to jump! And spiders too.


The best change in the world that I have lived through has been technology and going to the moon. The worst change I have lived through has been the evil of guns and killings and drugs on TV for children to see.


My favorite things about Harry are that he is so loyal and honest. It has been nice to spend a lifetime together. He has my best interest at heart and loves me, but doesn’t smother me.


My grandpa Harry told me:


My favorite holiday is Christmas. My dad would spend up to a dollar on a tree, and then he drilled holes in the trunk, where we stuck in branches that we’d gathered. Sally is a Christmas girl. She made and decorated everything just so; we always had a ball. Watching the kids open gifts is the best part. And watching the grandchildren open gifts always reminds me of my own.


I met Sally at my station, while putting air in her bicycle tire at age 16.


My favorite season is fall. There are still sunsets and it’s still partly summer. It reminds me of Sally’s parents; I got along with them. Her dad was my best fishing buddy, and we’d take them on trips with us.


In three words I would describe myself as honest, dependable, and reliable. I am there when I say I’ll be there, and I do what I say.


My advice in life is to not rush things. Don’t’ buy what you can’t pay for. And it’s not what you haven’t got; it’s what you’ve got left. Live life to the fullest; it goes quick (like a roll of toilet paper).


My goals for my eighth decade…I got what I wanted. I’m happy with what we’ve got.




There is nothing profound or novel about these words. Our stories have been lived before, and will be lived again. But still, how important they are. And I think my thoughts are with my grandparents now, because I haven’t seen them yet this spring, and I’m thinking that I’d like to make another trip north soon. I still have questions to ask, and silent moments in which I’d just like to be with them.

Immigration - Continued Thoughts

Effective questions are ones that take a long time to answer. Even if we don't find a solution, they help us to pay closer attention, to dig a little deeper.

Yet in the end, if we don't become the answer to the questions that we're asking, then it doesn't matter how good those questions are, because nothing will change.

“The US should send those immigrants packing back across the southern border.”

This recent statement from someone impassioned me to write my last blog. I wrote with the hope to bring some humanity to the issue, rather than firstly jumping into the legalities and statistics of immigration.

So let us firstly be aware of the importance of human dignity in approaching this issue. And with this compassion present, now I’m wondering what the realistic and effective solutions are for this phenomenon.

The U.S. cannot harbor all of the world’s impoverished and marginalized peoples.

And that’s not to say that immigration should be illegal.

Nor is it to say that the immigrants that come here to escape the poverty at home are even the most destitute. No. The poorest people have no way out. So, in some sense, the immigrants that are journeying here are “the better off ones.”

If that’s the case, then are we really making an effective impact by allowing a certain quota of immigrants to enter the U.S. each year? What about all the people that were turned away from our borders? And what about all the people that will never gain the resources and ability to even try to leave, or to change the deprived and distressed situations of their lives and country?

And nor am I intending to judge, accusing the U.S. of not making efforts to reach out and to help those that reach to us with their hands open, asking and waiting.

I’m simply writing, because I don’t have all the questions or answers, but as a combined force, I think we could. And I’m hoping to encourage further debate and awareness on the subject.

How can we fulfill our responsibility in this world issue? How can we foster a positive impact of change and humanity (and not one of paternalism) within these impoverished countries, striving to make a better life for those who have been cast aside?

What power of change is the U.S. capable of in this situation?

“Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for—because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.” ~Peter Marshall

Immigrant

Today I heard an individual claim that “the US should send those immigrants packing back across the southern border.”

Wow.

I’m not going to ramble on about the politics and legality of immigration; rather I’m going to try to bring some humanity to the issue.


If you were the marginalized, that came from a broken country, in the hemisphere with the highest murder rates; from a place where poverty is institutionalized, where the environment is irrevocably degraded; from a corrupt government with polarized politics, and where the economy is an avaricious predator…

Wouldn’t you try to get out?

Wouldn’t you try to make the world your f–ing oyster too?

Yeah. Your oyster. That’s how we U.S. citizens view life, right? “The world is your oyster”, a.k.a., you can do anything, achieve anything, you can be all that you can be, you can believe in change yes you can, you can change yourself—you can change the world! (And here the heavens burst into a celestial sky, and the angels sing, “God bless America”, as we look out on the great frontier of our Western World.)

But are we a great nation? To these people that journey here with different hopes and ideas, their open asking hands held out and waiting, do we meet them with our single clenched fist lifted and ready? Is this the great US of A?

An immigrant is not a “they” or “them”; they are a “you” and “me”, for we all live a life filled with such commonalities as our families, friends, goodness, cruelty, hopes, fears, dreams, and thoughts. If we further marginalize these immigrants, we turn our back on responsibility. We only dig a deeper pit of poverty and deprivation for part of humanity to return to and to be engulfed by.

But I believe that we can do better. “We do big things. The idea of America endures.” We are a great nation; we have done great things; we will do great things.

Unfortunately though, we have done terrible things as well. And for these actions, we are accountable to both hemispheres. Some of the countries south of the US border, many of their sufferings from poverty and corruption, the US has been a lead perpetrator. Our country—the USA—has had a greedy hand, and thus, has been an instigator of the impoverished and grim conditions of the lives that have been marginalized and cast aside.

History and Politics are difficult subjects to study. It’s a challenge to know and to understand all the facts and consequences. But I think there’s enough information out there, and that most of us have the ability to determine some crucial facts, and to find some truth in these matters.

Ask yourself, “Do we know the role that the US has played in the history of these countries—how our country has affected the economies, governments, cultures, and lives of other countries?”

My 24 years hardly make me an expert on these issues; so I won’t attempt to ramble on about the facts and dates. But do your research; try to understand what it might be like to leave the familiarity of your own country; try to comprehend some of the truer causes of immigration. Briefly skim some of the links below, and further investigate the United State’s involvement in this hemisphere.

And let us always think of this:

How will we treat those in the shadows of life? That is our moral test in life. That will determine the content of our character. May we challenge our self to add new life and opportunity to the lives—the years that remain—of those immigrants who cross borders, who risk and lose more than we may know, in order to arrive in our nation.


“There is a destiny that makes us brothers:

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others

Comes back onto our own.”

~Edwin Markham


School of Americas
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=School_of_the_Americas
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Terrorism/SOA.html

El Salvador
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Oscar%20_Romero.html
http://www.credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=396:lessons-of-el-mozote&catid=97&Itemid=122

Guatemala
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/US_Guat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'état
http://www.content4reprint.com/recreation-and-leisure/travel/united-fruit-company-in-guatemala-us-invasion-for-a-bunch-of-bananas.htm

Nicaragua
http://www.soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=325

Argentina
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124125440