{"id":126410,"date":"2017-02-01T08:01:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T13:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=126410"},"modified":"2017-02-01T09:31:41","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T14:31:41","slug":"everything-you-need-to-know-about-me-is-in-this-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=126410","title":{"rendered":"Everything You Need To Know About Me Is In This Photo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nUnpacking my bookshelves, putting books in piles every which way. I will organize on the other end, once I’m moved into the new place. This particular pile caught my eye. Sometimes in the chaos of life you see something – random, unconnected, unplanned – and remember who you are. I could show this to strangers and say, “Here. This is me. Any questions? Because it’s perfectly obvious to ME.”<\/p>\n

I would like to point out that at the bottom of the heap is the Library of America’s collection of Alexander Hamilton’s writing – which I have owned since the moment it was published (a month after September 11th) thankyouverymuch, and have read cover to cover twice. I’m a patriot. Always have been. I was raised from a very young age to learn about the history of my country, and those earliest days of the Republic. I was raised to understand the continuum, to examine the mistakes made, the sins committed. When I was really young, I thought “John and Abigail” were relatives of ours, their names – only their first names – were thrown around so casually. Maybe growing up in Rhode Island – a place “where Washington slept,” a place with a very active Native American tribe who visited our schools on the regular, a place that was a stop on the Underground Railroad, a place that benefited hugely from the slave trade through its ports in Newport, a colony started by rebels who were too fanatical even for the nutbags in Massachusetts, a place that was a bustling hub of the Industrial Revolution – gave me a good perspective, young, on the complexity of the issues. This, to me, is the meaning of the word patriot. I claim it proudly. Always have, even when people gave me shit for it. It fills me with strength and courage now. I have been cultivating it from the beginning. I was raised to it and it is my inheritance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unpacking my bookshelves, putting books in piles every which way. I will organize on the other end, once I’m moved into the new place. This particular pile caught my eye. Sometimes in the chaos of life you see something – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,3],"tags":[33,1493,150,190,141,218],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126410"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126430,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126410\/revisions\/126430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}