Archive | Country Matters

NYC, My Heart: East River Ferry Edition

This is Rosa and Vera. Both are Jews who fled Nazi Germany, emigrated to Argentina, and eventually made their way to New York City, where they have rent-controlled apartments, speak four languages, and take long walks every day. I met these longtime friends while waiting for the East River Ferry at 34th street. All three of us were fretting because the ferry were delayed, and bonded when they found out I was a card-carrying feminist who hated Trump as much as they did. “How do people not see this is what happened to us in Germany?” Vera wailed. I felt ashamed that they should survive so much only to witness later generations forgetting everything. “Past is present,” said Rosa, clasping my wrist. Then she complimented my Audrey Hepburn glasses. “With this style, you’ll find a new job soon.” “What are you doing in Brooklyn today?” I asked, admiring her pretty necklace in turn. “Well, we thought we’d sit by the Promenade and then stroll down to Sahadi’s,” she said. “Just because the world treats 80-year-old women like they’re invisible doesn’t mean we don’t like to do things.” Meeting these two birds is why I’ll never leave New York.

Our Lunar Tides, Our Selves

I know menstruation is one of the few taboo topics on social media (cockocracy!) but today I cried over the Comey hearing, a late-’90s Julia Roberts film that will go unnamed (ok, Stepmom), a certain permakitten when she rested her chin on my toe, and the fact that my dress wasn’t ready at the tailors. Tonight’s potent full moon is not helping, nor is our massive Constitutional crisis. Overall, though, I just need to (insert verb, Mad Libs-style) already. Our periods are a blessing for which I am all the more grateful since I realized mine was an endangered species. But the period before our periods blows as hard as our alleged president–very, very hard.

Solidarity Forever

During my trip home last week, I made a point of visiting the Everett Mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Both sides of my clan worked in the factories of the Merrimack Valley until they went south and then abroad for cheaper labor. It’s an American story—the one that helped elected Donald Tr%mp because historically the exploited have blamed each other rather than the kleptocracies that discard them like Matrix workers. I’ve been thinking a lot about this because I’ve been thinking about how proud my people were to work in the mills–proud to make things with their hands, proud to support themselves with honest work, proud to belong to the motherfucking UNION. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy