Life In America

Sometimes when I’m sitting in my car behind a red light, I marvel at the orderly way life is going on around me. Cars stop at the red light, they continue driving at the green light, pedestrians cross the street at their white light, at least 2 airplanes are in the sky in high altitude and almost daily I see a plane either take off or land due to a local airport.  I see people going around doing their business.  There is nothing exciting going on, its pretty calm and quiet. You hardly ever hear a car horn here. The sky is blue and maybe a few puffy clouds are drifting by. This makes me feel blissful and safe, I’m never afraid for my life nor do I worry about theft of my possessions. I get my mail around the same time every day, the Gardner comes every Thursday and the pool man shows up every Saturday.  

You would think this is utopia, but no, it’s just life in America. 

Because of having Atlantic Ocean in the East and the Pacific Ocean on the west and two friendly neighbors in its North and south borders America is insulated from war, famine, drought violent revolutions, displaced people, and epidemics. Where at the same time there are so many countries at war, there has been blood shed and destruction of whole cities, great number of people have been displaced from their homes and have been forced to leave their country to be safe. 

There are still countries around the world dealing with famine.

America looks great from afar, in movies, music videos, the internet and Google Earth.

But the reality is far from those images. Here are some facts about life in the U.S.A.

• Every day 310 people are shot ,from those 100 die, every day 21children and teens (1-17) are shot and 4 die from gun violence. 

• In 2017  47,173 people in America committed suicide that’s 129 per day on the average. 

• In America 40 million people lived in poverty in 2017, and 41 million people faced huger.

• In 2018 the population of homeless people had reached to 553,000.00 The largest, most populous and glamorous cities have the worst homeless problem. New York City is number one, then Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco in that order have the largest number of homeless people.

• The American Criminal Justice system was holding 2.3 million people in prisons. 

• Thirty million people in America can’t red or write, that is 14% of the population. 

•   Racism, LGBDQ phobia and discrimination are alive and thriving.  

Of course despite all of these problems I still prefer to live in America.  Always there are large number of people around the country working to solve these problems and find solutions.  Compare to some other countries individuals here have more freedom and rights. 

TICK-TOCK TICK-TOCK TIMES UP

A long long time ago, when I was still reading fairy tales, this one story made such an impression on me that I still remember it. My memory is not as good as it used to be, so if I remember correctly either a step mother or an old witch would lock this girl up in a dark room and give her a large coil of different color yarn and told her to untangle them by color. I have always thought that would be the worst torture or punishment for anyone let alone a little girl.  

Well, this is how I feel about my life sometimes, actually all the time.  I feel I’m holding hundreds of balloons in my hand and I need to keep them but its very difficult to hold on to all of them without letting go of some. I never know which ones I should keep. Should I chose green or the red one? Like someone untrained to defuse a bomb, who isn’t sure which wire to pull, the blue or the red?  I don’t know why I feel this way but I do. Sometimes I feel like my body is being pulled in different directions and its disorienting and painful.  Sometimes I think it has to do with being a woman. Most women could be, at the same time a wife, a mother, a daughter, a daughter in law, a sister, a grandmother, a friend , a nurse, a physiologist, an accountant, a manager,  a cooke  or a  maid.  Think about it, this is how most women's lives are. I’m not talking about balancing a home life and a career, I am talking about having to change your hat three thousand times a day. Well,  maybe not three thousand times but 10 times but it’s still very difficult. 

While joggling  all these roles a woman must also look good, be healthy, be athletic, be engaged, be informed, be able to talk about art and politics.  Yes I know some women can do this with their eyes closed while balancing on one foot and texting, but not me.  

For me, all my roles are important, all the people who are dependent on me are important, keeping a household running in good order is important, being healthy is important, being a good mother and grand mother is important, my self expression is important. But all of these things take time and time is running out tick-tock tick-tock.  And one day you become aware you’r done, you did all you could but the sense of satisfaction is not there, you feel that you failed but it’s too late to go back and fix things.  After living a life of uncertainty and doubt things are clear as to what’s important and what’s not but alas it's too late.