Stray Thoughts from the Edge of Citizenship

So, those in the know know that today was Iryska’s Cit­i­zen­ship Cer­e­mony … we were both run­ning on a wave of cof­fee and adren­a­line over a deep and wide sleep-deficit (like, Mar­i­ana Trench style), but coasted through in fine form and now my loveli­est love of all time is a full-fledged U.S. Cit­i­zen, with all the rights and respon­si­bil­i­ties the rest of us Natural-Borns take for granted or piss away in a mid­dle class, angsty drug moan. I wrote some thoughts, with no par­tic­u­lar sense of style, whilst I sat in a highly uncom­fort­able seat in the Civic Cen­ter bal­cony. and here they are:

The dais is flanked on both sides by 90’s style LCD pro­jec­tors cast­ing a zoomed-in view of a flag wav­ing in ultra-slow-motion, mak­ing it sort of undu­late behind white, drop-shadowed text that reads “Cel­e­brate Cit­i­zen­ship” and other such happy bites. The large but mis­mod­u­lated speak­ers pipe out tinny but quite iden­ti­fi­able patri­otic songs– i can hear “God Bless Amer­ica” on repeat, midrange jacked up high to float over the dull bass roar of the crowd of citizens-to-be.

I notice that most every­one has a rather large entourage with them. One man, rather than an entourage, seems to be wear­ing an Amer­i­can Flag cape. Actu­ally, it appears to be a beach towel, brand-spanking & col­or­fully new, stars and stripes and all, draped over his shoul­ders. From this dis­tance, I can just make out that he has tucked it into his polo-shirt-collar. I admire this, grin­ning so much the kid next to me stares at me with huge brown eyes.

I have told this story in the past, to at least a few peo­ple: I used to drive by the San Diego Civic Cen­ter and see the plas­tic let­ters on the back­lit sign spelling out ‘Nat­u­ral­iza­tion Cer­e­mony’. It always gave me a deep con­cep­tual kick to imag­ine a dense, half-sweaty, cheap-cologne-and-perfume-and-cigarette musk-ed crowd, stand­ing, hands raised, and for­swear­ing alle­giance to for­eign poten­tates in unison.

I see Iryshka walk­ing, off to my right, look­ing tall and ele­gant in the legs, flow­ing a lit­tle (a ben­e­fit of the wide flare of her styl­ish pants) — & look­ing more than a lit­tle ‘cute mouse’-y in the head & shoul­ders region as her nerves make her head bow and her brain swim a lit­tle, I am sure. Part of that worry must be the Russ­ian pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with paper­work, and part of it assuredly is my wife’s will­ing­ness to give her­self over to worry as a sort of pri­mal, dri­ving, state-of-mind (I think she gives in because the nature of worry pro­duces a repeat­ing cycle of thoughts, forc­ing her to check and re-check and re-re-check (ad infini­tum) and so she comes out the other side with every­thing– INS paper­work, for exam­ple– in order). She’s sit­ting now, her head still bent low, sunk a lit­tle between a flat topped Pacific Rim type and a bald­ing man whose skin is the color of my morn­ing cof­fee. I am hop­ing she feels a lit­tle calmer now that she’s passed through, suc­cess­fully, the first gaunt­let of offi­cers stamp­ing paper­work on col­lapsi­ble tables.

There are a huge num­ber of peo­ple here, more than I expected. I am a lit­tle sur­prised and how unre­mark­able, in total, the eth­nic mix­ture is. I mean, it *is* mixed, with veils and burkas and dyed cot­ton wraps and silk shirts open over 6 inches to the chest reveal­ing gold crosses in wiry tan­gles of black chest hair. There are hooked nose, snub Bjork noses, skin the won­drous color of shiny coal, skin the color of soft beach sand, skin the color of Baltic mists. I see large white beards, low cut cleav­age, tight skirts, crum­pled old suits, pot bel­lies, skele­tal wrists, and a gag­gle of small US flags pok­ing out of peo­ples’ breast pock­ets. It is mixed, it’s just that this seems to be the nor­mal street melange of San Diego any­way. I am say­ing, it looks pretty business-as-usual for a stroll through down­town. Not, let’s admit, Prospect Street in La Jolla, or on most of the beaches north of OB, but surely when we’re trolling for Ethiopian food down on El Cajon Boulevard.

It is dif­fi­cult to locate Iryna again, as the seats all around her fill up. I do find her, but her two flank­ing gen­tle­men have dis­ap­peared for the moment, so it took a lit­tle extra.

Well, that was all I was able to scrib­ble in the note­book. I must say that I thor­oughly enjoyed the cer­e­mony, most par­tic­u­larly when they went through the 98 or so “host” coun­tries and had the soon-to-be-former-citizens stand, to the applause of their fam­i­lies, friends, and oth­ers who shared their origins.

The deep rum­bling oath was all that I had dreamed it would be, and I knew that when it was over, Iryna would turn and blow me a kiss– and she did not dis­ap­point. My lovely new citixen (which is my typo, which i will keep, since it calls to mind a hybrid citizen-vixen). I went out­side to buy her a cof­fee (well, we were both quite exhausted [another story]) and handed her her first caf­feinated bev­er­age as a full fledged honored-and-responsible, child of the United States. It wasn’t too great, this cof­fee, but then — few sym­bols are mag­nif­i­cent in their own right. It’s the idea that counts :)

So, my most crazy, out-of-body-and-mind, arc-of-a-falling-star, without-reservation-but-with-abandon, con­grat­u­la­tions and love to my wife, Iryna Clark, who I love in ways I never thought I might, and ways I never knew I could, and who con­firms every day that I made the best choice of a ter­res­trial life­time when I mar­ried her. Wel­come to the USA! Live Free or Die!

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