I Will Always Be American
Always be the way I always am?
I guess I write this with shame. I say I guess because it’s not a personal shame, but I do carry a weight, and I hate how it looks. I don’t hate that it’s there, but I hate that you can smell my despair up in there. My staunch stench, as this American exudes. A certain sense of certainty. Something I can never let go.
I have shame because Americans are loud, rude, lazy, blindly optimistic, and worst of all— stupid. I know we all aren’t but… I don’t know there’s some merit there. I hate these associations, but not because I actually hate them, I just hate how they look. I don’t mind being rude or lazy or stupid, but the moment I can’t shake it, the moment it becomes a piece of my identity— that’s where I draw a line.
I’m in The Netherlands for a few weeks this June. Whilst here, I have begun to notice my American-ness as it unfolds in real time. I see my reactions to the quiet, the peace, the lack of gunshots. No guns on the hips of police, no spitting, no yelling, none of it. It’s different and you can tell I’m adjusting. I mean even the coffeeshops (weed cafe’s) have been a shock for me. Smoking without going to jail, nay, prison? Yes, I’ll have 10 years of those please! It felt so good to smoke inside, in an establishment, with waiters, and other people smoking. I met with a date today when I visited Amsterdam, and as we sat in the coffeeshop, I asked him questions.
“Why do you put your cigarette tobacco inside your joint?” I said.
“I want to be using my brain and thinking when I’m 40, so it helps me smoke less weed,” my Dutch date uttered.
“Do you smoke blunts?”
“Only on special occasion.”
It was in this moment I realized, we are not the same. We do not care about the same things when it comes to smoking weed. See, when I was growing up, it was not about how high you could get, but rather how MUCH you can smoke. Can you fit a 3.5 in one blunt? Can you smoke it at once? Ahhh yes sweet satisfaction! That’s what matters in the states, but here, it matters about how long can I live and smoke for? No one seems to care about how long they live. Or maybe, we feel we have such little control over it being long, we exercise our control to make it short.
The Dutch are efficient and view life through longevity. Even when they roll their joints, they burn off most of the paper before smoking so that they smoke less paper, since they smoke so often. But me— being the American I am— went to a smoke store and found a blunt made of tobacco and put my stuff inside and had a good time! That’s just the way I was raised. I mean when in Rome! I did it his way, but also mine, and that’s not that bad, is it? Right? I will always be the way I always am. Do I accept or resent that fact? I can’t tell.
All’s to say, no matter where I go, whether it’s the Netherlands or elsewhere, I will always crave a blunt. Something unhealthy, dramatic, and difficult to maintain use. In the same way, this resembles the American lifestyle. I will choose what doesn’t serve my body, or my mind psychologically, as well something that I can’t sustain without dying first. That’s the American way. I don’t know if I mind. Maybe I’m just used to it. What do you think?
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