Garbage Diet

Lately, I find myself frequently having reason to tell my kids that if you eat a steady diet of garbage, then only garbage can come back out of you. My boys change visibly if I separate them from YouTube for even a couple of weeks. Taking away my middle son's "private" screens so that the only things he can watch are things I can also fully see and hear has almost magically brought my beautiful boy's shining light back out of him from the deep well that it got lost in over the last few years. It is telling.

Then I wonder...

I wonder what my diet is on a daily basis. I'm at home with a toddler, which really should be the most wholesome company there is. But you see, as an adult who literally speaks to almost no other adult for a week at a time besides my husband, I sometimes feel like everything inside of me that can think, create, and innovate is dying until all I'm capable of is repetitive orders regarding not licking shoes and the folding of laundry while uttering subaudible swear words.


So, what do I do? Do I make phone calls to other adults? No, I don't, because I know I will be tempted to vomit all my strange, oxymoronically stagnant inner turmoil all over that person and I abhor the thought.


Do I join some social group to read books or learn to crochet or play card games? No. Honestly, who has time when there's all that laundry to fold and swearing to practice?

Do I just force myself to think by writing or even reading something that is challenging or working with my hands or teaching myself trigonometry? No. Because all of the above activities are very frustrating when they get interrupted every 13.23 minutes by a toddler.


So what do I choose when I feel like my brain is in a state of advanced atrophy from lack of adult interaction? I choose to fool myself into believing that I have what I need by going on Facebook. I've joined a couple of the most positive groups I can find there. One is for posting jokes without political, vulgar, or derogatory content. One is about positive thinking, kindness, and spiritual contemplation. But even with all that, Facebook is pretty much the definition of a diet of garbage. Even if you want to avoid it, you still can't escape the worst our society has to offer on Facebook.


The latest is this: a group of high school students who happened to be mostly white, all male, and Catholic, went to the March for Life in Washington. At the end of the day, outside of the Lincoln Memorial, they became embroiled in a nonviolent conflict with two other groups. One was the Black Hebrew Israelites, who were there for their own protest or march. The other was a group of First Nations marchers.

Anyone who has been on the internet has probably already read more about this than they really needed to over the last few days. There is an absurd amount of blame, condemnation, and even threat flying about. 
The basic details seem to be that 1) The boys were wearing MAGA hats. 
2) The boys may have yelled something at some young women at some point in the afternoon. I haven't gone in search of video to confirm or deny this myself because I just cannot force feed myself any more of this particular garbage. 
3)While waiting for their buses at the Memorial, the boys found themselves the target of some fairly egregious insults being hurled by the adult members of the Black Hebrew Israelites group.
4) The boys decided to chant school cheers and songs, some of which seem to have contained hand gestures that were capable of causing offense, to drown out the insults. 
5) An elder of the Indigenous People's March decided (it seems pretty clear at this point) to approach the high school boys and play his drum in what he describes as prayer. 
6) The boys laughed, smiled, clapped, and maybe even smirked. The didn't give way to those who approached them but they also didn't escalate any violence. 
7) A heavily edited video was released claiming the boys had surrounded the elderly Vietnam-era veteran Omaha Tribe elder and harassed him. 
8) Cue absurd national outrage, threats, condemnation of parents, calls for firings of people, etc. and absurd knee-jerk return reaction defending everything the boys did and condemning all the other groups... Ugh. Excuse me while I go get just a little bit sick.


So why do I bother even weighing in on this if I think it is part of a diet of garbage I should not be eating? Because in all this madness, I think everyone has forgotten quite a few things:


1) Just because one person in an argument is wrong doesn't mean the other person can't also be wrong. In other words, two wrongs don't make a right, as the saying goes. Do I think the Catholic school boys did everything right or even did everything in line with Christian teachings? No. It is extremely hard to be totally silent in the face of vulgar, egregious insult, but that is exactly what we're called upon to do when we're told to "turn the other cheek." The boys didn't need to cheer, sing, or shout down their taunters and they could have turned and walked away from Mr. Phillips and his prayer drum. They could have circled up and prayed. They could have left their MAGA hats at home.


I don't personally think MAGA hats mean what those who want to put the worst construction on everything try to make them mean. I don't believe that people who wholeheartedly embraced the slogan, "Make America Great Again" actually meant "Make America White, Male, and Christian Again." I think the vast, pervasive, HUGE majority of the MAGA crowd actually just wanted America to be economically, legally, and nationally strong, which includes justice being demographically blind and Constitutionally based.

That being said, I do think that anyone who has half a clue knows that wearing MAGA hats makes a statement in our current sociopolitical climate, and that statement may very well just be a poke to the proverbial bear. The Bible admonishes us to "Go West, young man, when the evil go East." Does anyone really think that means parading a politically inflammatory symbol in front of the opposing side?

So I'm willing to admit the high school boys didn't make good, Christian choices from moment one, and that some of the defense of them seems pretty sycophantic. But just because they were wrong doesn't mean the other side of the argument can't be wrong too. 

It seems pretty clear that two large groups of ADULTS who should seriously be more mature than a bunch of high school boys chose to egregiously taunt and then publicly smear those boys. When challenged, the elder called the actions of the boys "beastly" but justified the insults flung AT the boys as, "harsh things, but some of it was true." Really? What was true about those boys being called "f****ts, incest babies, future school shooters, and (of the one African American Covington Catholic student) n****rs/c**ns?" And why did the adult flingers of such sickening insults need to be protected from boys wearing offensive hats by a group of, again, adults who proceeded to tell the boys that they should "Go back to Europe, invaders."


It seems to me like just about everyone involved was wrong.


2) Just because everyone was wrong doesn't mean anyone deserves to have their lives ruined. When my teenage son gets into trouble at school in a situation where there was a lot of emotional pressure and a short opportunity for strategic thought, I don't remove him from school, defame him in public, send terrible character references about him to all his possible future schools and employers, and threaten his life. I also don't defend his choices at all costs of sophistry. I talk to him about what he could have done differently and why. 

I remind him that he represents not only himself, but his family, his history, and his faith in all his actions in his public life. If he did anything well, I tell him that too. And then I give him another chance. And another. And another. Because he is a kid and I am an adult and because Jesus himself said to forgive each other seventy times seven times. Which means, by the way, NOT four-hundred ninety times exactly, but rather keep forgiving until you've forgotten the count of how many times you've forgiven.


These schoolboys could have done better. They could have done worse. Can we all just act like adults and teach them instead of acting like a mad zombie hoard intent upon eating their very souls for their mistakes? Can we acknowledge that they did not, in fact, scream epithets or taunts back at those who taunted them? Can we acknowledge that they didn't escalate to physical violence? 

Can we acknowledge that two separate groups of actual adults acted every bit as badly as or worse than a group of teenagers? Can we acknowledge that everyone involved in this needs a lesson in manners? And yet everyone involved in this did nothing that they didn't have a right to do under the Consitution. We all have the right to stand, silent and still, in the face of confrontation--even if we do it with an undecipherable smile/smirk on our faces--even if we appear disrespectful to our elders. (In another context, that very action would be painted as heroic civil disobedience.) We all have the right to say whatever words we choose to say that aren't a direct call to violence, even if those words are offensive to somebody, somewhere, or even if they're vile epithets. Free speech includes speech that makes you look like a total jerk. Free speech includes MAGA hats and prayer chant drumming and disgusting name calling. Sorry.

Just so we're clear, you may be protected from the government throwing you into a gulag by the Constitutional right to free speech but you aren't protected from criticism by others exercising their right to the same. The Cov Cath boys deserve to go back to school and learn a better way. Their chaperones and teachers and administrators and parents deserve to go back to their daily lives, generally not harming anybody, and try to do better. The Black Hebrew Israelites and the Indigenous March members, likewise.  All the outrage mobs, leftist and rightist, need to go back home and switch to decaf on this one. Because nobody involved in this idiotic conflict committed assault. Nobody involved in this idiotic conflict broke the law. And nobody did anything particularly right either. Decaf. Move on.

3) Two groups of people deserve to be punished here: the media and anyone who threatened or called for violence upon any of the parties involved. Because conversely, while you may be called out for your free speech, you cannot legally be threatened with bodily harm or death and you cannot legally have your character defamed in print without sufficient evidence. What the media did in widely circulating highly edited and skewed accounts including names and addresses of these kids without getting all the facts first was LIBEL and it is becoming a habit. It is a habit because the goal of the media these days is not truth but rather ratings and they just LOVE a good outraged mob. And that habit of libel without consequences is going to escalate to people getting hurt by said outraged mob. Not just offended, but harmed. Can we please go back to "just the facts, ma'am?" Because, seriously, if the facts are in play in these media circuses, we suddenly find out that there is no one righteous. Just a whole lot of mistaken people and missed chances to listen to one another. And that's just... sad. 

And the only people who are actually evil are all the people who use their Twitter platforms (and possibly also their blue checkmarks) to call for a bunch of kids to be fed into a wood chipper, etc., for the terrible crime of wearing MAGA hats while smiling, being rowdy, and generally acting in an impolite manner. Because, you know, calls for violence and actual threats are NOT protected under free speech. You can read the Constitution online, people. Google it.  

As for me, I'm going to get off of Facebook and stop consuming this garbage because if I don't, I might stop believing that people are capable of reason, compassion, connection, and humanity.

CATegorical HISStrionics

People of questionable moral fiber, intelligence quotient, and shoe size like to dump unwanted animals on the road where I reside. One and a half to two months ago, a petite, black, starving kitty showed up at Chateau Pearson. It was literally days from death and I took pity on it, fed, watered, and dewormed it. Discouraged the Big, Yellow Stupid from chasing it up trees, and put a flea collar on it.

A few weeks later, Dumped Kitteh #2 showed up. Skinny, ragged, tabby-with-white markings, it was quite desperate to be loved. I showed it the same courtesies Kitteh #1 had received minus the collar--which had led to Black Kitteh digging a hole in its own neck.

All the while, I was scheming. I don't have a vehicle during the week and I vehemently cannot afford to vet a bunch of dumped cats, but also don't want exponentially multiplying kittens on my hands. There's a service around here that will spay/neuter and vaccinate feral cats for free. They just require that the cats be trapped in live traps and brought to a meeting point at 6:30 a.m. on a certain day. So, I borrowed two traps from a neighbor and arranged to borrow a car from another neighbor.

Yesterday, my older boys had a day off of school due to road flooding in the area--another story entirely--and they were helping me ready the live traps when suddenly Abe exclaims, "There are TWO gray kitties!" Protracted swearing ensued... A third cat, very similar to the tabby had indeed just emerged from the drainage pipe...

So, we trapped Black and New Gray, and lured Original Gray into a cat carrier procured for the purpose before I found out about the trap requirement. I was worried they wouldn't take the one that wasn't in a trap because they'd been adamant about that point in the emails I'd traded with them. I quickly begged a third trap from the previous neighbor, but it was half the size of the other two traps. There was NO stuffing any of these kitties into it, though I ended up letting Black lose in the attempt. In the shuffle trying to retrap kitties, the two Grays ended up in traps and I stuffed Black into the cat crate.

Finally, at 6:00 a.m., after hastily procuring the borrowed car before Dear Husband left for work, and waking a bunch of Cranky Boys up forty-five minutes too early (their choice--I offered to let them meet the bus on their own at the normal hour), boys, cats, and I set off in our borrowed car, fingers crossed that they'll take the crated critter.

We got to the cat bus meeting place on time. They were super reluctant to take the cat in the crate because of the strays in traps rule. So I show them Black, who had ultimately ended up in the crate. The volunteer tells me, "Oh! Look, its ear has been 'tipped.' That means it has already been caught, treated, and released!" Fortunate me and Black. I'd go so far as to say God works in mysterious ways!

So, off the two tabbies go for treatment. Home go Black and smallest child and I. Black arrives home covered in pee and looking at me with much judgment in its eyes. I told it, "Cat, I went above and beyond the call of duty to keep you from being coyote bait or getting cowboy euthanized. I officially name you Ingrate."

To make a long story longer, I now have a ginger cat named Hiss, a black cat named Ingrate, two gray cats yet to be officially christened, and a profound sense of gratitude for UCAN charity vet services. And a profound desire to stuff the Anonymous Cat Dumper(s) into live traps to see if their attitudes can be fixed by a little of their own medicine.

Found Things

The title isn't a reference to a Tinkerbell movies, so if you were getting excited, I just wanted to get that out of the way.

On Saturday past, Charlie and Abe drew my attention to some beautiful butterflies I hadn't photographed before which were very excited about the soil in the pots that I had recently watered with fish poop fertilizer solution. These were "Mourning Cloak" butterflies, and we found out that their caterpillars are stinging caterpillars--a little alarming when you have little boys who must pick up every critter that isn't too fast too catch. Still, the butterflies are elegant, somber fellows that I enjoyed having around.

Mourning Cloak

Also, incidentally, peeing outdoors attracts Zebra Swallowtails...

This past Sunday evening, Abe found what I called "the grub from hell" crawling along the road where Abe was riding his bike. This thing was 3 or 4 inches long and very prickly looking, black head and torso, gray tail-ish part with lots of spikes sticking out the sides. Joe said it was a Stone Fly Grub, but I like my name for it better.

And over the last several days, I've found many tiny toads, small enough to sit on a dime. I showed one of them to Abe who loves to hold every tiny thing, but let the rest go on their toady ways, figuring it's hard enough being a toad the size of a bug without a giant 6 year old putting you in his pockets.

When we were in town yesterday, Tuesday, the boys took their bikes and road around the walkways at the athletic fields. They found a football which became ours because it was far enough lost that I was pretty sure no one was coming back for it. The boys spent last night tossing the old pigskin around, except no one but Daddy can throw worth a pound of bacon, so that was pretty comical. When the boys had given up on that, they ran around the yard and found Mourning Dove fledgelings in the hedge, and a tiny nest in the lilac with four eggs in it-all pale bluish green, splotched with brown. According to my 1944 copy of Birds of America, I guessed this to be either a Yellow Warbler or Chestnut-sided Warbler nest. Not having anything to go on but descriptions of the nests (in the book) and the appearance of the egg, I couldn't decide. The nest better fit the description of the Chestnut-sided Warbler's nest, but the eggs looked like Yellow Warbler eggs. Still, I'm not sure I can record this one in my birder's journal.

This morning, I found baby barn swallows that had fallen from the nest, either dead before they fell, or dead from lying on the concrete all night. Knowing birds as I do, I knew this was so that the strong one, whose head reaches the highest whenever his mother comes swooping in with a bug would survive to swoop himself one day. Bittersweet bird-ness.

So these are our found things that made me smile. And you know what? I can't keep any of them or take them with me, except a football. I find more peace and self-awareness looking outward at the world finding things than I ever do contemplating myself. I hope everyone has found things like that--things that come with freedom and joy without the thought of possession or the burden of cost. Even if they're not related to Tinkerbell...

A Tale of Elephantine Proportions

Hi, Mom and Dad.

I had a dream that was so vivid, I had to tell someone. Who better than the three people (Hi, Mom and Dad) who read this blog!? 

In the way of dreams, this one began in a completely unrelated space and time. I think I was in college, though it didn't look anything like the one I actually went to. Maybe it was a cross between Miami U and Denver U. Lots of brick, no straight line paths, a river, lots of copses of trees. Anyway, I was wandering around this place when I cam upon three skinny dogs who all appeared to be chained to the same tree. There was a Dalmatian, a German Shepherd, and some mutt dog, though the dogs are of little consequence to the dream. I saw them, and I wanted to feed them, when I heard the noise of a predatory large cat off in the wood. All the dogs turned to fight the coming large cat, and that was when  I saw the baby elephant. 

Everything up to this point, I can probably pinpoint in my subconscious. University = frustration with the day's lessons. Feral cats are from the book I was reading before sleep. The dogs probably came from my subconscious awareness that I needed to get up and let the dog out for a bathroom break and feed her. I get lost about the time the elephant shows up.

Anyway, the baby elephant was hidden from sight by the huge tree the dogs were chained to in my dream. At the sound of the feral cat's scream, baby elephant took off running, and he ran straight to me. Now, baby elephants, in real life, are still big as VW Beetles, but this one only came up to my knee. So, of course, I picked it up and took off running. And again, as things are in dreams, I was rather suddenly in a remote area where two houses stood side by side. One was about three stories tall plus a walk out basement, and this was the one I went into with B.E. in my arms. I really wanted to keep B.E., but was absolutely overcome with the awareness that it would inevitably grow up into an elephantine... well... elephant, and I wouldn't be able to afford to feed it. 

The rest of the dream, though it seemed to take time to play out, was mostly me hiding the elephant from various people, like my dad and my husband, getting all coo-ey about how cute it was that B.E. kept swishing his ears, and trying to find the phone number for a zoo who would hopefully adopt a baby elephant. Two more significant events happened before I woke. I taught the baby elephant to hug me around the neck, and I fed it a magnificent meal involving carrots, lettuce, bananas, left-over nachos, and Pepsi. Even in my dream, I felt guilty about the soda. By the end of the dream, the baby elephant had actually shrunk down to the size of a cat. I think it wanted me to keep it. 

This reminded me a a picture book where this kid gets a dragon, and it keeps growing until its limbs all stick out of the windows and doors of the house. There's No Such Thing As A Dragon is the title of that book, and I think, in the end, the dragon shrank back down to a tiny dragon as soon as everyone admitted that he was, in fact, a dragon. If I were to put great stock in dream communication, I would have to ask myself what is the proverbial elephant in my proverbial room that I am ignoring? I leave you to ponder that thought. I have to go find enough food for a baby elephant...

The Mommy Wars

Disclaimer: the pictures in this blog do not necessarily possess thematic relevance.

I think the gerbil in my brain that runs the wheel that makes words goes into hibernation mode periodically. I haven't posted since August? Maybe the gerbil died. I don't know. I think last year at this time I was determined to blog once a week. And that, folks, is why New Years Resolutions are stupid.

Anyway, as I was clicking around "teh internets" today, and I ran across this blog written about how some Similac commercial is pretending to end the "Mommy Wars" but is really perpetuating the "Mommy Wars." The gerbil spontaneously reanimated and I thought... What the redacted are "Mommy Wars?" Apparently there is a whole cross section of hip, youngish moms who feel like every choice they make as mothers is in some kind of competition with the mothering world at large. Like breast feeding versus bottle feeding is a question for the history books or something. "I regret that I have but two boobs to give for my country!" Seriously, though... Is this really a thing?

So the gerbil took off running, and I was able to ponder these concepts a little. The conclusion I came to, if it can even be called a conclusion, is that we all spend too much redacted time on the Internet. Used to be, you had a baby and your parents and in-laws and maybe your neighbors all brought over casseroles and cooed a bit. Maybe offered advice that, in your sleep addled new mother state, you either forgot or ignored. And you went about muddling through to the best of your ability just like every other mother. Now, evidently, "good" mothers read mommy blogs and mommy books and buy all the best mommy products. Now motherhood is a competition, I guess. You know what? I'm glad I didn't know this. Only think how stressed I would've been had I known.

I suppose, as a writer of what could, at times, look like a "mommy blog" I might seem insincere with the above sentiments, but the truth is, I started writing this blog because I hate talking on the telephone. I thought, nine years ago, If I write down all the semi-interesting stuff in a blog, then I can tell my extended family and friends to read it and I won't actually have to talk to anyone! Awesome! It just so happens that a lot of my personal semi-interesting stuff has to do with my kids. So... accidental mommy blog! The good news for anyone reading this is that you don't have to include anything I say in your Mommy War strategies. I'd hate to perpetuate the chaos. 

Having said all that, I'd like to relate a story. The best place to wrestle is on Mommy's bed. This is a proven fact. I'm sure there are scientific studies and stuff. Anyway, after wrestling and tickling a while one day, my boys and I were laying around in a heap. The six year old says to me, "Mommy, your belly is soft." I'll admit, for a moment, I straight up panicked. YIKES! I have truly entered middle age! I have a soft belly, and wrinkles, and gray hairs and I will never be pretty and alluring again! But then I thought, Hey, wait: he means that as a compliment. He's small and snuggley and he likes to lay his head on mommy's pillow belly because it is warm and soft like a mommy should be. So, besides the fact that loving my soft belly allows me to eat more Snickerdoodles and put cream in my tea, I decided that I would be happy to have a soft belly because that's what being a mommy is kind of about for me. I'm pretty sure that guarantees I won't be winning any Mommy Wars. Good thing I didn't realize I was in one! 

A Letter to Myself (and Anyone Else Who Needs to Hear This)

Dear You,

You're in your thirties. Your life is pretty much nothing like you expected it to be when you were in your twenties or especially your teens. That's really okay. Great even. Because in your twenties, you were what is not commonly called (but should be) delusional. And when you were a teenager, you were just a dumb ass. You knew only a tiny little bit about yourself, and not a very useful bit at that. Like your BMI and your GPA. Not even your SSN. You're really much better informed now. Trust me.

So you're not where you thought you'd be or doing what you thought you'd be doing. And you're actually pretty happy about that. You have frequently thought that you'd never have met many parts of yourself if not for the life you live now. Like the part that loves dusting. Just kidding. You know you're not disappointed not to be a high profile insert career here in insert city here. You're glad to have discovered a love you never knew about of insert interest here. So what is the problem?

The problem is that the one delusional and dumbed ideal of your younger self that you never let go is the idea that in your thirties, you'll have your physical and metaphysical act together. Somewhere, somewhen you got the idea that in your thirties, wherever you were, whatever you were doing, it would be organized. It would be orderly. It would be sensible and fully fiscally responsible. In short, you thought you'd be on the level. Welcome, Frustration. Won't you come and take up residence in my life?

See, I'm not sure where you got the idea that this was the time of your life when you would be fully in control. Honestly, all those years ago when you were young enough to think Erma Bombeck was hopelessly gauche, there were still warning signs. Remember that comic strip where one character told another, "I feel like I'm losing control!"

"Don't worry," was the reply. "It's all an illusion."

"That I'm losing control?"

"No, that you ever had any to begin with."

Really, what is it that you want? And where did you get the idea to want it? Do you expect to have perfectly behaved children? An obsessively organized house? Laundry that actually gets put away? A paragraph not entirely composed of question fragments? What is it that you really think you should be doing that you're not? And whose idea was it, really, that you should? Haven't you long prided yourself on being absolutely outside the reach of peer pressure and oblivious to the caprice of external opinion?

See, that's the thing. You're smart enough to know that entropy is not just a concept in physics. That the world, deviated as it is from its original blueprint, is irresistibly drawn towards chaos whether it be the State of the Union or the state of the kitchen sink. You're also wise enough to know that nobody with a capital NO in your circle of acquaintance has their act together behind closed doors. If their finances are tidy, their house isn't. If their house is immaculate, their marriage isn't. If their marriage is serene, their kids are rowdy. Or whatever. Nobody's got it sorted. But I won't tell you any of those things, because that's not really helpful, is it? That's not where the stress comes from.

The stress comes from the idea that you were ever supposed to be perfect in any of your parts to begin with. You've always known that you were not blessed with perfect looks. You've accepted that. But you got the mistaken notion that, because you believe you're smart, you should be able to achieve perfection. If you don't manage time, money, family, and/or career with ludicrous aplomb, then you're suddenly worth nothing. Not just less, but nothing.

Let go of that notion. You were not created for perfection, because the broken world can't compass it. Instead, you were created for all the flawed brilliance you can imagine. You were created to make occasional wise observations. You were created to do something, anything, passionately. So what if it doesn't make dollars-and-sense to the world. That poem you are writing? That's what you're here for. That blanket you knitted for your friend's child? That is the beauty of you. That precious, witty thing your child just said? That didn't happen without your influence. That person whom you encouraged? Put that on as ballast to balance your Atlas act. You were made for the moments of blinding brilliance that shine out of your life.

Have you noticed that a spotless mirrored surface doesn't reflect nearly as many rays of light as a pile of broken glass? Doesn't glitter like a yard full of asymmetrical snowflakes? Doesn't dazzle like the breeze-rippled surface of water? Life isn't ever going to be polished, unbroken, symmetrical, or  calm. Those things aren’t consistent with life. You need to keep an eye out for the joys in the midst of the jumble.

Like tonight, if you're me. The kitchen isn't clean. The laundry is half folded and not likely to get put away. The bank balance is laughable. But you went outside with the kids and their dad. For a glorious half hour, you all played Frisbee while absolutely nothing else mattered. And, BAM, you know that for once, you've nailed it. Everything is where it belongs in your world.

Love and Frisbee to you.

Now and always,

You

As American as Fireworks, the 1812 Overture, and Of Course Irony

On Friday, my men and I took a walk by the Licking River, where we made ourselves ridiculously proud of silly accomplishments by walking over a swampy inlet on a fallen log. In the evening, we inflicted major damage on a cardboard box with my bow and arrows. Abe wanted me to shoot two arrows at a time, but I had to remind him that I am not Legolas, nor Merida, nor Katniss, nor Hawkeye, nor Robinhood. The next day, we took a hike at Quiet Trails where no one and nothing was around for miles to know we existed. We took pictures of mushrooms and frogs, collected leaves for crayon rubbings, and the boys made excavations in the river. I collected some shells, though I’m probably not supposed to there. We also picked up garbage and carried it out, so that’s good. And I admit to having a small cook out. The weather was fair and mild and we were all vastly contented and more peaceful than recent memory. And we finished it off by going into town to watch firemen blow $#!% up. I sort of wonder what the Founding Fathers would think if they could see us now.

He looks kind of cranky, doesn't he? 

 

Because I am feeling magnanimous, I will not name all of the following for you.

 

 

 

 

Excavating.

This was my favorite mushroom..

I did, in fact, spend a little time pondering what this weekend was meant to celebrate. We’re free. We depend on no king or overseas parliament. Men and women have given their lives to keep us so. They continue to. It’s important. I’m not sure any of us are living up to it. I shudder to think what answers I might receive if I asked a random smattering of people what ideals this nation came from, let alone what we stand for now. I sometimes think we’re the land of the ridiculous and the home of the over privileged. Because, really, is exploding ordinance to a soundtrack of Queen and country music the right way to commemorate our declaration that we stood separate and self-reliant from tyranny-over-the-sea? Have we traded the proverbial tyrant one thousand miles away for a thousand tyrants one mile away? There’s something sticky about legislating freedom and celebrating independence. Isn’t freedom, after all, about having choice and independence about taking responsibility. 

But I didn’t start out here to pontificate. I loved this weekend--have always loved Independence Day above other holidays, actually. I’m just not sure it makes much sense, is all. As we sat watching our townsfolk blow up an impressive array of Chinese-made sparkly things, I just had to giggle a bit. Especially when the speakers started to belt out the 1812 Overture, and Joe turned to me and said, “A Russian revolutionary anthem? Really!?” That was after they had already run over the end of the National Anthem with Chinese explosives and also after British band Queen’s rendition of We Will Rock You. 

I cherish my freedom and appreciate the idealistic life this country has afforded. I am grateful I do not currently have to worry about being set on fire in the street because my ankle accidentally showed outside of my burka. I am in awe of the tranquil splendor of a Kentucky riverside. I’m just not sure I’m always exactly “proud” to be an American. I think, maybe, we’re a little too goofy for pride, a little too undignified to stand on our dignity. Maybe it would be better to just be thankful and leave it at that. After all:

America, America. God shed His Grace on thee.

And that’s all His. We had nothing to do with it but be blessed.