Congratulations to Manhasset resident Anthony Scaramucci, the newly appointed White House Communications Director.
My congratulations come not just as a resident of Manhasset, but as an alumna of Hillary Clinton’s alma mater Wellesley College, former president and longtime board member of the Wellesley Club of Long Island.
As a woman however, I’ve found it difficult relate to “identity politics,” ideologies that seemed plucked out of context, out of thin air.
But nothing exists in a vacuum, and no man is an island — and no woman.
What was missing was a sense of place, and the roots that ground us. Roots that always lead back to place.
A place to make a house, raise children, build a community — like Manhasset. A place to work and play, like Long Island.
A place to do all these things and more, in the Empire State of New York.
Most of all, in the exceptional place we call America.
But for all its greatness, strength and grace, America that I never quite paired with the word “exceptional” — that is, until described that way to me by Mr. Scaramucci, when seeking his entrepreneurial advice.
Entrepreneurship that often brings along with it the 10,000 mile-high view — including, of planet Earth. And from that view, a new framework of history itself.
Not the familiar history writ in facts, figures, dates. Instead, the history of place itself.
Geologic history forged in terraformation and the movement of plates. Geologic shifts, volcanic upheavals and the billions of years that gave rise to earth and its changing lands, seas, air, climate.
And then, a tectonic convergence. And at the right place and the right time a remarkable land that emerged, swirling in blue.
Rising out of the ocean like providence itself — America, the largest island on Earth.
A history of this country, therefore, that is a history of place. And that no man, and no woman is an island.
But in looking to the island itself, we learn the most critical entrepreneurial lesson of all: that America was not so much ideologically conceived, as it was physically built, from the ground up.
A land to build upon, because it’s our common ground.
And with bare hands and hearts, the individuals of history who laid down history, one brick, one stone, one concrete bridge, tunnel and railroad track at a time – and along with it, our American roots.
Roots we often forget. Our physical connection to physical place.
America that has been wrest out of bare hands, and into ivory towers. Ideologies often disconnected from the very ground upon which they stand.
But when the connection is re-established, we realize something remarkable.
That what we stand upon is more powerful than any one ideology alone: the very ground upon which we stand. Our common ground. America itself.
And like few who have entered the national stage, Mr. Scaramucci has come to embody this fact.
A person who will communicate an America not by way of abstraction, but by way of bricks, stones and connective bridges. By way of roots and common ground.
And with boots on the ground.
The literal ground he walks upon, by way of the common grounds we share in Manhasset, Long Island, New York.
The common ground that makes us who we are as Americans: our country, communities, hometowns.
The places around which we gather, work, play, create and break bread. Common ground that transcends ideology and division.
American Exceptionalism, therefore, that is no mere fortuitous event. Not an ivory tower ideology, out of reach.
Instead, as Mr. Scaramucci’s example inspires us to see, a providence and destiny of an entirely different order.
Destiny that can be invoked by each and everyone of us.
Each of us, in the right place and right time: in America, and in the here and now.
And with hearts and hands and boots on the ground, the time to get to work again. To seize the moment, and Make America Exceptional Again.
Thank you Mr. Scaramucci.
You’ve given Manhasset — and Long Island, New York and America — a reason to be proud.
Angela Min
Manhasset
