End of the year blog – on losses and gratitude

Aunt Judy, Prince, Bowie, Cohen, and Takashi Murakami

Tan Tan Bo - In Communication, 2014. Lots of losses, hope and possibilities in the wreckage of 2016.

For the last month, the first thought at the beginning of each day has been about the Supreme Court and Obama’s inability to move his third nominee to the courts.  Without that seat confirmed under Obama, the Republicans walk in with a huge long term advantage.  

Yes, the year has had lots of losses. Many of us feel like our very sense of decency has eroded. Democracy has endured a profound blow, with the elite classes moving forward, poised to do away with regulations in support of unions, the environment, and a woman’s right to autonomy from the state. Some moments, I'm consumed with sorrow. 

Other days, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for what I have, recognizing that losses are part of elections.  And we have to move forward.

So, as the year winds down, its worthwhile to recognize all the good out there as well as the anguish, the pain, the frustration, the movement of history faster than we can possibly grasp. 

My friend, the historian John D’Emilio, posted a wonderful commentary on facebook, quoting from James Baldwin writing in 1948: (it seems so much a description of the current moment): "In America, life seems to move faster than anywhere else and each generation is promised more than it will get, which creates in each generation a furious bewildered rage, the rage of people who cannot find solid ground beneath their feet."

Reading Baldwin a lot this year has been one of the many pleasures. My friend Lesley Wood asked that we post a few of the things we are grateful for. For me, its so many great moments... Left Forum with you. Reading in Praise of Older Women, biking around sicily, walking the streets of the lower east side, playing frisbe with my kids, battling pipelines and bomb trains, winning a big contract with my union, learning with my students, crying it out with them after the election... praying a Judson memorial, hanging out with Caroline Shepard... so many great moments, so many hikes through places unknown.  Caroline says we are always going to hike, every summer. I look forward to it.  The whole world is next. 

Thinking of 2016, I think of so many of the heros who shuffled off – women such as Gina Quatrochi, my beloved Aunt Judy, Judge Judith Kaye for the rest of New York, the myriad of musicians – from Bowie, who died the morning of Judy’s funeral, to Prince to Leonard Cohen who shuffled off with the news of Trump’s ascent, and George Michael who departed on Christmas. My friend from Judson, David Johnson, who died on our return from Italy. Pat Conroy died earlier in the year. The whole world remembered his stories. 

 The year started off with three very private funerals, some memorial rides and lots of adventures. We fought, danced, tried to battle back pipelines, explored our family roots in Dorchester England, snorkled in Jamaica, hiked around Italy, traveled West, defended community gardens from developers, and watched democracy break out heart, as the electoral college gave the presidency to the person with 3 million less votes.

I find myself listening to more and more of the music of the icons of 2016, flipping through their CD’s as explored used record stores.Walking through Princeton the other day, we recalled Dad’s days teaching here, his office at Nassau Hall, and then wandered to the record store, and over to the museum, where a couple of pieces seemed to embody all that came and went, the feel of loss of despair and possibility in such moments.

Takashi Murakami's  Tan Tan Bo - In Communication, 2014, offered an image of children coping with catastrophe and creating rainbows in the chaos.

It’s a hopeful image for a world coping with despair.

Walking through the gallery, we found ourselves looking at pictures of police and women screaming at civil rights protesters in 1963.  That’s America, I thought.  I had hoped that reactionary rage was a thing of the past.  Today, it is our destructive soul, the fire that consumes the union.  I fear there will be no union at all if it continues, if we are unable to compromise. But right now, the rage is all so many of us see.  Hopefully, we can listen and learn from each other this year. 

So we walked and horsed around in the museum, celebrating the last few days of 2016, did some skate boarding, smiling and enjoying being alive, even in the wreckage.

The Princeton Museum's collection grew, with contemporary reflections on the celestial.
"This fall’s installation in Marquand Mather Court, the Museum’s gallery of contemporary art, revolves around two important paintings currently on loan to the Museum— Tan Tan Bo – In Communication (2014) by Takashi Murakami and The Little Star Dweller (2006) by Yoshitomo Nara. Although both monumentally scaled works are painted by leading artists of Japan’s Neo Pop movement and feature up-close portraits of their protagonists, they differ greatly in tone, palette, and subject matter. One is bright, chaotic, and post-apocalyptic, while the other is dark, quiet, and ethereal." 

Horsing around as the year comes to an end. 

 In the end, there is a lot to be grateful for.