Oh say can you see...

Today the sun is out and the sky is blue and there's a warm lazy wind petting the scenesters in the Pearl. My head feels full of air and goo and I can feel the damn bugs swimmin' in my system. I really can't be sick right now, though I'd love to have a 4-day weekend. I've got the market on Saturday and I reaaaaaaally need the money.

Independence day is nearing and I feel excited. I am not your typical flag waver, but I see this day as more of a family holiday. Christmas, Birthdays, Pascha, these are the holidays with expectation and disappointment. Thanksgiving is near my dad's birthday, but to me, it is a warm and loving holiday filled with laughter, cheesy amber-colored wineglasses, and a food coma like no other.

The 4th of July is similar. I remember sitting on the porch of our house in Ashland, smiling at the sun, and spitting watermelon seeds into the driveway. The four of us kids and whichever of our friends happened to be around consumed my mom’s barbecued chicken, hotdogs, and potato salad. Later at dark, on blankets in the schoolyard, we waited impatiently for the pyrotechnics. At every spectacular display we'd ask, "Was that the finale?" Only to be surprised with an even better sequence of fireworks. I loved the way my sun-warmed skin felt at the cooling end of the day in a big sweatshirt.

This sort of nostalgia brings back the swimming hole. Every year some high school kids would build a barrier in the river (or crick, for that's what it really was.) The barrier made the swimming hole deeper, but still allowed things to go on downstream. A clearing in the trees let the sunlight in to warm our bodies after being in that ice-melt. I was always very creeped out by the strange water insects that used teeny pebbles and sand to build a tubular shell. They didn't move fast, but I imagined stepping on them and feeling simultaneously guilty and terrified.

Once my sister, Caitlin, was lying facedown in the shallows and my mom freaked out and yanked her up out of the water. She was just watching the tiny fish swim through the sun-dappled water.

Last summer I spent as much time as possible swimming at the base of a waterfall with Charley, Pickle, Alex and Vicky. This summer I may not find a swimming hole. If this is true, I must make one in my mind and go there whenever it's hot and I'm lonely. Maybe the neighborhood kids will let me run through their sprinkler a couple of times.

This 4th I believe that I will be drinking and carousing with the Portland kids. Many of us have to work the 5th, so a last blast at the amazing Ashland 4th is out of the question. It's too bad that we'll miss the eccentric parade, the fighter jet fly-over, the gigantic fireworks display, and getting sauced on the plaza. However, it's really too good that my best friend lives up the street, my boy and I are still in love, and dear Kasey and Aric are in town from New York.

So.

Here's to
friends
and family
and neighbors
and potato salad
and cheap beer
and fireworks
and charcoal briquettes
and marching bands
and July 4, 1776!