A Different Kind of Independence Day

We went to a neighborhood Independence Day party last night. Everyone decked in their best red-white-and-blue attire. There were vanilla cream puffs and strawberries, summer cocktails and free beer - all the American staples of a good summer bbq. 

We even had a DJ and people danced. It was great fun. 

It was supposed to be great fun, that is, until you started to think about it for a minute. I had been thinking about it for days, weeks in fact. I had been thinking about how this year, in particular, I don’t have anything to celebrate on July 4th. What am I to celebrate? The loss of freedom that I feel every day? The corner of the world that I am in that is shrinking as I see it? 

Waking up this weekend, every day, I have been opening the news with fear: I know the weekend is full of parades and community events. I am opening the news thinking “I wonder how many mass shootings we’ll have today?” That’s no reason for celebration. 

The DJ opened his set with the “God Bless America” song. The lyrics went something like this and some people swayed and sang along: “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free” - and all I could do was to look around and say “Well, I am an American and I don’t feel all that free. Our black neighbors don’t feel free. Our gay friends don’t feel so free. What is this day for and who is supposed to celebrate it, exactly? White straight men, maybe, even those ...?” It’s harder and harder to drink to that ...

Earlier in the year I bought a cute summer top that is more or less patriotic - especially for this neighborhood party last night. But I could not bring myself to wear it. I could not let my eyes bleed with donning the colors Americans feel so much pride about on my body. At least I have that freedom for now, to wear what I want and the patriotic attire was not mandatory. 

I know things are so much worse elsewhere, but it’s still gut-wrenching to witness the one country in the world that consistently has sent their men and women to die protecting other countries’ democracies (or so we’re told) botch a little bit of its own democracy. Every. Single. Day. I thought it was painful to be born in bondage and un-freedom, in the middle of the Romanian communist era. But it is infinitely more heart-breaking and painful to lose the freedom you had. The freedom you moved hell and high water to get and protect (by voting if nothing else). The freedom you’ve built your life on.  

This year, I cannot “celebrate” in the proper sense of the word. It’ll be a low key, just-the-two of us kind of celebration on this day, outside of that neighborhood party which we joined to say hi to friends. The patriotic napkins laying on my table are just for those people like me, who dreamed about what this country could be. For those people who came here full of hope, hoping, banking on freedom and who feel hurt and cheated and wronged. Also for the people who are born here and who are wronged by this politocracy without end in sight. Make no mistake: there is no democracy (the word “demos” means “people” in Greek) in America. What rules this country is the almighty dollar and the people in high-places on the political ladder. I thought, like millions of others, that “we the people” can make a country. But alas we have been lied to ... 

This year, I am wearing black for Independence Day and thinking of Mr. Johnny Cash. If I could sing along to a song, I’d sing this one, with a small change: 

“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down

Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town

I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime

But is there because he's a victim of the times

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose

In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes

But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back

Up front there ought to be a Girl In Black

And I wear it for the thousands who have died

Believin' that the Lord was on their side

I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died

Believin' that we all were on their side

Well, there's things that never will be right I know

And things need changin' everywhere you go

But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right

You'll never see me wear a suit of white

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day

And tell the world that everything's okay

But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back

'Til things are brighter, I'm the Girl In Black”

Someone smarter than me said it best: there is quite “a distance between the American Dream and the American reality ...”  nowadays. (Bruce Springsteen while speaking to Barack Obama).

Historical Amnesia. How America Lost Its Way

What I wish that my family's 42 (and my 15) years of living in an authoritarian regime can teach America today

“ Ignorance can make us foot soldiers for unworthy causes. “ - Tara Westover, “Educated”

I was in college in Romania, studying to get my English major, when this American professor from Texas came to speak with us. One of the students asked him what is the biggest difference between Romania and America, and he said: “Well, you guys are many years behind America in many ways but you are not focusing your efforts into being more advanced than you are. Instead, you think your strength is in speaking about how glorious your past was. You always speak about your history and your past. But in America, let me tell you, the average American who walks down the street and enjoys their juicy burger at McDonald's and shoots their rockets into space doesn’t give a crap about history or how glorious or not that was.” I am sure I was not the only one in the audience who cringed a little and found his statement so cheapening coming from a representative of a nation most of us revered. Now, 20 some years later, I cringe still.

Nowadays, I cringe because I see the sad, the painful, the sometimes irreversible effects of so many years, decades of average Americans not giving a crap about their country’s and the world’s history. Americans find more interest in a cheap reality show displaying daily from the White House, from an accidental bug landing on a VP’s head on national television than spending the same amount of time and energy learning about history and worrying about where their present history is taking them. But that is another topic for another blog.

If you’re born in a small country like Romania, a country that has been the victim of many historical accidents and horrors, you are not only following history. It’s ingrained in your DNA. You breathe it, you eat it for breakfast and for every meal. It’s your duty since birth to preserve it, carry it on and ensure you won’t repeat it. It’s a requirement and an unwritten order to sheer survival.

For the first 15 years of my life, I was brought up in the worst years of Communist Romania, the dying years. For those who think Communism and Socialism are the same thing, they are not. I know, you don’t follow history, but I’ll say just this for your education: the difference between Communism and Socialism is that between China and France. It’s that between Cuba and Canada or Sweden. Not. The. Same. Thing. It was not only a Communist regime, but one of the worst authoritarian regimes in the history of the world. Communism is rarely if ever non-authoritarian. I learned to grow up guarded, with no trust in anyone who was not myself, not even in my parents and grandparents. I grew up in fear, and in lacking. We lacked food, running water (although the plumbing was there), soap , toilet paper, decency, dignity, and above all freedom. Not only freedom to read what we wanted and speak what we wanted, but freedom to think.

During that time I was coming of age and I started asking questions. I never understood how one person with just a handful of people just as evil as himself could control the millions of Romanians in the country. How a country that calls themselves “democratic” (which means “demos+kratos” = the power of the people) can become so swiftly “autocratic” (the power of one). How one person can impose such a rule of fear when the rule was crushing the very humanity and human dignity that I felt we should all have and respect in one another. I never understood, until the days of the Revolution of December 1989, why people cannot just kick this person and his handful of acolytes out and start fresh with a new era, when pretty much everyone in the street knew his regime was wrong and crushing. I had the same questions then about why Hitler, who was allegedly elected in free elections, could not be stopped by his own people before he ruined half of the world and a whole nation in particular. I could not understand how authoritarianism can be instated when most people should see it coming like a freight train.

Today’s America, the past several years, mostly, has shown me just how this can happen. Little by little, every day, every piece of news that comes across the wires shows me (and should show all of us, as a nation) how this happens. To me, it’s written on the wall in plain, simple English. Second-grade level plain English.  

This is what this blog is about. I will tell you things that have become the new normal for this country and are things that I lived only during my Communist years in Romania. I command you, American folks, to really shut the world off for a minute, shut off Facebook, and Twitter, and Instagram and really, really think about these things. Decide whether you want your country to head into the direction that so many other authoritarian regimes lead many other countries in this world. Imagine you are multiplied into millions of people that want the same thing. Would you want yourself to be a victim of such a ruling? Just think. Then act. 

Like 1945 when a weakened Romania after the world war needed to fill a void with some ideal and just like the 1930’s when Germany needed a new ideal to believe in (I know, this is not as juicy as a McDonald's burger, it’s history, but bear with me), we are at crossroads in America today. We are in turmoil and we need to fill a void. But with what we’re filling it, what direction we choose from here on out will not only change what we have today, but will pen the destiny of this country, and of the world, not for years, but for generations to come. Unfortunately, in moments like these, the guy with the loudest rhetoric is not the good guy.  Maybe it’s not too late for America to choose the right way. But what I see seems far too gone. “Maybe” sounds optimistic.

I do need to add this one disclaimer: this is not, by any means, democratic (or "liberal") propaganda. I believe that some democrats have their blame in this, too. What follows is my truth, the one I have lived myself, proven by history. I am no one’s tool or messenger. I am sharing what I have seen and experienced myself and what my parents and grandparents experienced before me. And I will add that I am incredibly grateful that despite it all today, I am not afraid for my life when I write and post these thoughts on an open blog. At least not yet. 

So, here is my list of things that you and I live with today that I only lived once before, during my life in Authoritarian Communist Romania, arguably the darkest time of my life:

• Votes are a total waste and a cheap fake show of fake democracy. They can be sold, thrown into the garbage and completely disregarded. Even when intelligence shows they were stolen, those instated in power are allowed to proceed with the fake results because the one person says so. What is the point? – you might ask. The voting process is always allowed to proceed even in an authoritarian regime to keep the appearance of a democracy. But the inner workings of it all are gutted of fairness.
• There is no person higher than the one in charge in the president’s mansion, whatever you call that. No person nor law above their head.
• All foreign powers are evil and want us harm. Those who destabilize the country are foreign powers and not his own forces and personnel. Divisive propaganda to ensure absolute power is installed: “Trust us, not them” becomes the battle cry.
• Every country in the world is our enemy except those that have an authoritarian regime in power.
• The country leader puts his own family members and close friends in power positions even when everyone in the country understands that they are all grossly under- or non-qualified. Such concepts like “conflict of interest” are derided and perceived as destabilizing.
• The country leader lavishes in gold while the country lives paycheck to paycheck. Food stamps, homelessness are foreign concepts to the man in charge and he wishes to destroy any mere mention of them as a personal shame to his own regime, instead of acknowledging them as a fact and asking how he can help. He displays complete and utter lack of empathy which is poisonous for a “service” job as that of a democratic president.
• He favorizes the wealthy and the few to the detriment of the many and the poor.
• The regime dehumanizes people, whether they are innocent or proven guilty. People are  put in camps, or cages – units of sheer terror. In these camps, they break families up and sort people by sex (men separated from women) instead of trying them and following human-right principles of the law as agreed upon by all countries of the democratic world.
• The country leader demands people and the military to participate in lavish and expensive parades to celebrate himself, complete with tanks and the military to display his power, not the country’s achievements (very different concepts!).
• Intellectuals (yeah, those people we should listen to because they read history) flee the country as a last resort, seeing the helplessness of turning any of it around.
• Mediocrity and corruption is advanced: people who can be bought and not people who can apply the existing law of the land are promoted.
• The existing law of the land must change to fit his needs, and instead of letting the people (those in Congress elected by the people) change it, he changes it with the power of his one signature.
• Political discourse is dead. The only thing that exists, the only reality is the power of him and a very small group of close allies in key positions. The deviousness that only blind greed for power can muster ensures that every institution, little by little, responds to his beck-and-call.
• You’re afraid to speak your mind if that means speaking anti-him/ them. You can make all the fun you want and feel “free” to denigrate his opposers, to denigrate anyone who is “out of the norm” for what they believe the norm is, like people who worship differently, or people with disabilities, or people who are different for one reason or another, or make choices not popular to the regime’s choices. You still feel like you have freedom of speech, when in fact, you don’t. You have freedom of abusing those who dare stand against them or be different. Freedom of abuse is not freedom of speech.
• Police controls your thoughts and not your actions.
• He politicizes (hides behind his party) the Department of Homeland Security, the Supreme Court along with issues that chip away at freedom and the country’s autonomy, like the Russian interference in elections, Covid etc. Those are blows against the country and not a political statement of any party. They should, in a healthy democracy, be dealt with accordingly and not along party lines.
• He militarizes local defense: replaces local police with military forces.
• He promotes war, dissension over healthy discussion and diplomacy, even or especially in his own country. “Divide and conquer” is the motto of his every action. The more we feel fearful and scared and not act, the easier and faster his reach advances.
• He forbids the press from attending meetings, press conferences, and makes threats that he will close TV stations and newspapers who don’t agree with his ideas. Trust me, in the beginning these are empty threats. I lived to know they will be eventually carried out.
• Freedom of press is the first rule of a true democracy. It’s in the Constitution. He does everything to undermine or discredit that. And I know this is an effort of thinking for some: but by press I do not mean Facebook, Twitter, or even Apple News. I mean find the writing of those reporters who risk their lives to tell the truth.
• Doors are closed to the press, to the people, during big decision-making meetings.
• He forbids people from testifying when subpoenaed in matters of the country, or matters that regard his truthfulness and record.
• He pardons convicted criminals for the simple reason that they are his friends.
• He swiftly and diligently turns people against each other. He establishes a culture of every-man-for-themselves-trust-no-one-everyone-wants-to-steal-lie-and-turn-you-in-get-your-guns-and-prepare-to-fight. I am here to tell you from experience that this is not democracy, folks! This is not freedom!  You’ll be left not only without freedom but without humanity. And dignity. Without respect.
• He builds literal walls to separate people. The Germans walled in the Jews in Warsaw and then walled out the free Berlin from the communist one.
• Truth tellers are silenced and ordered to be quiet, on account of not betraying secrets of state, but in truth, these are secrets of personal issues that would only incriminate the president and his clique. Another big, huge lie they love to tell is “this is for the good of the country”. Who can rebut that?! In fact, it’s only for the good of their abusing the power.
• He promotes an active agenda to shut out all other countries to allegedly focus on our own. This gives a false sense of patriotism. People are not islands. And again, history (I know! The big H word!) has proven that we’re always stronger together and no nation can exist in a void. You isolate because you’re hiding something awful. Anyone with a toddler will tell you that silence from a bedroom always means trouble.
• One of the last steps is the idea to introduce ‘patriotic education’ in schools to allegedly teach the history and truth of the country. This is the first step into making his own propaganda a mandatory subject in schools, planting it in the young minds that will later lead his way. Trust me, I learned that propaganda in all my formative years in school and my mother was forced under the penalty of death to teach it. It never taught me the “history of the country”. It only taught me he is the one and only and the almighty.
• They sow the belief that science is bad. Truth is: science makes you think. Thinking is bad in an authoritarian regime. Thinking undermines power.
• The purpose of speeches and news conferences that he leads are not to share news, but to spread propaganda. Everything they do, every move, every visit, every gesture is diabolically, minutely calculated to ensure that people know who the boss is and who has the supreme power. The only viable (for them) politics they perform is that of intimidation and ensuring people see them as the supreme force. Narcissism and not empathy is their main trait of character for such a leader. 
• Nowhere since communism have I felt that my life has no value, no meaning at all. Authoritarianism makes you feel that the simple whim of one person, a simple tantrum can make or break the fate of the entire population of the country. That no decision I make, or anyone else for that matter, will change in any way what happens to my life, to my livelihood and my well-being.
• Demonizing everyone who is not him: the media, the political opponents, the activists who want to create awareness – everyone but himself and the family is perceived as evil and a threat.
• America has a more complicated web of litigiousness that the old-school dictators did not have to worry about. In America, he must cover all traces of all wrong doings by demanding everyone in touch with his person and family to sign non-disclosure agreements. For now. Sudden imprisonment for alleged crimes against himself will follow. The threats of that have been already planted.
• Some people that do talk and show proof of their accounts are never backed up, their testimonies not confirmed and then you start doubting the media who reports the facts, when, really the manipulation from the source is the problem. 
• They create chaos so people cannot tell fiction from fact.
• And I could go on … but I stop here and thanks for making it this far.

·       Americans, from their ivory towers, cannot understand that this is not a Democrat vs Republican affair any longer. As mentioned before: there is no such thing left in America as political discourse. There is no more "let's respectfully disagree." The only thing left to argue about in today's America is this, as I see it: do we want to remain a democracy and continue to work on our problems of which we have many, many wounds and bleeding scars that must be tended to and healed, and finally strive to be the leader of democracy, peace and fairness in the world or do we allow one person, one family, one clique of opportunists to turn us all into their enablers, take us centuries behind in history, and to a place where we will eventually be starved, in extreme poverty and with no independence of thought, with no humanity and dignity to speak of, or worse? This is not political discourse. This is survival. Are Americans too ignorant, too wrapped-up in their everyday smallness of social media and love of reality TV to see the clear, legible writing on the walls and do something about it?! 

One fact I have witnessed over the almost 23 years of being in America is that they took so much out of schools that they turned America into stupid, science-deaf people with no critical thinking.

During communism I didn’t understand how this poisonous group of people led by an evil-minded criminal became powerful and the sole ruler of a country, crushing millions of individuals under their shoe. But the Revolution taught me that only the voice of people, standing together, united, with no arms other than their fists and voice boxes could overturn it.

America has not lived nor are they, as a collective, interested in learning about the tragedy of the Holocaust and of an authoritarian communist regime and might find it impossible to relate. But if that’s not bad enough, they also have a herd amnesia to their own history too. They can’t and won’t remember their own genocide of the Native Americans and the crimes of centuries against African Americans. By not learning, by not knowing, by not paying attention, America is bound for a tragedy. America is already living the early dawn of that tragedy.

I guess somewhere between chasing those rockets and eating those burgers America lost its way and its identity, if it ever truly had one, given that they didn’t resolve their own conflicts, but deepened them. I wished it then, listening to the man from Texas at my university, and I wish it now more than ever: America should finally, at least now, in what seems to be the final hour of a bleeding, wounded democracy, wake up and give a crap about history. The one they can learn from and the one they are building for their future generations. 

My Heart Is Bleeding

People occasionally ask me, or ask generally in groups I am part of, “how is everyone?”. And today more than ever I am grateful for people like that who stop to ask. I am finding out more and more each day that it’s harder and harder to think of others, which is quite the opposite of what the world needs now. If anything, we need more compassion, more togetherness, less vile-ness and definitely, infinitely more respect. So, if you’re reading this: how are you?! Drop me a note, comment on this link – whatever you feel comfortable with … How are you?

To answer those who have asked: we are doing fine. Our hearts are bleeding and our minds are wound up with concern and worry and fright of what tomorrow might bring or how today might morph into something worse, but we are, generally speaking, in the scheme of things, fine. We have been grateful that we and our immediate families are healthy, protected from harm and those of us who work have kept their jobs. These are not small blessings.

But my heart is bleeding, a little more each day. I just cannot believe that all the evil of the world has decided to all come out at the same time all in one year. Every day I am more and more stunned by how everything, and everyone is falling apart. I knew the world needed “a  moment”, needed an inspiration, needed a hero, and a purpose, but  I never dreamed that that moment would be all evil, all dirty, all dark and inhumane, all hopeless, a big whirlpool of vitriol, poison, and desperation.

Tonight is one of those nights where I cannot stop my blood pressure from climbing because my heart is bleeding for everything around me … These are only a handful of things that I can think of right now that make my heart bleed. Every day. 

My heart’s been bleeding for the soul of the American nation, for the loss of the values they hold dear. For how our troubled past is following us into our present. A past that I thought we left behind for good.

My heart has been bleeding for the loss of humanity and respect in our country, at every level but especially at the leadership level. There are days when I see no end to it. My heart’s been bleeding for the injustices I witness every day, whether viewing them on TV, or reading about them, or hearing them retold by my friends. My heart’s been bleeding for all the innocent people being killed and gassed in our streets; my heart’s been bleeding for the death of the belief that “every person is innocent before proved guilty”, the policy of firing a gun to everything that stands in one’s way before better judgement is applied. My heart has been bleeding for the useless violence in our world. Every day.

My heart’s been bleeding for those who die or suffer life-long complications from Covid19. My heart’s been bleeding for not being able to see my family. Not being able to know when seeing my family will eventually be possible. When this exile will end.

My heart’s bleeding for all those who have kids to feed and lost their jobs to the Covid19 depression. My heart’s bleeding for every business owner closing their business, their dream, because they can’t pay the bills anymore.

My heart’s been bleeding for all those who take a knee.

My heart’s bleeding for all those killed in fires caused by a raging climate. My heart’s bleeding for all those who try to teach us to be better and get laughed in the face, dismissed.

My heart’s been bleeding for those stuck at the border, trapped in cages like animals, with no respect to their humanity. When all they wanted was to be free …

My heart’s been bleeding for all the babies dragged away from their parents …

My heart’s bleeding for all those who don’t read anything except for Facebook and Twitter … Especially those who also have the power to change things for good.

My heart’s been bleeding for the loss of our critical thinking. And of compassion.

My heart’s been bleeding after driving around in several counties this weekend and seeing 80% (my humble estimation, it could very well be more) of the electoral signs having the wrong person’s name on them. It’s not the wrong person because it’s wrong to me. I seldom, if ever, make an absolute truth statement, but this is an absolute truth statement: it is the wrong person, if you have one ounce of decency and humanity left in your body. 80%. My heart and eyes are bleeding ….

My heart is still bleeding for losing John McCain. My heart bleeds for losing RBG.

And tonight, I add my beautiful Armenian friends to this list of horrible tragedies that make my soul bleed and my heart stop … I have worked with the folks from our Armenian office for close to ten years now. They are beautiful, smart like I have never met before, selfless, and fragile people. The thought of losing coworkers or their families to their mandatory draft to fight the recent war against Azerbaijan there makes me scream … Some of these people are close friends, part of a larger family I hold dear to my soul. My heart bleeds for them tonight, too … Regardless of which side you're on, the civilians of a country, the ones who ultimately suffer more because they didn't invite the evil in, are always the wrong ones to pay the cost of it. And that makes my heart bleed ... 

I don’t ask “what else can go wrong this year”, because I know: a lot can still go very, very wrong. This moment, I don’t ask for much. I just watch everything helplessly and pray that humanity will find its way …

I was in an online seminar recently and they reminded me of something that I think about tonight, as I write this: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” (Gandhi)

Tonight, I think of this. And I pray that I one day, in my lifetime, I see this become truth …

 

 

All Countries Will Break Your Heart. Eventually.

July 4^th, 2020

I can make this statement because at least two of them broke mine. One that I chose myself. And one where I was born, that chose me. Just like people, countries have their faults. At 45, I have stopped looking for perfection. Right about now, I am happy with the little good I find in every day. For it is not little, most of the time.

I came to America with a head full of dreams, hoping and wishing more than anything I ever wished for in my life that I have reached a promised land where not much can go wrong if you truly want it to go right. 22 years later, I can say, just like I said about my first country 22 years ago: America has broken my heart.  For the first time in … I am not sure how long, or ever … I feel like America should be scolded and not celebrated today. She has a lot of learning still to do. The reasons are obvious to all the heart-minded and humanity-loving people, so I won’t belabor the point. This is meant to be a short post.

But despite all the anger I feel, despite all the grief I have grieved for the past year, despite all the pain I see unravelling every day, despite all the wrongs, I must love America. I love it like you must love a sister that stole your boyfriend. Or a father that lived only to make you happy and ensure you have everything, a father that taught you everything from tying your shoe to what kind of man you should allow to love you but then turns around and votes for Trump. I love it like you’d love a mother who’s dying of lung cancer and is still smoking like a freight-train, forcing you to watch the decay. I love it like you love a son who’s committed crimes but rescues kittens. 

Maybe it is wrong. This is a country I am talking about, not a person. Not my flesh-and-blood. But it is my home. It is the home I chose. I am not loving it from a sense of obligation. More from a sense of belonging. If any of this grief is her fault, it is as much as it is mine for choosing her. And where would I be without a home? Just like without a family, I would not know where I belong and who I am without one. I might not be high up and singing her praises today, but I have big hopes that one day it will live again up to the name she made around the globe for hundreds of years.

Whatever America is to you and however you choose to celebrate it today, or not, I hope you at least stop and ponder whether it is the perfect country you were taught it is, or if it can get better. And if you think it can, I hope we can all find it within our hearts to get her there.

And, also … make the most of today, however you spend it. God knows life is short. And that’s not at all   a debatable fact.

July 4, 1998 - my very first Independence Day celebration in Myrtle Beach, SC. You can't quite tell here, but I was crying. I was so moved that I was celebrating Independence Day in what I thought to be the greatest country in the world. I hope all of us can see that belief a reality in our lifetimes. 

The Patriotism of “Now”

Random Thoughts on Memorial Day

I grew up in a country that worshiped the past in a present that was corrupted, crooked, unfair, and hopeless. That was and still is called patriotism there. I developed an early, almost visceral dislike for those who worshiped that past while not doing one thing to better the present. One thing to ensure the past stays great through the present and to ensure they hand it even better to the future. I moved to a different country lured by promises of freedom and equality and fairness, and some days I think of my new home and tell myself: “Boy, not much has changed.”

Patriotism, to me, is not remembering those who died for the country once or twice a year, during long weekends between two burgers on the grill. Patriotism should be what we do every day, with all of our own actions to ensure the country moves forward. Patriotism is actively ensuring the future generations will have a better, more secure, brighter future than we did. Patriotism is truly believing to our core that people are equal, that they deserve freedom, unconditionally, and free of labels, and that it does not really matter where we’re from but it matters more what we do, every day. Our individual story and our intrinsic value of who we are, wherever we are and wherever we come from, matters infinitely more. How do we ensure we stay valuable for moving forward age-old ideals? Because, yes, we are the ones called upon that now.    

Sure, the past is great. Sure, those who died defending values such as independence, free knowledge, culture, freedom of speech, freedom of choosing, fighting bondage and unfairness should never be forgotten. But as great as all that was, that is and will forever stay in the past. What we do every day, with every action, with every thought, the way we carry ourselves into the world, the way we teach our children values that will move them forward and not get them stuck into a time earlier than even that of those who already died for these ideals – this is true patriotism and that should be celebrated when we realize, and only then, that everyone is doing it. Until then, we got work to do.

I fear a fake patriotism for all of us, especially today. Folks who today show up on social media to bow to those who made the ultimate sacrifice only to laugh at their next-door neighbor’s ask for freedom and safety for their own children, only to shrug at lending a hand of kindness and thoughtfulness to the less fortunate on account that “handouts are not what this country needs” – I fear these folks might be guilty of fake patriotism.

Sure, sacrifice is deserving of praise. But where is our sacrifice? Why do we think patriotism is a thing of the past? Why do we not think that whatever those people fought for stopped being important? And who do we think has the duty to ensure the future remains as they dreamed of it?

It’s easy (and cool) to worship the greatness of the past. It is mostly hard and uncomfortable to ensure what’s in front of us is not going awry. It’s hard and inconvenient to ensure that in our country (whatever you call it, because this is happening all over the globe) we still defend those ideals for the generations to come. The freedom, true freedom for everyone, not just those who fit snugly into our moral mold, and the defense of that, at all costs, seems to me more patriotic than flying the flag, or saying “we won’t forget.”

Maybe today is not the day. Maybe today should be a day of worship. But this is what today, just like July 4^th and Veterans Day - this is what days like these make me think about, every year. These days are a stark reminder to me that we should risk being a little more uncomfortable to try to do our share to right some wrongs. Our work is not done. It never will be. This is what I celebrate today: the hope that we will finally, as nation, understand that our work is not done and that we will ensure that our good ideals will continue to be fulfilled and guarded viciously for those who will, one day, look at us as the past. After all, this is the only way I know that those many people who died already will not think that did so in vain.

A Strange Year

As years of our lives go, this has been a weird one. Peppered with everything you can think of, good and bad, it leaves a more bitter than sweet taste in my mouth than many others before it.

We have known a lot of trials and pain this year. More than any other years, we have known pain, suffering, and unhealth in our own lives and the the lives of those close to us. Even in the lives of remote relatives and friends, for some reason, we have seen more sickness than health. Our loved ones have been through some close calls, and we have, too.

Our friends and family have lost pets and aunts and uncles, some of them parents and brothers. There should really be no ranking for pain. Pain is pain – however close or remote it is from you. It's been a great year of loss for many of us and around us.

And then, there was our house, a brand new one poorly built, and our efforts to keep it from falling apart. We weathered two hurricanes in one month while fixing leaks everywhere. We think we're OK now, but the stress of all that just about moved us to a rental place. We would have been grateful that we could have done that!

Stressful trips of planes and luggage lost or delayed started off a year of travels.

As we age, we look closely at our friendships. We're more choosy and selective and this year we have felt the bitter-sweet taste of lost friends we once cherished. But you know what they say: “ A friend you lose is not worth keeping, in the first place.” So, we learn, we mourn, and we move on, grateful for the lessons.

All this personal stuff happened on a backdrop of more chaos in the country and in the world. My heart cries every day for the status of things in the world, but especially in this country. A country that so many of us gave up so much for, only to come here and bleed disappointment. We are now the perpetrators, the cruel and heartless inhumane power, we are now the illogical, anti-everything-reason monsters we were trying to fight a while ago. I wish there would be something someone can do drastically. I wish we would stop hiding behind lame and cheesy political excuses and would truly take action that would help people. Hungry, homeless, abused, defenseless people. Children, even.

I wish we would stop speaking in double standards: I wish we would stop saying in this country that 'no man is above the law' in the same sentence with 'you cannot indict a sitting president.' I wish we would stop saying we are the greatest democracy in the world when our simple, most fundamental right as a citizen, the right to vote, is not a democratic one. I wish we would really stop lying to ourselves in false patriotism and truly understand what we see in the mirror.

And I wish we truly remember who we truly are: I wish we would remember that if it were not for the thousands of 'illegals from sh*thole countries' most of us would not be here today. I wish we remembered who we were and how we and ours have started.

The talk of this wall recently is making me double over with stomach sickness. Besides being grossly unreasonable and downright laughable (a stupid dream concoction of an old and sick mind), it is not what the world is and wants today. And let me tell you some reasons why: I have a bowl of oranges in the kitchen; the bowl was given to me by my sister's Romanian mother-in-law who has been living in Germany for close to 20 years; I got a message right before Christmas from a high school (Romanian) friend who is now a doctor who lives in Denmark: she wanted my American recipe of turkey and stuffing so she can cook it for her family this year. I work from home. Before 10 AM every morning I am in anywhere between 1 and 4 meetings with Armenia every day. If you look at my Facebook page, I have friends from four continents and this is the norm for most of us, not the exception. You see, the world is already border-less, in people's minds. No wall, and I don't believe no law, could stop that now. Dreaming of it is dystopian and a huge waste of energy and time to say the very least.

I never started my days with news first, like I have this year. Because I am always very afraid there might not be a world we could go back to any day now … Some days truly feel hopeless. I have read more about hope and gratitude this year than any other year. I think we all could use some of this reading nowadays.

There have been happy times, too. Seeing my ever weakening and feeble elders in Romania this past spring was a bright spot, however painful. Getting to hold them and hug them was a treat that I will savor for many months, possibly years to come. Taking a trip with my sister to New York City and welcoming her into her fourth decade was another blessful gift.

My husband and I took trips to know our new state, and we visited The Grand Canyon for the first time together. Taking my nephews to the Ocean together for the first time and seeing them jump waves was one of the highlights of this year.

We loved, we gave, we spent time with dear and true friends and family whether in our new and not-so-perfect house or their open homes. We have been grateful for jobs, the one we got and the one we kept this year, for the stress of not having them is a true and scary burden.

When I started this year I committed to collecting a picture every day of the year. Just to remind myself how much beauty truly is in the world and to document how much one could travel and grow and enrich oneself even in sad times.

Click the picture below to see the pictures from the last month of the year, as well as all the other 300+ ones. I am grateful for every glimpse of this. Enjoy!

It's been a year with ups and downs, framed by sickness and pain. A social media meme showed this message this morning and this is my only wish for all of us for 2019: “I don't want 2019 to bring me anything. I just don't want it to take anything away.” Amen to that and a happier, more hopeful new year to all!

Beyond “The Post”

I'll tell you a story from a long, long time ago – almost 30 years.

I grew up in Communism, through my 15^th year of life. This was your textbook communism, with a dictator at the top and a government so loyal to him there was no room to pry it with a crowbar. The government was made up of not only loyalists to the president, but mostly by his close family members: all the children, his wife, and then extended family.

It was the Communism you (should) learn about in school, where regular people like you and me, regular civilians are forced to believe whatever the one leader of the country says. I took propaganda lessons that I had to pass an exam on every year (these were enforced, you had no choice) for the first eight years of my school life. I had friends whose parents were interrogated and sometimes killed in beatings because they would not think whatever the government wanted them to think. The books we were allowed to read were “edited” by the government, to match the propaganda. Some brave people still had the original copies of uncensored books, but they ripped up their true covers and they wrapped the copies in the covers of the “approved” books, so that the Security police who came searching their homes would not suspect they had “dirty” copies of the censored books.

The local and national papers were all government-controlled. So was the one TV channel the whole country had access to and the one radio channel, too. There was nothing printed, or broadcast on TV or radio that was not controlled by the government. If your radio could reach The Voice of America broadcast, or Radio Free Europe, you'd go to jail for a long, long time, and you would never come out, quite often. As I said: textbook Communism.

And then, when I was almost 15, The Revolution came. One night, a handful of people, lead by mostly writers, artists, and students overthrew the regime, killed the dictator and his wife and we were, dare I say it, free. During that one night, we were cautiously, and very frighteningly, elated by the possibility, by the hope, and the dream, that our little country could possibly now be free. Free to express ourselves, to think what we wanted to think, free to choose our profession without it being chosen for us, free to buy whatever we wanted, in whatever much quantity we wanted to buy!

That one night my dad asked me to tell him just ONE reason for which I am happy that communism is now extinct in Romania. Just ONE reason. So, I told him: I am happy they are gone because now we can have freedom of the press, and freedom of the written word. Now, whenever I read a newspaper or a book, I said, I will be sure I am getting the true writing, intended by the writer, and not whatever a party loyalist deemed to be “appropriate” for me to read.

Many moons later, I am in the US of A, till recently deemed the “most free country in the World”, my dream of being her citizen fulfilled, and I see with my own eyes something that I never thought I would see again: I see how politicians attack the press, deeming it untruthful and lying, while they proclaim to their supporters that they, and only they and their loyals, have the whole truth and nothing besides. And the unbelievable happens: the supporters (for they are painfully many) believe this.

It's happening again: I am telling you, dear friends, from personal experience, and not from what someone taught me about Hitler, or Stalin: the first institution a dictator smears and tries to kill is the press. The first value they kill is free speech. Their very first step is to denigrate it. And for us, here, in the US, at least for now, this works! 

The reason, of course, is simple. But blinded as we are in America, by the freedom we have taken for granted for many years, and by the ignorance a mediocre school system and an even more mediocre political education system encourages, we do not see this simple reason: it's the press, and anyone who defends free speech, that must be killed first in order for the leader to manipulate the population however they please. The press makes people think. Tyrants have no need for people's thinking, because the only thoughts that matter to them are theirs. They deny everything else of value, because of the huge ego that they lead with which has to be the one, the only, governing power and focus over all the minions. How else do you submit them?!

There is a very important reason and not a coincidence, that your First Amendment (and not the second or the third) protects free speech. Without free speech, you have no democracy. The rest of the amendments are optional in a democracy. Without free speech you have dictatorship. You have easy mind control, and you have tyranny. Period. End of story. No arguments. History has proven this very big platitude for hundreds of years now. No more proof needed.

The press is and will always be, in my mind, and as a matter of fact, the one defender of free speech. By its very nature, it must be. I recently saw the movie The Post, which is a pretty good story, well done, for many reasons. It resonated with me from many perspectives, not only because of my government-controlled upbringing years, but also from the perspective of being a former newspaper employee and a good (I think) friend to many people who are still in this business or still respect it.

And then I read comments from random people online who said that (I quote from memory because I am too disgusted to go get the actual quote) “I am not going to spend my money on this very clearly far left political propaganda movie. After I have seen enough in the past year and a half to know not to trust these rags.” (referring, perhaps to The Post in particular and newspapers in general?!) This just about broke the camel's back for me.

I have seen these comments (and oh, so much more!) online for the past two years now (and who hasn't, if you're paying attention?!), that Trump and “them” are all good and right and it's the media that makes them look bad. The belief of the ordinary American nowadays is that newspapers and news outlets, somehow are all on this platform to lie about everything Trump, and he, somehow, is the only one telling the truth. This boggles my mind, in a way, and in another: I can totally see what he's doing and how … it's working for so many people, and to our detriment! The Communism in my little country, just as Nazism in Germany was seemingly the “will of the people” when first instated.

Just to make sure I get it out there: I am not endorsing The Post, or any other particular newspaper or news outlet. I am just endorsing the thinking, inquisitive, and ever truth searching human mind. The Post (in the movie and in the past few years) has just merely exposed mostly (if not always in entirety) verifiable truths that should at least make us think of where we get our news and who we can trust. All this while our political leaders have done nothing but stepped from one wasp nest into another, amongst law suits, mystery accusations, revolving doors of firing and hiring for key-level positions, and yes, lies. A lot of lies that have been proven not once, or twice, but multiple times by many sources to be just that. But I am getting ahead of myself, because I do not want to keep this entry specific to a particular regime, person, or time in history. The lesson that The Post, the movie, teaches us, I think, is much deeper, and much larger than any one reality.

Anyone who knows me and has read my blogs knows: I rarely do politics, but these things had to be said:

• Politicians lie. No matter which side of the aisle you're on, even the best of them, even the ones I deem to be my favorite, most inspiring, true in character and morality, they all lie. For whatever reason, security, or politics, they all lie. Little lies, big lies, they all do it. They seldom apologize for it, and they seldom get caught. They have armies of staff to bury the evidence. This is not conspiracy theory, this is fact.
• After spending 10 years amongst journalists, I am here to tell you: they lie much, much less than any politician I have ever experienced. For obvious reasons, but if you're having trouble knowing what they are, I will spell some of them for you:
  • Their lies are 100% verifiable and they have zero protection against them. They have no secret police, no PR protecting them. It's their word against the mountain of evidence, and their lies, if they happen, are very short lived.
  • Their lies are insular: if one reporter or even one paper lies, and it is a legitimate lie, the rest of the papers will live with one goal in mind and that is to prove the truth. There is no way, in my experience, that all (or most of) the news outlets in the nation lie about the same one time. Report the same thing, sure? But not after much source vetting do they all publish the same thing in every outlet.
  • Their lies are almost always 100% suicidal: they will never write for a paper/ media institution again if they are found, and they will die of hunger – quite plainly.
  • More than any other profession I have ever been exposed to, journalists keep each other accountable. They have this incredible pride in what they do that they do not allow doubt to seep into their business, at any cost: they know that if they lie, their peers, and their competitors will prove them wrong and all will be lost – their credibility is much more important to them than any one story in all its sensationalism.
    I should mention here that I am speaking of journalists who represent legit sources, your Posts, Times, your NPR come to mind but are just a couple, of course – there are thousands out there. I am not referring to your tabloids and scandal reporting, which I hardly would call “journalism”.
• Journalists, unlike politicians, do not have the power, therefore there is nothing to abuse. They cannot sway the masses in one way or another. Sure, they can try, but you won't get 100 news institutions swaying in the same direction. There is competition, point of view, difference of opinion (which is the foundation of the news landscape, really) that news institutions thrive on and need for their mere survival. Tyrannical, one-opinion minded politicians need uniformity and conformity. Diversity is chaos to them, and they want it put out, for fear of undermining them.
• Another thing I see very clearly in our current political system: the need of the main leader to be surrounded by either family, or people stupider or less prepared (Gosh, is it even possible anymore?!) than themselves. This is, of course, also done in an effort to make them look like the only authority and supreme source of knowledge. This is typical, my friends, of tyranny. Mind my words: textbook!

In the many years I spent at a daily newspaper, I have learned that there is one thing that moves a true journalist: the chase for the true story, the meaning of it, the history of it, and getting all those facts on paper. They skip meals, they work crazy hours, they drive distances on their (very puny) salary to get to the true meaning of a story. It is probably childish and silly to say this, but I am going to say it: they don't want to manipulate, they just want people to know the real story. I don't even think they care whether anyone agrees with them or not. Getting the story is their prerogative, and theirs alone. Writing, in any form, is a pretty solitary business, and so is chasing that story for them. There is a pride in that, a true sense of accomplishment that they're after. And most of them do it with passion and grace. I am yet to find the work ethics and dedication in a work place like the ones I knew in the newspaper business!

From knowing what I know about politics, these are foreign concepts to people in the leadership of this country, or any other, really. Before you slap me for my puerile credulity, I will tell you that no, I don't believe all reporters tell the truth. But I will say that most of them do, for the reasons I briefly shared above, and possibly a lot more. I will also know, deep down in my heart, that politicians will lie to just about anyone, about just about anything to save their rung on their ladder.

Surviving for the journalist equates with the truth. For the politician, survival is keeping in power, however you can hold on to it. This is why you see politicians not conceding races right away: because they think there is always a way they could have won that power.

After our elections, I have thought we could not lower ourselves in a deeper darkness and mire. But I was wrong, for the true walk through the darkness can only now begin: us turning a blind eye, not staying vigilant, not demanding our press to stay free and open and yes, controversial and competitive, is what is going to slip us surely into the deep and muddy and empire of darkness which will ultimately threaten our very being.

The last thing we need is one person to tell us how it is, and us not to interpret and weigh in on our decisions and options. One person to offer us one pill of knowledge and us run with it, without questions and doubts. Sure, thinking is hard. But trust me: falling asleep and waking up with someone else's brain in your head is much, much harder to stomach!

I do think that one line from The Post summarizes the whole movie, the events that it depicts quite beautifully and the lesson those events drive home. I also think that this one line carries a much heavier message about why it is still important to trust the written word, and to value the right to public opinion, and why it is still and will always be important in a true democracy to do everything we can to preserve the right to free speech. That line is, in paraphrase: “Journalism is the first rough draft of history.” If we don't know our history, we're doomed to repeat it. The good but especially the bad of it. We owe it to our children to help that, if we can. And we can. We may not want to (it's tough work, I get it), but we certainly can.

Thoughts on the Cusp of the New Year

Disclaimer: I have had this blog cooking in my head for a few days. Last night, I came up with a killer title for it. Today, the tile is completely gone. I cannot remember even one word of it. I hope the compromise one I chose instead will still do. 

On every New Year's Eve, I always ponder upon our lives, our journeys, and the accomplishments or lack thereofs in the year closing. So, today is no different than any of the other 40+ Eve's that I have left behind me.

But I think this past year (2017), I have asked myself more the questions of “why?”, “why now?, “why us?” more than any other year in my life. As the world seems to grow smaller, and angrier, and more crowded, less patient, and less respectful, I wonder daily what is the purpose of us all, and what kind of cataclysm doomed us to whatever it is happening now and whatever might be coming up next.

2017 has been a year of everything for us. As any life goes, it's been a year of amazing personal peaks and disappointing lows: we saw some new countries to us, we have seen most of our close family, some of which we had not seen for years, we made closer friends, we did some good for our charities, it was my first (air) travel year after my surgery and it all went well. I almost did manage to go through the year without an ER visit, all the way until the very end. But I was happy that the one ER visit I did have was not heart-related. Or at least not directly.

But personally, we have also seen some of the lowest lows, too: the insecurity and uncertainty of losing a job, the horror of a cancer diagnosis amidst our close family members, the need to uproot once again (at 40 something and 50 years of age) to settle in a new state – this last one is more of a bitter-sweet transition, rather than a low point, or at least we hope it is not all low.

All this, while the world seems to spin faster and faster out of control! And I am not sure whether it's just aging, but this year, for the first time, I felt like the state of the world affects the state of my being more than ever!

I don't think globalization can be stopped or changed anymore: used to be that events that happened in other countries had no potential of ever affecting us. But that is not the case anymore. What happens in Iran, Iraq, Korea, Japan, Israel, Russia, the UK, France, you name it … can affect us here, in a small town in NC, or AL, or anywhere nondescript. If this past year has taught us anything is that the world is our oyster. For better or worse!

With social media and its free and available nature, we are constantly exposed to evil, from near and far. Why do people choose evil over good is still beyond me!

I know people who unconditionally believe in the good in all of us. I have had doubts my whole life about this, but it must be true: if it true that we all come from God, then it must be true that we all have some good in all of us. What I fail to see lately is people finding that good that's already inside them and greeting the world with that, rather than with the sea of badness they're filled with. The willingness to show good, and to do good is a weakness anymore. You're a hippy, a 'sissy', or a 'chick' if you're soft, and kind, and caring … - none of which is a compliment, of course.

It's a tough world out there and I think it will be tougher. Disrespect and hatred seem to be accepted anymore, and although I do see a lot of my friends take a firm stand against it all, I don't see much changing in the bigger picture. Sure, with each individual action of resistance and setting the record straight, the evil has one less chance to win, but the evil is still out there – supported and advertised by people in power.

It boggles my mind that people still support Trump! I am not saying they “support the Republican party”, but that, still, puzzles me, as well. But they support him, the man! I cringed when the results of the “most popular man of the year” survey came out and every news organization blasted that the news was “shocking” that Obama was more popular than Trump. Other than the platitude of findings (is there really a comparison between the two?!), I was floored that the news was that “Trump got 14% of the votes while Obama got 17%.” Really?! You're telling me that Trump is only three percent points less popular than Obama?! I wish I were a better writer to explain to you how much that 14% really stings. Double digits! Really?! Forgive me for not seeing the silver lining here.

I understand freak personalities that come every once in a while during the history of mankind. Like bad seeds that sprout weeds, they happen to humans as much as to plants. I can even understand freak circumstances that might allow them to go far and succeed in oppressing others' dignities. But I have never understood the support. The millions of others who accept this as a way of life. As a standard for all of us. Many days nowadays have me wonder: “in what universe is this thing legal? And accepted?” And yet, things that appall me happen every day with zero consequence!

It makes me angry that after so many thousands of years, after so many history lessons, after so much angst and turmoil, after countless losses as a universe, we're regressing so much as opposed to progressing and enhancing our humanity.  

But I seldom do politics. However, I feel like this year, more than anything, this transcends politics. Just like I knew this country was headed for failure after W. Bush was in the office and supporting mediocrity, I know we're in more trouble now than we have ever been before. When something reminds me of something darker, crueler, even less humane (if such a thing is even possible) than Communism, trust me: we're in for deep, troubled waters.

As a country, as a world power, but most importantly, here at home, as a community. I fear for us, as women, people of color or of other nationalities, children with disabilities. I fear for us as a social class, and as a community. I fear we're losing something that we don't know we're losing till it's all gone and too late to get it back.

I am looking for answers, and for the first time in a long time, I fail to see where they might come from. Both in Europe, as whole (Romania in particular), and here, I feel the fastened pulse of a people in despair and rage. And for the first time in a long time, a people hopeless.

There have not been many years where I wished for the old year to never end. I am usually hopeful that the new year will bring us more health, more joy, more wealth, more love, and more togetherness than the year we're closing. This time, I don't ever want 2017 to end. I am scared that what the new year will bring will be darker, more grim and sadder than what we're leaving behind. I am scared that it might bring us something we're hardly prepared to handle at all. Something beyond our imaginations.

I wish I could truly say it's up to us how to put together the next 365 pages of our lives, our 365 chances to screw it all up or make it all better. But I am not believing these words anymore. There seems to be so much in this world that eludes us that controls us, and our every day, more lately than ever. Staying vigilant is only half of the answer. The other half is truly fighting this. But when there are no laws to encourage and support our fight, it is hard to fight back. And for the hippy in me fighting is ever the solution or the victory.

One promise I can make myself, and my family: I could try to not let this harden and embitter me beyond graciousness. I will try to let what is good in me win me over and allow me to put it forward, instead of cowardly hiding it as a weakness and I will try to share the goodness at least with people in my immediate realm. I know I can use some kindness – I am willing to be the first one to give mine to others. Giving it to the undeserving will be hard, however. The judge in me won't let that go, unfortunately.

I am not bitter. Just sad and drained by everything I am seeing around me this year. I used to wake up every morning and check my emails. My husband calls it “checking in with the world.” Nowadays, I fire up my news-feed first thing in the morning, before I do anything else. I need to check and see whether I do have a world to check in with anymore.

In the end of this long and strained year, I leave you with the lyrics of one of my favorite poets which I think summarize sort of how I feel right now:

“Did you know freedom exists
In a school book?
Did you know madmen
Are running our prison
Within a jail, within a gaol
Within a white free protestant
Maelstrom

We're perched headlong
On the edge of boredom
We're reaching for death
On the end of a candle
We're trying for something
That's already found us.” (Jim Morrison – Freedom Exists)

I wish you all a kinder and easier year in 2018. May you all find that something that's already found you and hopefully that something is good.