Irene and Christie, et al.

In the face of what promised to be and in some places actually was a devastating storm, our state and local leaders found time to make themselves readily available for the cameras. With a large measure of the collective attention trained on them, the governor of New Jersey and the mayor of New York City opted to hector their constituents into a subservience that managed to belittle and tittilate their audiences simultaneously. Exasperated into righteous passion and intensity our elected leaders wrung hands and flapped jaws at a small segment of the population who were either too stupid or too stubborn to heed the clarion call of reason. It made for mildly amusing second-rate political theater. But it also exposed a seamier side of Christie and Bloomberg's pesonae. No surprises really, but here were two men engaged in their high calling: telling other people what to do while also covering poiltical ass.

 Christie's executive tone and Bloomberg's odd hybrid of plangency and finger-wagging were aimed at a much wider audience than potential victims of hubris or jackassery. Here were two britch-busting powerhouses, coyly deflecting all suggestions of national office-seeking with one profiled pose, donning the heady mantle of straight-talking head honcho with the other.

"I can't believe I have to say this as governor," said Christie, simultaneously channeling Martha Stewart and the Dog Whisperer, "But if you have to take pets with you bring the kittly litter, bring the pooper scooper."

You think maybe, Governor Christie, those constituents who followed your earnest mandate might have been able to figure that out without your gubernatorial wisdom?

Bloomberg was slightly more concise: "If you don't leave, you may die."

For scolding the general public into a hasty and orderly retreat, kudos Your Honor and Your Stateliness.  But for your histrionics and supercilious showboating, I can only offer one thing--best wishes for a fun and not too terribly expensive presidential run in 2016.

The Most Intimate Word of All?

"I."

Why I? After all, it belongs to everyone and to no one. From one angle nothing could be more public and less intimate. But behind the scenes, in the privacy on our own hearts and minds, "I" am the indispensable center of this universe. Not exactly the kind of intimacy most of us want any part of?

But a little consideration may reveal that there is more to "I" than meets the eye. "I" can be rather narrow: "I beg your pardon, but I was sitting there"; somewhat larger: "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country"; or limitless: "I am that I am."

None of these sizes is necessarily better, or truer than than the others. After all, it would be  a bit perverse for a bride or groom to declare "I am the way and the truth and the life" when a heartfelt "I do" is called for. The real question then is context. As self-defeating as it might sound to declare "I am an idiot," under certain circumstances (hopefully not these very ones) such a sentence, spoken with the right balance of levity and gravity, might be delightfully liberating.

And herein lies the intimacy of I, though we almost always miss it. Only I know what "I" means when I say it...unless I am able to able to faithfully express exactly what I mean to you. When that ordinary miracle happens, when my "I" and your "I" intersect, or less clinically, when we communicate, another level of intimacy descends on us.

We do well to remember, I suggest, that such intimacy, and with any luck such friendship, depends entirely on my capacity for real intimacy with who and what I am. Oh, and "your" capacity, too.