Dear Reader, the next few blogs are reduxes — blogs which originally ‘aired’ back in fall 2018 which I am put it into chronological sequence. I hope these reduxes, in their original context, provide additional insight.
I was recently in Boston and took a guided tour of the Black Heritage Trail, a path that links more than 15 pre-Civil War sites important in African-American history; the stories of American abolitionists (folks who fought for the elimination of slavery) were a central theme of this tour.
I was totally captivated as the tour guide began sharing the story of a husband and wife — Ellen and William Craft — who through cunning, disguise and luck were able to escape slavery and flee to freedom in Boston. The story however was just as captivating to folks back in the 1800s, when press got wind of the Craft’s amazing escape, they started printing it in newspapers. When their old slave master, in Georgia, got a hold of a paper with their story in it, he decide to send slave hunters to Boston to capture his famous slaves and return them to him. And so we, as a tour group, stood at site of the famous showdown between William Craft and a group of abolitionists versus the slave hunters…( you will need to go to Wikipedia for the rest of the Craft’s tale, I have my own to tell here).
It got me thinking…the slave owner clearly thought the Crafts belonged to him, that they were his property. Obviously though, with my modern sensibilities, that seems crazy – you can’t own another person. The Crafts also thought their life belonged to them, but, did their circumstances really bear that out? These are folks who were born into slavery, who spent most of their life forced to do the will of others. Then, after a brief time of freedom, they again found themselves forced to fight ( and ultimately flee). Can I really say that people whose every action is dictated by someone or something else are free? Do they ‘belong’ to themselves?
The tour went on and my thoughts did too, till about 2 weeks later. I had wanted a new phone, something durable with a long battery life, and after weeks of research decided on just the phone; I dragged Eric to the AT&T store to both buy the new device and to switch carriers (Verizon, my old carrier, did not stock the phone). The phone worked fine when we walked out of the store at 9 PM. The next morning though we had no service. Fuck Fuck Fuck! I was in a panic. I had made a huge change, spent a bunch of money, and now I had a phone that didn’t get reception in my house. My stress level was through the roof, so much for controlling my phone…all that research, a provider switch, and here I was with a piece of crap that didn’t actually make calls in my house. Fortunately, an email tipped me off to the problem, I had put a wrong number on the application form. It was, after all that stress, a matter of a short call to AT&T to get the line up and running. Whew.
I took one brief sigh of relief before I realized I was running late for my workout. I ran out the door, again stressed and toughed it through a killer boot camp class. Without even time to shower, I had to run again…I had an appointment to get my car serviced. It was off to the mechanic.
It was already noon, before I was in a loaner car, on the way home. Suddenly it dawned on me: I have spent almost every minute since I woke, plus a ton of stress, in service of my belongings. First I stressed about, then serviced the new phone. Then I sweated it our while I serviced my body. Then I scurried along to bring the car in for service. When I got home, the first thing on my list: laundry in service of my clothes.
I think I own these objects, I control them, I use them. But, like the Crafts, my life is a continual reaction to these things. Am I free? Do they belong to me? Because, it really is starting to seem like I am a slave to my objects.
“Fine”, I think to myself, “I spend time, energy, care for these belongings, that is a price I am willing to pay, for something reliable. For something consistent, for something I can count on”. But hold on a moment there: Are these objects really being consistent, reliable? The phone needed attention because it wasn’t working. The body needed a workout because at my age, its 2 weeks of sedentary living to flabby. The car needed a service because without oil it just doesn’t run. My day was, as it was, precisely because all these objects fail. They decay, they break, they are –yup, you got it—subject to impermanence.
Plus, if I am really being honest with myself, the care I put into these objects the concern, the jaw-breaking stress, is not just for the objects and their obvious functions, it is just as much (maybe more) for the object’s secret function – what I believe they do to care for and feed myself. The phone is not just a phone after all, it is a safety blanket that bestows me with knowledge, keeps me from getting lost, from being alone, it is my invincibility shield in a lonely dangerous and confusing world; right up until my GPS fails, like it did the other day, and I end up in the ghetto. The car is a status symbol, showing my wealth and my sensible decision making (it’s a nice subtle BMW X1, not a Porsche after all); right up till my brother Jew shames be for driving a BMW, a company that supported the Nazis. The fit, shapely body proves I am in control, of myself and of my life; right up till too much green coffee extract has me peeing myself.
At the heart of it, what I want most deeply, what I delude myself into thinking I am special enough to achieve one day — if I just push, work, act good, upright, moral, and muscle hard enough, — is a little garden-like world where everything is perfectly manicured, in bloom, beautiful and fragrant and just to my liking, always. In my mind my objects are my spades and hoes, tools to help me build my little garden.
But, any of you guys who have gardened before know, gardens take a ton of work, and there is always something dying, rotting, stinking, it is never the imaginary refuge I think, I hope, to build.
Back during the times of slavery in this country, slave holders used to say that “slaves are content with their servitude”. So what about me, am I content? Do I want freedom or will I strengthen the chains of my bondage with lies about my stuff, myself and this world? I for one am vigilantly taking note of all the times, ways, I’m a slave to my objects. I am watching my servitude, seeing how many hours of each day it consumes. Here is to hoping this path winds its way to freedom ASAP.