With All Due Respect to History

I love history.  Always been more into the big events than the actual time periods themselves.  I was borderline obsessed with the Titanic movie - a truly fascinating event in history.  I remember listening to my Mamaw tell stories about the bells ringing to alert the town when WWI ended.  Can you imagine?  On our honeymoon, I was adamant we visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam...and it was truly a moving experience.  I've been astounded for two years in a row by Academy Award nominated Best Pictures, 12 Years a Slave and Selma.  Each telling remarkable true tales of an incredible dark time in this country's past.  And then there is the age of technology.  We've come a LONG way since floppy disk Frogger games and the Oregon Trail, right?

However, as I recall so many different time periods throughout the years, I can't help but realize that most of them would not afford me the life I live today.  The freedoms, the responsibilities. But mostly I realized they wouldn't allow me a life alongside Christopher.

Our union would not have been legal in the United States before 1967.

Along that vein, we recently watched a modern play - Buzzer - down in the East Village.  And speaking of history, the playhouse - The Public Theater - happens to be the former Astor Library.  Founded by John Jacob Astor...who had a great-grandson by that same name on board the Titanic many years later.  But back to the play...

 Here is the synopsis:

Jackson, an upwardly-mobile black attorney, has just bought an apartment in a transitioning neighborhood in Brooklyn. He sees the potential of his old neighborhood, as does his white girlfriend Suzy…at first. When Jackson’s childhood friend Don leaves rehab to crash with them, the trio quickly becomes trapped between the tensions inside their own home and the dangers that may lurk outside.

We weren't particularly impressed with the play...mostly because it unnecessarily intertwined infidelity into an already complex enough situation surrounding racial tensions and the power of the almighty dollar.  It *could* have been a very impactful showing of the gentrification issues in this day and age, but instead it was sort of all over the place.

However, the play caused me to reflect on the status of our current time period.  And then a day later, I saw Mia and Shelly's WODW prompt asking which time period would I have loved to live in...and I was stumped.  Is there a "better" time period to have lived in?  I am naive to think that we truly live in the best of times right now even with all our many shortcomings?  And most importantly, will there ever really be progress for all humankind?

Will there ever be a time period when women are paid equal to men?  Will we see an era where "minority" Americans aren't viewed as less than?  Is there hope for the poor people in our country to turn things around?  Because, with all due respect to history, that is the time period that I want to call mine.

Andrea :)