The Blue Angels Paradox
What happens when we don't all fall into formation?
From nowhere, the sky rips open. It’s that sound, fabric tearing, but enormous and enveloping, a huge chunk of metal hurtling over the curve of the earth and down upon me. The Blue Angels are back again. Every summer, they do their stunt flying over my neighborhood, as part of Seattle’s summer Seafair festival. Maybe they fly over your house too, or maybe you trek in to watch them. Maybe you leave town for the week, or get stuck in the bridge closures during their shows and practices.
When the first plane went over, my house rattled, my mostly-deaf dog cowered, and the birds fell silent. Even though I knew it was entertainment, not war, my heart pounded and my nervous system quivered. Before it settled, I had already written my requisite email to the Seafair contact people, asking for this to please, please be the last time1.
I hate the Blue Angels. I hate them in my nerves. I hate how the air smells like gasoline. I hate thinking of how much fuel they burn and carbon they spew, how much money they cost. I hate the boosterism of it all. I hate the military-might-as-entertainment shtick. I don’t want them to be how we celebrate summer, or this city.
Yes, their moves are super impressive. It’s an incredible thing humans can do, hurtling around in the air in tight formation. But I’m over it.
I’m so over it, I often can’t quite fathom how other people are into it. Walking the dog yesterday, in the barricaded-off streets above the hydroplane races, we chatted to a woman looking for a way she could kill time while her son went and watched the show. Is there a mall nearby? she asked, which would have been funny, if the South End weren’t also bereft of basic stores. When she found out we lived in the neighborhood Seafair happened in, she told us we were lucky. There was no irony in her voice.
It’s not just lost mall ladies. I have friends who come watch the Blue Angels (though not friends who live in the neighborhood). When I was complaining to my brother about them, he told me that was so me. When I see them, I think ‘wow that is an amazing machine,’ he said. And this is the wildest thing: some people love the Blue Angels. They drive in from distant suburbs, sit in bad traffic, pay to park their cars, walk blocks, and wait for hours on hard bleachers they’ve paid good money for just for the privilege of having them fly over their heads.
I’ve been thinking this week, as the planes fly and fly and as I glower, as I hide out in West Seattle, as I comfort my kid and myself, as I get the heck out of Dodge — I’ve been thinking about how I have such a strong opinion about the planes that I feel it’s almost inconceivable that I’m not just right. The Blue Angels are a bad idea, full stop.
But somehow not everyone agrees with me! In fact, I might be in the minority!
And that’s what I’ve been thinking about: how I can be so sure of what is good and right, and other people can be just as sure the opposite is true. I know this is true politically, and maybe Seafair is just an expression of a similar difference. But somehow, it feels more inconceivable than politics.
Writing this all down, it suddenly seems unprofound. Breaking news! I have a strong opinion of the liberal crank variety that not everyone shares. It is, to quote my brother, so me. I began this essay last night, and put it down, slept on it, hoping for a resolution to the tension of knowing in my bones I’m right but also understanding that other people’s bones say otherwise.
(A dream: someone flew a drone over my house. I flipped it off with both hands. It flew low enough to grab out of the sky. If they want their drone back, they’ll have to look at the video footage, figure out who I am, and come find me, I glowered, in dystopian triumph, tucking the drone under my arm.)
This morning, I’m less interested in answers. In my head, there is an impassioned, eloquent persuasive speech much longer than this post about why the Blue Angels need to stop being part of Seafair, but instead of settling in on my soap box I let it become soap bubbles, float off on the breeze. Right now at least, I want to just be in the paradox. You love them and I hate them and somehow maybe there is a solution for mutual flourishing, but right now, there’s just this.
Quiet skies, a man standing in the back of a flatbed truck collecting No Parking and Road Closed signs.
Oh! Come see me read tonight!
I’m reading at Elliott Bay Books at 7:00 as part of a Jack Straw Writing Fellows Program. Come on by if you’re around!
And you can write one too, if you wanna: https://www.seafair.org/contact