2003-05-20 - 7:37 p.m.
ASHES, ASHES, ALL FALL DOWN
I have been here before but this time I did not join the celebration. Last time, the stakes were higher and last time winning felt like a new beginning. This time, more than thirty years later, I understand that what you do with the win matters as much in the long run as the win itself. Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Last time was even shorter and quicker. Last time marked the beginning of an extraordinary time with event after event�although most were unrelated. Maybe the events were not really so extraordinary after all. Maybe I just was ready to notice the outside world then. I was changing and I was noticing. That�s what happens as you move from fifth grade to sixth grade to beyond. The summer started with a different war, a cleaner war, a war one could celebrate and it ended in the unrelated heat of riots. Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
I remember the fear and then the elation. Back in those days, I had not yet heard the word �Holocaust� but I knew a little of the tattoos at the elbow. (Even today tattoos bother me deeply although I try not to let it show.) I knew enough to know that something terrible had happened and that, in a faraway land of people like me, the adults were afraid it would happen again. War came, tanks rolled, people prayed, and six days later came victory. What a miracle! In a childhood filled with an unwinnable war the adults around me did not believe in, here was one that the �good guys� won. But the win did not last because, ultimately, winning the peace matters as much as winning the war.
And today? Today nothing is better. In many ways it is worse. Lives have been lost since then and souls have been lost. Pride has been lost and with it, most of my sense of connection. The win created a new era�and is slowly and relentless destroying what I believed in. Manifest destiny has become more important than survival and expanded borders and occupation have solved nothing. Victory? What victory? Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
I am not eleven now. I am more than forty. I look at what we are doing with our quick victory in Iraq. I look at the looting and our lack of concern. I look at the resurgence of Al-Queda, knowing that occupation causes sores to fester.
Victory? What victory? If we are not careful, if we do not attend....
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
LAST YEAR: Get Out the Emotional Garlic
The Perfect Gift
Being Scarce
Adventures in Prisonland
Personally
The Long and Shorts of It
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
