I don’t care much for the mainstream media. I’m a liberal who gets her news from Nate Silver, Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones. I didn’t have a television until about a month ago, and with the hate-a-thon of political ads, I kind of wish I had killed it already. With politics, I believe actions speak louder than words. A day of canvassing or phone banking gives you the right to say to say you’ve done your best for the candidate that will serve your needs in office.But I’m also New Yorker who lived through the fear and sadness that 9-ll brought. And to double down on personal tragedy, Hurricane Katrina snatched my mom’s house off the beach seven years ago. For me, Hurricane Sandy is a frankenbaby of emotions, and when I saw the art deco buildings of Rockefeller Center bathed in red, white, and blue light, it stirred some dormant NY-USA nationalism in my ever-cynical heart. NBC’s Democracy Center is about as mainstream as media gets, but that map painted on the ice in Rock Center got to me. My first reaction was “I want to go skate on New Mexico!” Then I remembered the day I took my first wobbly steps on that tiny patch of ice in New York (spoiler alert: it is way smaller in person than it looks on TV).As kid stepping on to the ice that first time, I was fearful and hopeful, and today on Election Day, I feel the same way. I’m fearful of candidates that want to take us backwards and hopeful for the ones that want to lead us forward. America’s ankles are wobbly right now, but tomorrow will reveal if we’re on our ass in the cold or sprinting across the line to put the puck in the net. All I know is when I wake up tomorrow morning, that ice better have a lot of blue on it.
Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of A New Day
2 min read
