going back to church

New York has been a welcome sight for three decades now. My bff bounced between SF and NYC for as long as I can remember, never quite committing to any of it. He's been a great home base in the big cities - an instant social group on-arrival and the glue that keeps me in touch with a wide variety of oldtimers from ATL.

Whether housesitting for a month, watching the NYC Marathon, or just dropping in between flights - it's always open arms and laughs for days. Manhattan proper, on the other hand, has gone from frothy milk cocktails served in an utra-violence time capsule to a world of Bed Bath & Beyond and M&M stores. I'm talking full ampersand.

Even though the fun events generally take us to Brooklyn, I am forever delighted by the dotted spots left where the suits clink glasses with the scum.

Our favorite nearby joint is called the Holland Bar.



Density demands bars and diners be a long line of barstools sans tables or kid seats, and this is no exception. The CASH ONLY sign on the wall works well to repel large groups of appletini simps.

Booze is the biggest decoration in the place, the dwarfed television leaves half of the stools squinting. Second biggest feature is the jukebox, an overly-modern internet DJ that demands tips before it even considers your song.

The bartender wore eyeliner sharp enough to cut you, her mere presence demanded respect.

"You pay in cash and you pay every time", she warned. We sagely nodded with bills between two fingers and received a Budweister and a shot of Seagrams.

She immediately followed it up with the too-late caveat "oh and the bathroom is broken". Through the open door I could see the sink completely mummy-wrapped in CAUTION tape.

We had a few rounds and I immediately hit the wall. My mind scrambled to take inventory: two bottles of wine at dinner, check. two beers and two shots, check. oh right all that weed between the two. Professionals know when they are in the "shouldn't have crossed the streams" amateur zone, so I warned my boozed up comrades and ordered a water.

The reaction from the bartender was a tidal wave of latina machisma.

"Oh, so your friends get another round and you can't even keep up with them."

i can't wait for this water it is going to be perfect

"She's a woman even you can't keep up with a woman?"

oh god the bathroom is out of order

"I guess it's just water for the lightweight."

is she going to make me arm wrestle

After what felt like an eternity I had exactly what I needed to stabilize, with a new insult hurled at my head every three minutes to keep me sharp. But I'm a professional, I know when I need a fucking water so I don't bounce my own vomit off of a mummified toilet.

At this point the cute couple I am with went over to the DJ and fed it many dollars as they plead for the next few tunes. At the end of the bar sat an older man with his Tex-Mex hat alongside his beer. Beside him stood a muscular man, slicked back hair, tattoos spotting his skin. They were talking between themselves - the younger one talking extra loud, hoping to lure others into his bravado.

I take the bait and begin the banter. Not two minutes into it and he asks about me. I stumble over some words, not prepared to talk real, and mumble that I've left everything to figure out how to start over again. He stops the schtick, walks right over and immediately embraces me. It took me by complete surprise and it was exactly what I needed. To be seen by a complete stranger, for only a minute. Seconds later he reclaimed his space at the end of the bar and goes right back into F THE POLICE.

I watched my friends sigh in unison as the song changed, but not to theirs. It was Ricky Martin, and the end of the bar blew the fuck up. The old man stood up, put on his hat, and asked the bartender to dance. She strutted down the length of the bar to join him, their hips moved in immediate unison as the strongman slithered in-place, cheering the couple on.

"Ricky Martin!" he exclaimed, every 30 seconds for the duration of the song.

The energy was infectious and I started chair wiggling, catching up in conversation with my WHEN ARE OUR SONGS GOING TO PLAY friends.

Suddenly I feel a pair of hands on my hips from behind me, and I just know it's Mr. Ricky Martin himself. I go from my seated robo-pops straight into the snake, giving it a little signature glitch on each way down.

I am quickly corrected. "It's smoooooooth" instructs the deep voice behind me. I comply, axing the me and going full salsa serpent. "Ahhhh!". Ricky Martin is pleased, and dances back to his beer.

The rest of the bar only averts their gaze once the song goes quiet. I have found my fortitude. Don't you just love it when the room stops spinning?

The "DJ" starts playing another song, and another, none of which are the songs my pals paid for. They aren't having it.

After a while the familar sounds of Destroyer fill the bar. This singer-songwriter is often grating to most people on first listen, but he is so very my New York soundtrack and always marks a certain settled comfort here. Our tunes keep on coming, I find my footing again, and order another pint of their finest swill.

As we wind down the night our final request comes on. I push myself away from the barstool, face the wall, and begin dancing.



Ricky Martin takes immediate notice and his commentary just fuels my fire. It's been an eternity since I've danced in a bar. Maybe two since I've danced in a bar, alone.

"Ah yeah!"

"Preach it!"

Church is in session and I'm hitting the eighth notes with my hips. The beat has taken hold of my body and it's a cathartic worship service to everything I couldn't be during the pandemic. Reclaiming myself wholly on a Monday night with my own tiny congregation.

"Oooooh!"

"Alright!"

"YESSSSS"

The song fades and with tears in my eyes I turn to face the audience. The tough bartender gives me a smile and a nod. I turn to Mr. Martin and say goodbye.

"Sometimes you just gotta dance it out."

He gets it. New York gets it. Millions of people, free to be themselves. No hipsters with furled eyebrows anywhere on the horizon. A bar full of the uncool, at the coolest spot in Manhattan.

My favorite part of going out here are the best friends you make, for only a night.

homeless and home again

There is nothing like coming home after being lost in the world for awhile. Travel has a way of making you crave deep roots - even if this means being replanted a thousand miles away. Home is a sacred place of sweat, of spirit, and iterative change until everything feels right. My shrine was my everything during the numb-wrenching pandemic and subsequent failed revolution, a meditative throne upon which I could absorb years of bad news.

While there was drift within the household as we navigated safety and sanity during uncertain times, we both poured ourselves into our work and our friends. Making sure the people that needed us felt seen. Giving in the myriad ways we secretly seek to be given to. The languish was real, but so was the intent to be kind to one another and not sweat the small stuff. This was a temporary setback to something I was committed to seeing through.

A roadtrip to Bend over the summer gave me hope that this paralysis was about to end. A taste of normalcy across a dozen outdoor patios. I felt reconnected.

A few months later she would return from an emotional week visiting family she hadn't seen in far too long. She came back with anger. Resentment. Hostility. The unspoken CONS column in any relationship matrix, added together and swung like a hammer.

She completely disappeared, seemingly overnight. Making plans with everyone but me. Jumping to conclusions without giving me the benefit of the trust we'd built over nearly a decade. Ditching me at a dinner party. The switch from love to loathe had been flipped in her brain, and I did not deserve any of it.

I suffered through several social gatherings just trying to get my bearings. Hollow smiles through gapped teeth. My compass spun wildly as I shrank from the pain of this transformation, seeking love, seeking light, seeking north. How do you fix something that doesn't want to be repaired?

I still don't understand why she married me. This might be the hardest part of it all. To realize the silent responses to my splayed ribcage and vulnerable, beating heart was actually the judgement I had feared all along. Rigid expectations without the courage to vocalize need. Engendered gender roles, doing nothing for the flesh marionettes playing their parts. How we cut ourselves off from the people we love the most. Death by a thousand disappointments.

It only took a 10 minute phone call with a lawyer to learn that this wasn't my house. This wasn't my life to live. All hope, all future, all trust - turned to dust.

The thought of paying Seattle rent without Seattle income was insane to me. Why would I fight tooth and nail for a tiny $2000+/month apartment and blow through my savings while grief-clicking through the extrovert's reimagined life via an Instagram story? This was the existence I knew I couldn't live.

So I left.



I have crashed landed in New York City for a two month stay. I have flown more in two weeks than I have in two years, thrust from years of intentional isolation to the crushing crowds of Manhattan. It's unsettling, it's unnerving, but going from zero to sixty so quickly has me back in the bloodflow and there is true comfort in that. I am staying with an oldest of friends, a shoulder I desparately need right now. New York has inspired me to write again, and I will be putting ink to the minutae soon.

This rebirth has its upsides, eventually.

Questions I seek to answer:

- Where are my people? Without having a $923,000 mortgage? (Every city eventually has a Brooklyn.)

- Do I deserve healthcare as a citizen? Is there a country that I can feel a part of but also cares about its people? (Am I too old to learn Greek?)

- How do you travel and stay connected? (This might be the hardest to figure out.)

- Do I want to settle down where I would want my vacation home to be, relocating to the dayjob and having a forever home in paradise? (Remote work, is it a trap?)

- What do I want to build with my time? (Forever ideas, finite heath meter.)

Most importantly, through all of this, I remain optimistic. This is the most important sign, that everything will turn out fine.

doing rome wrong

Taking a bike tour in a new city has been one of my most eye-opening experiences on my last few trips. It started off so easy, pedaling through Montreal in wonderful weather - all we had to do was to not be slower than the two chain-smoking French among the pack. Even though there were hills and traffic the experience felt effortless, a testament to the route plan and the drivers alike.

Things haven't quite been the same since. Last year I ate sand in rural Vietnam. This year I thought a leisurely ride through Rome would hit a few of the sites and give our bodies some much-needed movement. It was every bit as difficult, in completely opposite ways.

We arrived early to the bike shop at the Colosseum, and were surprised to be the only people on the afternoon tour. No young or old or emphysemic in sight to bring up the rear, it was us and the tour guide. She slid effortlessly between signs and buildings and flocks of man-birds, somehow managing to keep her feet on the pedals while lowering her speed to .000001 miles per hour. I, on the other hand, acted like I've never ridden a bicycle before - every 50 feet a mallard with legs would suddenly change direction, extended selfie stick whipping within inches of my skull.

Reviews of this company were stellar, secret paths and back alleys avoiding the major clusterfucks. Thankfully this was mostly true, our journey often dipped away from the hordes of people following various colors of panties-on-a-stick - but the narrower the street the higher the chance we'd nearly kill an old oblivious guy checking Facebook. The bike bell built for clearing a path became a liability, drunks would mimic the sound while paying it no mind - more than one lady Brit pulling their loved one aside scolding "the bell means move!". No less than 15% of the time I was pushing these wheels along with my feet, Flintstones style.

The freedom on this ride was ironically when merging back into chaotic streets - paved roads and an assortment of vehicles acknowledging us-as-kin, wrists relieved from the punishment of pebbled paths. We pedaled hard and fast past Altare della Patria, sad once again when we reached another mob scene photo opportunity and the accompanying "It's too crowded, I will wait with the bikes here".

I wish we would have instead done this in Bologna, the only city that made sense by bike. As we neared the end of our 3 hour journey we exhaustedly asked the guide "do you normally ride your bicycle in Rome?". She smiled, blurted a sharp "oh no!", and we all laughed aloud. Oh Rome, you so crazy.

antica roma

Our final meal in Bologna was the fanciest - Ristorante L'Arcimboldo was traditional Bolognese food done with flair mere blocks from the train station, their Lasagne Verde spectacular and the final (successful) tick of my own Bologna gastrochecklist.

Cotoletta alla Bolognese  ✔
Tortellini in Brodo  ✔
Gelato
Tagliatelle al Ragù  ✔
Lasagna Verde  ✔

Astute readers will note the lack of a tick next to Gelato, and sadly I was too stuffed to cone strut after lunch. Food memories are always the strongest for me when on vacation - they evoke waterfalls of incredibly specific perspectives - of exact mood and headspace - the closest I've ever come to freezing time.

Gelato and Rome take me right back to 2010, when I played an active listening shoulder to someone else's aborted wedding and his heavy-hearted decision to still go on the prepaid stillborn honeymoon. During the scorching month of August we decided to bail on the endlessly long line at the Vatican and ended up pulling our take-a-ticket at Gelateria dei Gracchi. The staff were alternating annoyed and curt, in rapid-fire emotionally Italian intervals. I ended up with a double-helping of watermelon gelato with thick cream spread atop. The moment I put that sweet juicy grainy to my lips every part of my sweat-soaked, sunburned body felt at ease. It was the gelato dragon I would forever chase, my demands on this trip to revisit the Gracci left me watermelon-less, their still-delightful caramel-pear remaining a distant second-place memory.

Still, gelato and Italy will forever walk hand-in-hand - another important excess as part of living excessively.

this bologna has a first name, it's y-o-u-n-g

There's an inverse European relationship with the urgency that you need to pay your bill and the speed at which you get said bill. A glass of Prosecco seemed civilized at the time, a quick bubbly before boarding the train to Bologna. Once we were served we were deceased, the mob scene at the food counter ensured patience would be met by the invisible hand, fingers spread. Precious minutes ticked down as anxiety grew, 5 minutes until our train leaves, head-nod acknowledgement that we would get our bill next, 4 minutes until our train leaves, 3 minutes until our train leaves, IL CONTO PER FAVORE, 2 minutes until our train leaves, perhaps our only full-booked chance at getting out of Venice today, keeping the middle fingers holstered, finally we paid and bolted to the very last car on track 8.

Once again, silence. Couples under travel pressure have three ways to handle it - laugh it off (never happens), turn against one another (far too common), or put headphones in and dive deep into respectful distance - knowing that time away from that stressbomb fading into the horizon will bring us back to us.

Some people travel with an exhausting list of must-sees, pressured by friends (OH YOU JUST HAVE TO SEE THIS OR YOU NEVER REALLY WENT), pressured by fomo, pressured by the likelihood that you will never re-visit a city in your life. I actively shun this sort of tourism - eventually the rapid-fire museums will bleed and blur, mimicry of friends and family and Anthony Bourdain are great ways to find your vibes up until the point of fully following someone else's moment, sacred moments that I want to claim and stretch as long as possible, of too much wine and ample people watching and giving ourselves permission to move through time like you would back home.

I wanted something not-guidebook between Venice and Rome, and even though Florence is the typical third I needed ample oxygen while spending 3 weeks above 20,000 feet. Bologna seemed perfect for breathing, and we were delighted to be let out of our taxi in the city square surrounded by street art and punk hair and young Italian energy. Our flat was dead center and top floor, the private balcony a perfect place to sip wine in the evenings, the terror stairs leading up to the loft bed were wooden shelves at a 15˚ incline and a Hitchcockian nightmare for sleepwalkers, frequent WCers, and boozers alike. We opted instead to spend our nights on the sofa bed, paying far too much money for the all-too-familiar metal bar in your back slumber.

Bologna couldn't have been better - outstanding food of both the humane and inhumane varieties (pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta-pizza-pasta), watching the rush hour fashion show while we sit at our judges' table with an Aperol Spritz in hand, the random record store with the squatters' rights propaganda in the window, all of it embraced by a wall twenty feet tall and sprinkled with towers four stories high. When I picture my parallel life in Italy, it's all-too-easy to see the sun rising above Bologna, a young new wave robot bee puking on the side of the oldest college in Europe after a pizza-pasta-discoteca-birra bender.

la affamata vita

This was originally my secret space where I sought to turn longing into belonging - both the light and dark sides of a sole traveler seeking connections in other languages.

Where Will I Work still resonates even today, rooted deep in love and home, an allegory to how our subjective realities fit into a ever-shifting subjective mirror world. Where can I feel home away from home? Do I travel to watch people not-me as one would visit a zoo? Or do I try on cities like I try on clothing, of parallel selves and the myriad lives I could have lived?

I'm writing from someone else's life in Rome - the airbnb that isn't built for tourists, full of personality and energy and thoughtfulness without 1000 thread count sheets and without a balcony view of the Colosseum. Our neighborhood is blissfully empty of people like me - the hordes of the slow-moving free-spending map-obsessed. I don't seek out to be anti-American when I cross the border, but being seated next to the worst kind of me makes me thankful to be on this voyage with my spiritual kin in exploration.

We landed hard in Venice, the 9 hour flight with the 4 hour layover and barely half an hour of sleep - our voices turning quiet, then silent as we gave in to muscle memory to get us to a bed (any bed). Research always helps in this sort of blurred travel, where your checklist of this-thens give much needed specificity in processing vast amounts of new data. Our Venice flat was old beams and faint wallpaper, a loft of yore with a wonderful rooftop terrace. I took pride in my maze solving skills through the tricky alleyways, relishing in the gastronomic rewards at the end of every run. My first bite was mozzarella en carrozza, a stupid and/or luxurious deep fried sandwich washed down with wine on tap amidst the lunch rush of the Venetian locals.



Eventually, though, Venice began to evoke Vegas - packed tight in narrow streets filled with shit souvenirs and day-drinking mirror images. Appreciation for the canals-as-labyrinth-as-architecture never faded, but it's hard to feel free and romantic amidst cruise ships dumping their shipping containers of cargo shorts (with the legs still in them) hour after hour after hour. Three days was plenty here, the end punctuated by a delightful lunch at the vegetarian-friendly La Zucca. The oddball reprieve from meat with meat on it was welcome, the vegetable plate reminded me of southern cooking (of greens and green beans). Chatting with a fellow anti-American at our shared table had me thankful I have working internet maps ("it took me an hour to find the place") and her snide pride around saving a shelter dog in response to missing our doodle was promptly followed by her third course of meat with meat on it ("i just have to have meat!"). The dissonance in the things we tell ourselves arbitrarily separating saving from slaughter has resonated with me since.

Objectification of the dinner plate is so very real when it doesn't lick your face after a long day at work.

cu cuu cu chi.

Wide awake at 2am my body knew it wasn’t going to fare well for the all-day tourist trip, the only formal one we’ve booked. Sitting in the darkness for 5 hours my mind wandered across a wide range of thoughts, missing my love and my home back home, increasing anxiety around the grind awaiting me at the office, trapped in a sleepless purgatory to my captor of chainsaws.

I walked the width of two stairs from our hotel lobby to the van, gracefully landing, my phone flying, thankful I didn’t twist my ankle for the hustle ahead. We picked up more eager early-risers and were grouped and separated and shuttled onto our speedboat up the Saigon river. Our guide was fantastic, using humor as education to paint more stark realities upon our collective blank canvases.

“See the helipad on top of the hospital? It’s just for show, only the military has helicopters.”

“Notice the beautiful restaurant on the water. It was very popular among locals but they raised prices to lure in tourists and because of this the government shut them down.”

“So many houses are being built here, but wealthy Chinese bought them all up, raising the prices of houses, until we can’t afford them.”

“This is where an uprising happened because the Chinese put an oil rig in the middle of Vietnamese waters without permission. An angry mob set out to burn the Chinese factory to the ground. There were two factories here, one Chinese and the other Japanese. The locals didn’t know which factory was which, so the Japanese put up a big sign that said -> CHINESE FACTORY THIS WAY ->”

Sipping on onboard cha sua da and noshing on rambutan we came to the real work to be done - water hyacinth. The entire river covered in the clusters of green leaves, underneath live thick roots used for making rope and handbags. One boat would go first, cutting a line through using brute force and a small propeller - reversing the engine once through in order to free the boat from the tough tendrils. We did this dozens of times, go-stop-reverse-go-stop-reverse. Landing at Cu Chi we were again grouped up and led to separate destinations - some going straight to the war tunnels themselves, others on a countryside drive, the five masochists among us opting for an 18 mile bicycle ride in 100 degree heat.

Thankfully they asked for our measurements before we arrived , ensuring we’d at least have a chance for success. Our guide was incredibly friendly and suspiciously fit, decked out in top-notch riding gear. The electrolyte powder dumped in our water bottles and handlebar bags for our stuff and shocks on the bikes were nice touches. The Scottish family and us rode quickly on paved streets to very little traffic. The first few miles were hot but fair, to increasingly sparse scenery. We stopped at a rice paper factory, hard laborers pulling bamboo stretchers out of the sun and peeling the familiar foundation of the Vietnamese spring roll like you would a fruit roll-up. I felt a bit like a gawker - the workers looked incredibly weathered from the relentless sun and get paid $150 a month for 10 hour days, 7 days a week. Maybe my air-conditioned, soft-fingered job back home isn’t so bad…

We continued onward, turning off of paved streets onto our first rough dirt path of the day, through an endless symmetrical canopy of rubber trees - leaning into one another to form an inverted V for us to ride between. Half of my attention was always on the road, large stones and dried dung and large branches a constant threat. My wrists were taking the brunt of the vibrations, and I starting wondering how people endure off-road biking as fun.

Our next turn was down a muddy path through acres and acres of bitter melon farms under the unyielding sun. A scooter coming the other way stopped our guide and gave fair warning, to a shrug and an onward! We came to a watery intersection where farmers had giant hoses everywhere, spewing water in all directions. We had no choice but to pick up our bikes and walk the distance, happy to return to “just muddy” on the other side of it all. The Scottish mom among us was in last place, a giant tractor looming just feet behind her. I regret not snapping a photo of the menacing hilarity.

Soon the mud turned into sand, the worst terrain I’ve ever encountered on a bicycle. The nuance between solid and shifting was inches apart, and we tried our best to follow exactly where our guide rode, having to stop abruptly once our tired turned from under us. It was an exhausting few miles back to pavement, stopping once more to inspect a $100 bill on the side of the road. This was funeral money, fake currency printed for the dead to spend in another life. I inspected a 1,000,000 dong bill and was tempted to slip it in my pocket. “This does not belong to me” the guide said as he released the Benjamin into the wind. We felt guilty at the notion of keeping what wasn't ours and watched as our paper took shape, fluttering slowly back to the grass.

Our halfway point wasn’t even close, and most of us were already bright red from exertion. We approached civilization again, amused by the HELLOs and HIs peppering the sounds of birds and barking dogs. It’s a very strange concept to the Vietnamese, that foreigners would pay money to ride a bicycle through the countryside. Well-off parents typically buy their children a scooter once they reach 18, a promotion of sorts from their short, pedal-powered lifetimes. Being the Western weirdos was something I’m generally accustomed to, and I took the English greetings as intended - good-natured novelty that spices up the boredom of the day.

Eventually I stopped paying attention to the scenery, focused solely on making it to the rest stop - our 10 days of gluttony not doing us any favors. Shops and houses continued to appear, my favorite gate toppers being Doge-esque German shepherds. I now want two Doge statues atop my own fence. Much opening! I thanked gods I didn’t believe in when we slowed down to a hammock-filled restaurant, plates of dragon fruit and mango and watermelon peeled and sliced for our arrival. It was luxurious, sampling coffee crackers and peanut wafers and swallowing whole those juices-as-fruit.

As much as I wanted to nap in those hammocks our guide was quick to get us back on the road, a matter of fact 6-or-7 miles answer to my meek variation on “are we there yet?”. We hit our stride once again, assisted by smooth roads and even more roadside greetings. I was struck soundly by a scooter in the distance, a pink-and-red-wrapped driver coming towards us, her fingers outstretched in a V. I will never forget that moment, the peace sign given to me, an American, as I rode over the subterranean tunnelway where Vietnamese survived in inhumane conditions against terrible odds, invaded for illegitimate reasons by my fathers and my grandfathers. I hope she knows how powerful that symbol was for me, and I found myself giving the same symbol of love and forgiveness to everyone I came across. It makes me tear up just thinking about it, of how our older generations harbor so much bitterness and racism for the Vietnamese people, and they not only look up to us (see: it’s all about money) but it's a real reminder that absolutely no good can come from resentment and revenge.

My legs tensed up as we again turned onto rocky terrain, my fingertips barely holding onto the handlebar in hopes of giving my hands relief. Again the dirt turned into sand, covered in a sprinkling of treacherous leaves. I shadowed the path confidently, keeping our leader’s pace, my front wheel slowly veering a mere inch to the right. This began my slow fall, my wheel whipping 90 degrees, knowing that it would be better to relax my muscles for impact instead of trying to force the impossible and break a bone in the process. I landed hard and stared up at the sun, motionless, mentally checking my systems to ensure they were all operational. My left leg throbbed, my wrist ached, but I was determined to finish this ride. Our guide wanted me to take a rest after noticing my knee was bleeding, but I wasn’t having the pity of the group and insisted we keep moving. Single-minded I powered through the rest of it, an intentional blur, ignoring time completely and focusing solely on one foot in front of the other. Large buildings eventually came into view, blocked only by another short sprint over motherfucking sand. I dismounted my bike and walked across the final hurdle, elated at our arrival to the Cu Chi tunnels.

The Cu Chi tunnels are one of the biggest tourist attractions outside of Saigon - an all-too realistic war museum, of captured helicopters and crawls through tunnels three feet high, a few have been widened for the tourists. People living for months, years underground subsisting on boiled Tapicoa root - suffocating from the lack of air, using ingenious ways to disguise kitchen smoke, footprints, bamboo breathing tubes. It was sobering, it was sad, and as we crawled and stared and absorbed the group could barely speak. After exiting through the gift shop we came to the gun range, where tourists can shoot a wide variety of automatic weapons across the same landscape where millions of Vietnamese, tens of thousands of Americans died. I recalled the peace sign I was flashed a mere hour ago and my stomach started turning at the thought of firing weapons here as a novel way to pass the time. It took conscious effort to climb the single stair up the van home, our bodies overheated and aching, an important parallel to how it was, but one-ten-millionth of what the people who lived through the American War went through.