America, My Beautiful Ruin

 

America has always been complicated, unpredictable, a little wild. It’s stitched into her very fabric. Mood swings, unruly behavior, followed by moments of beauty and radiance. Kindness and cruelty. Then, hopefully—clarity.

In the summer of 1976, when we celebrated her last big birthday, I was twenty-two and had just returned from a year abroad. I arrived in New York City to discover it had fallen into a state of disarray, if not ruin. President Ford famously refused to bail out our bankrupt city and left us with streets filled with trash and rats.

That summer as New York prepared to celebrate America’s 200th birthday—as the tall ships sailed beneath the Verrazzano Bridge and then up the Hudson—a sinister malaise descended over our streets.

Although, the tourists seemed to enjoy the spectacle--a much needed distraction after Watergate and Vietnam—but many of us were unmoved. This, despite the Bee Gees telling us that we should be dancing, dancing, dancing. Many of us just weren’t in the mood.

We looked for work and a cheap place to lay our heads. We navigated the fetid streets of the Village, untold dangers huddling in the darkness.

We were oblivious to the fact that a killer was in our midst, that Son of Sam had already begun his tenure. Still, some of us could smell death in the air and we grew cynical.

By 1980, Reagan was in the White House and it seemed as if all our friends had cut their hair short and slicked it back and gone and got themselves an M.B.A. along with a job on Wall Street, making a ton of money. This paid for the truckload of coke and the stamina to dance all night at Studio 54, finally succumbing to the clarion call of disco.

Creative Friends--yes, our country is unruly and undisciplined. She has mood swings and she’s most certainly unfinished. But at 250 years old, she is still quite young.

Let’s not give up on her. Rather, let’s stay hopeful. Watch for better days—because like the wayward daughter, your country will return from her extended sojourn and she will be smarter and stronger for having gone on her very strange voyage.

Love,

Jamie