A Close But Uneasy Relationship

Whenever I travel, I invariably learn things not only about myself, but about my relationship with others. This vacation is no exception. I am being bombarded with revelations about two significant relationships in my life - one not currently active and one ongoing.

But the funny thing - in both cases, the other party is not a person.

One relationship, the inactive one, is between myself and the hotel industry. The other day I was listening to "You Really Got a Hold On Me" (hey, I forgot to bring my MP3 connector cord, so I have to listen to the SAME songs that I downloaded a month ago) and it made me smile - that's about how I feel. It's like an exciting bad boy lover that is so much more fun, yet SUCH a pain in the ass than the easy, placid (that's a pl, ha) boring nice guy. I love teaching college classes but I just don't get the juice from teaching about business as I did when I was IN it.

The other relationship - the ongoing one - is with my country. I love it, I generally respect its laws (although 25 mph in Wintersville is ridiculous), I want very much to stay in it, but frankly, I'm very angry at it. And I'm not sure what to do with that anger, where to go with it.

Last September I wrote a post, Patriotism - Another Facet of the Melting Pot in which I said that there are two circumstances that have influenced me and my attitude towards my country:

1. being the granddaughter of four people who gave up everything and everyone they knew to come to America and thanked God every day of their lives for the opportunity to do so

2. being reared during the turbulent 60's, where, possibly for the first time, the warts, mistakes and wrongdoings of our country were made public - widely and loudly.

The effect of the first circumstance causes me to tear up at the Star Spangled Banner and to want, with my whole heart, to believe and follow our leaders.

The effect of the second circumstance causes me to understand that my duty as a citizen is not to 'tow the line' but to let my country know when I think it is fucking up - widely and loudly.

But, back to that geographical perspective change -
There is a third circumstance that has an influence on my relationship with my country just as deep as the first two, and that is:

3. Living in Hawaii for twenty years, and in rural Hawaii for seventeen of those years

Whether you want to hear this or not, whether you need to spin it some other way or not, the truth is - the US and its citizenry has NOT done right by Hawaii and Hawaiians. Historically, it's pretty much undisputable fact (don't EVEN try to argue the point if you are not Hawaiian or if you have never lived there) and in my opinion, continues to do so, not illegally but by our propensity for that "we know what's best for everyone" attitude that we tend to go a little overboard with.

I don't know. Sigh...

Blind allegiance drives me nuts so spare me all your "America, Love it Or Leave It" bumpersticker baloney. Also, I get just as irritated at my farther-to-the-left friends who feel that putting it down no matter what is somehow intellectually cool. This post is really not about politics - it's about a relationship. One that I need to work on, I guess.

Apologies for the rambling. It's been a tough week for that relationship. Spend 4th of July with the conservative end of the family - we all got to shoot a Magnum 44, the women all showed me their little hanguns and I swear, my cousin's husband probably belongs to some secret militia. We prayed and thanked Jesus for the USA and for the safety of the citizens (and I KNOW that prayer did not include the colorful or sexually questionable ones). But the food was good and my liberal uncle and I sneaked away whenever we could.

But then there was yesterday...

For the first time, I saw the Statue of Libery. For the first time, I visited Ellis Island. Has anyone been to Ellis? I swear, you can literally "feel" its history. Or maybe that's just because it is my history. It was very, very emotional for me. I kept thinking of my grandparents, who I was very close to. I remembered that my grandmother had a cheap grocery store portrait of JFK hanging on her living room wall for over ten years. And how she was always naming pets Rosey, and I learned that it was the closest she could come to pronouncing Roosevelt.

I don't know...

Am still confused. But I'll get it figured out. And today, Central Park and Ground Zero awaits us. And meeting a friend.

I'll get back to ya on this perplexing Marti + USA relationship.

No editing this time - grammar police: take a break today.