Apparently, at the Hollywood Bowl, the "Star Spangled Banner" is performed before every event. A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us went to hear some Cuban music and I found myself standing rather unexpectedly, hand over heart, as an orchestra led a venue populated primarily with Cubans in a relatively rousing rendition of the National Anthem.
But this isn't about politics or Cuba or Communism or the DNC or hope or how I can be kind of corny or kind of irritable about having to stand for the "Star Spangled Banner," depending on my mood.
It's about what it is to really feel your heart.
That night at the Hollywood Bowl wasn't the first time I'd felt my heart vibrating my breastbone since my top surgery--in fact, I've found myself rubbing that area gently, soothingly, ever since they removed my binder. It's like having a direct pipeline to the anxiety, fear, confusion, and heartbreak that spouts up when I hear a certain song or find myself in one of those relentlessly shitty holding patterns that happen right before some magnificent roar of pent up hurt or anger gets released. Sometimes I lay out in the sun and just hold my heart and focus on the wind and the car honks and the thump thump of my own life bustling through me.
But, this night, at the Hollywood Bowl, I understood that my private discovery was the basis of a gesture I'd taken for granted since I dissented and refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance in Junior High--the gesture of making a promise with your life, with your whole breathing being.
When I place my hand over my heart, what am I doing? If I forget patriotism, if I forget politics, if I rediscover the gesture without the pomp, what is it I'm pledging to? The Cuban music and the crickets; the sun and the car horns; yes, even the politics, the patriotism. I'm pledging to the Junior High dissent, as well, and the healing, the healing, the spinning on of it all. I'm pledging to the thump thump itself.
2 comments:
Thump. That's my heart's bursting response. Thank you.
i press my thumb between my chest so i can feel that i am alive. i do this often regardless of my mood. when i feel anxious i do this same act but include a circular motion, clockwise, and it makes me feel closer to being. this post reminded me of the little things we all must do to keep intact what it is to be so human in such a manipulated world. the beat of my heart often out beats the ripples of trauma swimming in my veins.
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