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Running for President

It’s the night of the last presidential debate, 2012. So far, I have watched less than 10 minutes of the debates, and that is not going to change tonight. In some ways, I have felt like a cow elk in a herd, watching between bites of grass as the bull elk battle for dominion. I feel the ground shake as their towering antlers crack together. I hear them grunting and panting, made insane by the enormous amounts of testosterone coursing through their blood. The pasture is redolent with the stench of their urine, and when they are not fighting, they are calling, calling, calling. There is no peaceful place, no quiet place, no respite for any of us in the herd until the battle is done.

Comparing the electorate of our country to a bunch of cow elk is not terribly elegant, and it could possibly be insulting to elk. And yet, for me, it works. Oh sure, some of us might be pulling for one bull or the other, but we have virtually no real influence on the results of the battle.

Since serving on the board of directors of my co-op for a few years, I have often thought that politics is made up of the worst kind of people, ie, people with an agenda, Freudian or otherwise, who desperately want the office. I think it’s possible that the country would be better off if our leaders were chosen virtually at random, and dragged kicking and screaming into their unpaid office. Once in office, they would make the best decisions they could given the time and energy available, and then hurry back home to their families, careers, homes, making room for the next crop of leaders.

Instead, we have a gigantic machine. A guy (it’s always a guy) is elected to office and he barely has two years to try to accomplish anything before he’s running again. Who’s governing while all the lambasting is going on? And why, oh why, would anyone ever want to be President of this country? The constant criticism. The constant grumbling of press and Congress. The constant agonizing decisions over whom to send to war, and how long to make them serve. The endless efforts to please everyone at least a little. Who needs it?

A few weeks ago, an answer came to me. I was walking east on 25th Street, approaching Broadway, in New York City. I noticed barricades. I asked a bystander what was going on. “Obama’s coming,” the bystander replied.

Yeah? You mean, like POTUS? It took me about :30 seconds to decide that was a spectacle worth waiting for. So there I stood, in the biggest, most powerful city in the biggest, most powerful country on this little planet (at least for now), and waited. Traffic was whizzing down Fifth Avenue and downtown on Broadway in its usual frenzy. I recalled Bill Clinton saying one night as his motorcade started its twisted route through Manhattan, “Let’s go make some new Republicans.” With a level of empathy that’s been unmatched since, he realized that motorcades inspire resentment and even rage, especially if they’re stopping traffic.

And then traffic stopped. We waited and waited and finally, here they came, going the wrong way uptown on Broadway. Oh, the flashing lights. Oh, the darkened windows. Oh, the paramilitary splendor of it all. Who’s the most powerful guy on earth? Who else but the President of the United States can stop traffic in New York City? I stood there trying to imagine what it felt like to be in that second limo, racing by the populace. I tried to imagine the headiness of stopping traffic. Of being able to say to thousands: “You have to stop and wait until myself and my entourage have rolled on by.”

And that’s when I thought I might know why someone would be running for President.

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Becoming a Salsera

Posing with the handsome Eduardo Pagan in my favorite salsa outfit.

It’s not unusual to hear New Yorkers talk about “before 9/11” and “after 9/11.” It’s certainly how I measure my time here. There’s the Before, and the After. 

For weeks after 9/11, I felt constantly afraid. The endless screech of the bus disc brakes as they inched down Second Avenue left me no peace in my apartment. The stench of the huge downtown crematoria wafting into my windows was a constant reminder of agonizing, unanticipated death. Buildings all over the neighborhood were covered with thousands of handmade posters begging for information about lost loved ones. Memorial candles literally covered Union Square. There was nowhere to go that didn’t scream, “Terrorist attack.”

I thought then of leaving New York City. The idea of going someplace quiet and safe allowed me to take a breath now and then, Ultimately, I decided that leaving would be disloyal and cowardly. Better to stay and tough it out in the way New Yorkers have done since Europeans first cheated the locals out of Manhattan.

Eventually, life settled back into a semblance of normal. But I was still scared. So I went back into therapy, with someone I came to love and admire. But I was still scared. It could’ve been a friend’s suggestion, or it could’ve been happy memories of dance classes in junior high school. Whatever it was, it got me to Sandra Cameron Dance Center, and the study of partner dancing. 

I danced the waltz. The fox trot. American tango. Cha cha. Bachata. Merengue. And this thing called salsa. For me, partner dancing became about two people, a woman and a man, working together to create something beautiful on the dance floor. There weren’t many men who were able to do that skillfully with me. I’m always apologizing for missteps, my hips don’t have a great deal of swing, I lack the requisite pony tail to slash his face as I turn. And I wasn’t young, even then!

But after a night of dancing, I went home and slept soundly. And the next day, I felt renewed and invigorated, and found myself looking forward to the next dance. Looking forward was a big change, after 9/11.

Eventually, the intoxicating syncopated rhythms of “salsa” music, also known as mambo, became my obsession. I left the waltz, tango and fox trot behind and entered into the fray of “dancing on 1 vs dancing on 2” with enthusiasm, vowing to learn both. I even learned to follow the lead of men who danced to a beat I could hardly distinguish as 1, 2, or even 3 (as shown in the video). 

(Perhaps there is a whole blog to be written about the dance. Someone must lead, and someone must follow. Many of the hard-driving career women I know find it impossible to follow. Yes, maybe this needs some writing on another day.)

Eventually, over the years, I stopped thinking so much of 9/11, and why other human beings hated us so much that they gave their lives in order to kill as many of us as possible. Most Friday nights were spent dancing, and often Saturdays, too. I even met some men on the dance floor who I thought might want to partner me in other ways, as well, although I was mistaken. Still, there was the thrill of possibly dancing beautifully with an apt partner, and the delicious exhaustion of a night well-danced, and the enchanting rhythms and hypnotic voices of all the salsa greats — Richie Ray y Bobby Cruz, Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon, all the Fania All Stars…the list is endless. 

Today, I dance alone, in subway stations with slippery floors, or in my living room. But I have such gratitude for my days as a salsera. Many times I have told people that salsa — the music and the dance — saved my life. 

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Why blog?

If you are reading this, it may be a miracle. Or, if divine intervention wasn’t involved, then somehow, I figured out how to publish it!

For years now, I’ve been in an agony of indecision. Busted out of my industry in a massive 2009 layoff, tired of taking questionable orders from people whose mothers were younger than me, realizing that the only way I could afford to stay in NYC was if I kept working in the industry that had sent me packing. Clearly, the stars were pointing to relocation, but where? You cannot create a New York experience anywhere else. Which is terrible on the one hand, and maybe not so bad on the other.

Still, after 32 years in New York City, I know where everything is. Why move to a place where I have to learn where everything is all over again? And what about my friends? Some of them are still working, and others bought years ago, and have no mortgage weighing them down. They show no signs of coming with me.

I don’t read blogs, other than Pamela Beck’s streetgiraffe.wordpress.com, and I only read that 5 minutes before our call. So why should I write a blog?

The next time my mind is frozen in some terrifying future place (world economic meltdown, etc.), maybe it will help to come here and wrestle with WordPress. Perhaps when my heart is breaking over leaving someone I love, I can come here and write some of the pain away. Best of all, I might be able to forge some new connections in this journey! The only way to know is to try.

I think that’s all for today. Before ending, I’ll insert something that I love about NYC, as a reminder of what I’m leaving.

Lights on the ceiling of the Whitney Museum with large, polka-dotted balloons from Yayoi Kusama.