i am not dead.  i’m just taking a lot of photographs and tweeting and talking and eating and Not Blogging. but i aim to change that this year. no ETA; it’s all intent at this particular moment.

Today it feels like the 21st century finally started.

It’s hard to know what to make of the last 8 years or so in comparison; I guess we were still getting our shit together after the Cold War ended, leaving us with little but consumerism, swagger and irony to define our roles as Americans in the world and at home.

I think many people looked to the events on 9.11.2001 as a signal for our country to move in a different direction – but a powerful few saw it as a way to turn back the clock: to renew our country’s role as the primary leader in the fight against a Powerful Enemy that Threatens the Free World.  Only this time, it’s not a particular type of government or country (Communism, Soviet Union and China), but against an overall concept and ideology (Terrorism, via religious extremists).

It’s all rather brilliant – while the USSR had the audacity to fall, thus removing our Powerful Enemy (whom we could direct all our collective fears and military budget upon), this new enemy will never die, and thus can always be counted on by the Powers That Be to serve as the means of convincing the American people that we need them.  Terrorism will never vanish, any more than Greed or Deception will.  This is another War in a long history of “Wars on…” that can never actually be won (on Poverty, on Drugs, on Hunger, on Disease), and thus must be fought and funded forever.

This one is possibly the most ambiguous and open to interpretation of them all (the “War on Terrorism” might as well be called the “War on War”, or the “War on the Enemies of Countries We Like”), and we need not look too far to see the uncomfortable historical difficulties with such a lofty goal (for instance, the British Empire and their decades-long war against a group of terrorists who threatened their citizenry and property overseas – thankfully, in the end “We the Terrorists” won).

I’m not saying we’re out of these particular woods yet as a result of a single man or election; rather, we’ve finally recognized that said woods is aflame, and that this clever Obama fellow has suggested we reconsider our current policy of hosing it with gasoline.

What an amazing night! Let’s hope he respects us in the morning, and makes good on all that pillow talk…

I had an email conversation with some friends back east in Virginia (which Obama carried, thank you very much). It was suggested that, essentially, we had avoided a corrupt dictatorship in favor of an empty hope. My reply, which I’ve been mulling on ever since: cynicism is not wisdom, any more than hope is a plan – but that these substitutes allow us to cope when we’re down and out until we can think of a better way.

Despite all the hype, I truly believe in the essence of the man that is Barack Obama and the leader that he seeks to be. I feel we have lost our way as a nation, despite all our enormous accomplishments. Obama is not the answer to our problems – rather, he is the question, made manifest: “What if?”

What if we try diplomacy first, and bombing second?  What if justice is served via wisdom rather than fear?  What if we treat affordable health care as a right rather than a privilege?  What if those with more than they need helped those with less?

What if we could recreate a sense of civic duty as Americans that could drive us to work harder, better, together, for the good of the country first, and our endless pursuit of junk and distraction a distant second?

I have no illusions that the days ahead are going to be anything but challenging, and the president can’t really make us do these things any more than he can fly. But he can use sound judgment, he can choose wise counsel, he can learn from and be honest about his mistakes, and thus inspire the people who he represents to make manifest the country they would very much like to be citizens of but feel distant from. The United States of America is Us, like it or not – blaming “the government” or the “__ Party” for our collective woes is a game we no longer have to play.  We can stop right now, and instead, ask, what can I do to make things better? How can I get involved in a way that I can affect positive change? What resources are available to me that could be used to help?

We’ve elected a president who agrees with this idea – that it’s time to earn that citizenship to the greatest nation on Earth, via the thoughtful application of varying degrees of blood, sweat and tears, rather than continuing on as little more than a brooding, dissatisfied customer.

Call this all empty rhetoric if you wish, and seek your inspiration and answers elsewhere. Life is for living, and this is Now, and I have chosen to embrace what I feel is real, rather than continue to mumble cynically from the sidelines for my own edification.  It serves no purpose that I can see to act as if we were not in the world, outside of it, somehow maintaining our disinterest and absence of control over its fate while judging its inhabitants as ignorant and apathetic.

Done. Moving on.

My delightful friend Ariel Meadow Stallings had me photograph her for the purpose of an Offbeat Bride posting and general tomfoolery (some of you may remember my photographs of her book tour last year). The best of this past Sunday’s shoot is in her Flickr photostream. Enjoy!

we named him Sagan, after the late Carl. one of my heroes.

everything has changed, kinda. yet i still feel like me, even as i type this one handed, infant human cradled in the other.

last night: we had the birth at home, in a large tub of water in the living room. joriel and i in the tub, me supporting her as she moaned and roared like a lioness, and the water turned red with blood.

then, hours later, there he was – our son, emerging from the water, ghostly white with vernix, we laughing with delight. later, the placenta emerges – i cut the cord, and he is on his way.

many years from now, he’ll be scattering our ashes, saying farewell. by then, i hope we’ve had time to give him all the love we already feel in this most wondrous of hellos. where this love comes from, and whence it goes, is just another beautiful mystery.