A New Chapter

A Whole New World?

I didn’t want to launch my Substack with anything political. Politics and partisanship are everywhere around us, and they’re overwhelming and exhausting on way too many days. We all need a break.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t tear up this year when conductor Keith Lockhart led the Boston Pops through its annual Independence Day performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture – and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all week.

You see, this was a first for me. Every year, as the bells ring out from the Hatch Shell stage and soldiers fire their cannons over the Charles River at the climax of Tchaikovsky’s commemoration of Russia’s victory over French invaders, I sit in my living room and struggle to keep tears from flowing and running down my cheeks. I’m embarrassed by my sentimentality; after all, I had no dog in that fight. But it’s the nostalgia of the day that has always triggered me when the orchestra reaches the most dramatic part of the music. It’s as if Tchaikovsky meant to commemorate the American colonists’ victory over the British and our subsequent Declaration of Independence.

This year was different. I watched the July 4th Pops concert without emotion as it was streamed by one of Boston’s local television stations. The holiday crowd of thousands dressed in red, white, and blue had camped out all day to reserve their spots on the Esplanade, as close to the stage as possible. They appeared to be celebrating and having fun, but were there as many people gathered along the river as in past years? I couldn’t tell from the camera angles. Were they as enthusiastic as they’ve always been when the musicians sounded the first familiar notes of the Overture? Did they cheer as loudly when the bells began to ring? It felt like the crowd had taken the party down a notch, but perhaps my mood was influencing my perception.

My eyes were dry. The music stirred nothing in my heart. Oh, I wore red, white, and blue to a small, quiet cookout with a few family members earlier in the day, but I had no interest in watching any fireworks, in town or on local or national television. The evening’s national broadcasts showed people everywhere across the U.S. following their usual traditions, wagging flags, singing and dancing along to “Stars and Stripes Forever,” cheering for the bright colors that exploded in the sky overhead. Did this year’s celebration feel any different from that of past years to them? Do they all know about the ICE officers wearing masks who’ve been disappearing their neighbors to who knows where? About the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP programs that will harm the most vulnerable among us? The tariffs that will strain both our wallets and our relationships with other countries, including some of our allies? This year’s record number of measles cases? The massive budget cuts and employee firings in crucial federal departments like FEMA, the National Weather Service, Social Security, the CDC and NIH? Every day we discover new and harmful consequences to policies being implemented here and abroad by unqualified appointees of a dangerous president.

I came across an uncredited meme a few days ago that summed up this feeling of dread that I and so many others are experiencing. To paraphrase: “I don’t feel like I did in 2016. I feel like I did when the plane hit the second tower, and we all realized what was happening.”

Is this still our country? It don’t think it is, and my heart is breaking. How will our crisis affect the world? Where do we go from here?