Sports victories!
My thinking is very convoluted right after I wake up, but then the good thing about writing a blog you don't advertise is you can be as convoluted as you want. So! I dreamed about an Australian character from a U.S. soap trying to explain why Americans are fascinated with British royalty. I need to record my dreams for a final anthropology paper and, ridiculously, I'd moved my notebook from bedside, so I got up repeating the bits of dream I could remember after the alarm went off.
Two reasons: because "the day's residue" can appear in dreams days later, and because it was better than dreaming about bin Laden's death.
Not watching real time television after it happened (curses, TiVo!), I first got the info checking the weather before sending my daughter off to school. The news crawl announced Osama bin Laden killed and I responded much like I did when my mother told me Michael Jackson died: Where'd you hear that dumb-ass rumor?
Then the talking heads came on and I accepted that it was (probably) true. They showed the footage of the compound and I cringed at the blood. They showed the celebrating flash mobs and I found myself stuck between understanding and revulsion. A guy's dead, people; that doesn't mean that war is over. What are you celebrating?
But he wasn't just a guy. He was the boogie man. Of course there was a "ding dong the witch is dead" sort of thing going on. But why so...so whatever that was?
My sleep addled brain made the connection that I might not have gotten otherwise. I'd seen that scene before years ago when traveling through the a strange neighborhood. Years before the U.S. cared about the soccer world cup, Brazil won--I guess their first win in decades. And Brazilian-Americans took to the streets in this area. It was like a happy riot. No looting or fighting, but I did sit in the car in shock as a car was over turned. Hundreds danced and sang in the sort of display we see all the time--often not so peacefully--by the "victors" at the end of a major game.
Hundreds leave sports' arenas shouting about their win, having never touched the ball. Here in Boston (with no interest in sports in general, I don't know if this is true for all pro-teams), one isn't a Red Sox fan, one is a member of Red Sox nation. When the team wins, we all win. And that's just against another team playing with a ball on a field.
"Our team" killed the boogie man.
Many of us cannot morally cheer the death of anyone, even if we appreciate it as a victory. Others are immediately more practical thinking more of what this means for national security. Good. It would be ghoulish if we had all responded by chanting USA as though "we" had just won Olympic gold. But maybe we of cooler heads can cut the others some slack. It's been a long war. While most of us are sincere about supporting the troops, more and more of us just want it to be over. Whether we thought it was wrong headed to start or we've seen too many lives lost for so little gained...Maybe it's the scandal of American soldiers doing unspeakable things or even just the economics of it....We've had enough. We want our brothers and sisters home, and for all the talk of troop withdrawal, there seems to be no end in sight.
We needed the win.
