Saturday, April 17, 2004
More Like Iceland?
As I write now it is the waning of the Spring 2004 queer marriage debate season in the U. S of A (which I am beginning to look as one of those cyclical sports seasons. Have the queers moved up in the standings this year? Or have the conservatives stolen the trophy again? The strategic embrace of civil disobedience is surely some kind of glorious mid-season hoop shot.) Here in my neighborhood, the Minnesota version of the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions did not get past the Senate, as so many hoped and expected, but other sneaky attempts are still brewing and activists are saying we are not safe until the legislative session ends in May.
Meanwhile Linnea and I celebrated our anniversary in Iceland where civil partnerships have been the law since 1996, and where a current move to open "marriage" to both mixed and same-sex couples is controversial, but does not seem to evoke the constitution-banging bile and hatred this issue does in the United States. How good it was to be away from this country for a few days.
For one thing the news, even CNN, is so differently-focused in Europe. The megalomaniac posturing of the American Empire is included in the day's round-up, but the United States is not sitting at the center. I've been keenly aware of this every time I've been lucky enough to travel overseas, and I always find it such a relief. When I was in Poland during the US bombing of Kosovo the news actually conveyed how it might feel to be a resident of a region under fire, rather than always the ones riding safely above—always the bombers, never the bombed, the only American position of my generation until 9-11. Of course every place and every people desire to look out at the world from their own point of view. Obviously most places, if they have any autonomy at all, put themselves at the center of their own news. But what's noticeable when watching CNN in Europe—EVEN CNN, which is hardly a value-free lens—is simply the absence of that big smug American face. The official American point of view is so grabby and narcissistic that it always necessarily impacts the tone as well as the view of the news. When the gaze shifts, so does the feel, the temperature, the skin.
Linnea and I had an ongoing refrain we kept alive between ourselves, during our walks and bus rides around Iceland's capital city of Reykyavik. Look, the weather has shifted, we kept saying to each other, and only once or twice did we mean that the misty rain clouds were clearing. We said it first the evening we stepped out onto the street from one of the city's small neighborhood geothermal spas. One of the reasons Iceland is such a clean and clear landscape—aside from the psychic clarity that comes of being a country that has never invaded another country—is that it sits atop a geothermal kettle. Coming from the toxic mill regions of Chicago as I do it's hard to believe in air that really is this clear, but indeed, the breathing in easy in Iceland.
The whole island is volcanic. The ride into the city from the airport is through a vast flat terrain of moss covered lava and the spas and pools are geothermically heated. Spotty sheets of steam rise from the swimming pools and the citizens—from children who come to the pools as part of their school day to older folks otherwise missing from the usual trajectories of the weekend tourist—gather to chat in any one one of the string of public hot pots calibrated to temperatures ranging from cool soup to lobster boil. Icelanders have the longest life expectancy on the planet; I can't help but believe their daily soaks have something to do with this.
Linnea and my skin turned red from the heat of the hot pots, and we warmed up enough to sit on an outdoor bench in our wet swimsuits even though the air temperature never rose above the mid-forties. Imagine a culture where a daily hot (and chlorine-free) soak is a normal and shared community activity. Not the prize awarded to the biggest rat in the race. Not the spoils of war hidden behind a suburban backyard fortress. Simply a daily public gathering where teenage students and grandfathers and middle-aged civil servants and the stray tourist or two can stop and be still and talk to strangers and companions and allow their shared internal weather to change. I suppose the Ys and gyms in American cities approximate this experience, but these are self-selecting and dependent on membership, not to mention polluted by the necessity of chlorination, and if they reflect a shared cultural value its more likely our obsession on body image then that of a long shared community sigh.
So what Linnea and I meant when we said the weather had changed was that our skin was now warmer to the touch, yes, and the walk back to our room was an easy wandering, but also that we were smiling together in a benign country whose landscapes were dotted with public sculpture and whose people were arguing, yes, over the future of some of their natural habitat, but who seem to have little institutionalized drive to push their faces into the screen of some other people's daily conversation. Yes our weather had changed. For a few days, at least.
I know that the world is more complex, twisted, and impacted than a March afternoon in an Island nation that runs on the power of their own volcano. The people of Iceland have a high standard of living, universal health care, a comparatively homogenous citizenry and enough natural beauty to force the worst cynic to lay back and relax for a spell. In many ways it's ridiculous to compare it to anyplace else. And yet when I think of the banks, the breathtaking landscapes, and the diverse human riches of the United States, not to mention our great tradition of individual freedom and cultural reinvention, I can't help but note that we could be anything at all. Why not more like Iceland?
__
If you would like to send me comments, please go to my Web site, www.barriejeanborich.net, and use the GUEST BOOK feature.
As I write now it is the waning of the Spring 2004 queer marriage debate season in the U. S of A (which I am beginning to look as one of those cyclical sports seasons. Have the queers moved up in the standings this year? Or have the conservatives stolen the trophy again? The strategic embrace of civil disobedience is surely some kind of glorious mid-season hoop shot.) Here in my neighborhood, the Minnesota version of the constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages and civil unions did not get past the Senate, as so many hoped and expected, but other sneaky attempts are still brewing and activists are saying we are not safe until the legislative session ends in May.
Meanwhile Linnea and I celebrated our anniversary in Iceland where civil partnerships have been the law since 1996, and where a current move to open "marriage" to both mixed and same-sex couples is controversial, but does not seem to evoke the constitution-banging bile and hatred this issue does in the United States. How good it was to be away from this country for a few days.
For one thing the news, even CNN, is so differently-focused in Europe. The megalomaniac posturing of the American Empire is included in the day's round-up, but the United States is not sitting at the center. I've been keenly aware of this every time I've been lucky enough to travel overseas, and I always find it such a relief. When I was in Poland during the US bombing of Kosovo the news actually conveyed how it might feel to be a resident of a region under fire, rather than always the ones riding safely above—always the bombers, never the bombed, the only American position of my generation until 9-11. Of course every place and every people desire to look out at the world from their own point of view. Obviously most places, if they have any autonomy at all, put themselves at the center of their own news. But what's noticeable when watching CNN in Europe—EVEN CNN, which is hardly a value-free lens—is simply the absence of that big smug American face. The official American point of view is so grabby and narcissistic that it always necessarily impacts the tone as well as the view of the news. When the gaze shifts, so does the feel, the temperature, the skin.
Linnea and I had an ongoing refrain we kept alive between ourselves, during our walks and bus rides around Iceland's capital city of Reykyavik. Look, the weather has shifted, we kept saying to each other, and only once or twice did we mean that the misty rain clouds were clearing. We said it first the evening we stepped out onto the street from one of the city's small neighborhood geothermal spas. One of the reasons Iceland is such a clean and clear landscape—aside from the psychic clarity that comes of being a country that has never invaded another country—is that it sits atop a geothermal kettle. Coming from the toxic mill regions of Chicago as I do it's hard to believe in air that really is this clear, but indeed, the breathing in easy in Iceland.
The whole island is volcanic. The ride into the city from the airport is through a vast flat terrain of moss covered lava and the spas and pools are geothermically heated. Spotty sheets of steam rise from the swimming pools and the citizens—from children who come to the pools as part of their school day to older folks otherwise missing from the usual trajectories of the weekend tourist—gather to chat in any one one of the string of public hot pots calibrated to temperatures ranging from cool soup to lobster boil. Icelanders have the longest life expectancy on the planet; I can't help but believe their daily soaks have something to do with this.
Linnea and my skin turned red from the heat of the hot pots, and we warmed up enough to sit on an outdoor bench in our wet swimsuits even though the air temperature never rose above the mid-forties. Imagine a culture where a daily hot (and chlorine-free) soak is a normal and shared community activity. Not the prize awarded to the biggest rat in the race. Not the spoils of war hidden behind a suburban backyard fortress. Simply a daily public gathering where teenage students and grandfathers and middle-aged civil servants and the stray tourist or two can stop and be still and talk to strangers and companions and allow their shared internal weather to change. I suppose the Ys and gyms in American cities approximate this experience, but these are self-selecting and dependent on membership, not to mention polluted by the necessity of chlorination, and if they reflect a shared cultural value its more likely our obsession on body image then that of a long shared community sigh.
So what Linnea and I meant when we said the weather had changed was that our skin was now warmer to the touch, yes, and the walk back to our room was an easy wandering, but also that we were smiling together in a benign country whose landscapes were dotted with public sculpture and whose people were arguing, yes, over the future of some of their natural habitat, but who seem to have little institutionalized drive to push their faces into the screen of some other people's daily conversation. Yes our weather had changed. For a few days, at least.
I know that the world is more complex, twisted, and impacted than a March afternoon in an Island nation that runs on the power of their own volcano. The people of Iceland have a high standard of living, universal health care, a comparatively homogenous citizenry and enough natural beauty to force the worst cynic to lay back and relax for a spell. In many ways it's ridiculous to compare it to anyplace else. And yet when I think of the banks, the breathtaking landscapes, and the diverse human riches of the United States, not to mention our great tradition of individual freedom and cultural reinvention, I can't help but note that we could be anything at all. Why not more like Iceland?
__
If you would like to send me comments, please go to my Web site, www.barriejeanborich.net, and use the GUEST BOOK feature.
