They didn’t hear me as I stepped from the woods, and as soon as I saw them, I stepped back into the trees, pausing only long enough to snap a picture. This wasn’t, after all, something you saw every day, a father and son perched on the creek bank, examining what they caught in the little blue net. I want to hold the image of them in my mind forever, as if that could ensure that thirty years from now this boy, grown, would be crouched on this bank with a son of his own, teaching him all the special secrets.
What if, in mid-winter, you threw open your door, and instead of soggy leaves and drifts of snow you found yourself face to face with a world drenched in green and swept with flowers? If you weren’t so accustomed to this knee-deep technicolor summer that crept in almost without your notice—leaves, stems, buds, blades, blossoms— or if, suppose, you would be leaving in the morning never to return, if this was your very last chance to drink in the sight of these red-veined purple petals, wouldn’t the wonder of them seem a gift, a blessing? Wouldn’t your eyes spill over with thanks? Wouldn’t you feel that everything that brought you to this moment was destined, and worth it after all?
This is a real place, a few feet from my kitchen door. Imagine! Imagine floating in on wings whose colors match the world around you, eager to taste the blue droplets of nectar that draw you, and you take all this for for granted. Imagine.
And just think. Six months ago, as I peered at the mud and snow and ice that filled this very spot, only that and nothing more, it was impossible even to dream of an early July morning and the tenderness of hosta blossoms kissed by the warm rain. Now here I am, alive in that impossible dream.
Some artist I read once said how much he loved the rain, the way it revealed the colors and light. I smile this morning as I stroll in the gardens in the rain, his comments echoing in my mind. I gaze on the lushness of it all, amazed that I get to be here.
Every now and then somebody up the road sets off a volley of fireworks. Sometimes it’s the little ones that are like popcorn. Sometimes it sounds like a cannon. Once it was a sudden deep boom so loud it made me jump in my chair. It’s that weekend. The Fourth of July, even if the fourth isn’t until Tuesday. We know a holiday when we see one.
Independence Day. I wonder how many of us give any thought at all to its origin, to the context of the times from which it arose, to the meaning of it and how it reflects on the times we are living today. I suppose that sort of thing belongs to a past era. And personally, I think that’s a failure and a shame.
When I was a kid, every Independence Day I used to sprawl on the living room floor with a thick, leather-covered volume of The Encyclopedia Britannica and read The Declaration of Independence all the way through, even though I didn’t understand it. It was sort of like the Bible that way. It felt important and like something you should know.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” it said, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
That’s a pretty deep thought when you consider it. It’s one of those you can visit time and again over the years and have a more insightful view each time as your life experience grows.
Basically, as I see it, the Declaration is a group of people saying they can no longer go along with oppressive treatment from their government and will, going forward, govern themselves, thank you. It’s kind of like when somebody keeps telling you all these things you have to do for their benefit no matter how you feel about it, and then one day, you say, “Wait a minute.” You decide you’ve had enough of that game and you’re not going to play it any more.
Doing that, deciding you will be following your own rules from now on, can create a ruckus. And it did, back then, when those colonists reached their “wait a minute” moment. And here we are. Flying our flags and grilling our burgers and hearing the fireworks pop off from all directions.
I’ll be flying my flag, too, this weekend. I fly it every day that it doesn’t rain. And I’ll be thinking, as I unfurl it and place it in its standard, about the things it represents to me. Even if such thoughts aren’t currently in vogue. Truths endure regardless.
Isn’t it interesting how one small detail can catch your heart and anchor itself in the sea green depths of your memory? I walked on a day when the light was scant and from the lush summer foliage that bordered my path a single tiny flower beamed a glad hello.
Listen, it’s all a gift. No matter how it feels. The moment is larger than we imagine and could not exist as it is but for our part in it. Our seeing stitches it together. Our words are notes in its song. When we move, we move the whole atmosphere. We breathe air and drink water that has passed through countless other bodies before ours. Our thoughts shape the future and color its days. We give time its meaning and rhyme. And it all shines back at us, a perfect reflection in the grand cosmic mirror, of who we are, each of us, and all of us together.
Imagine that you’re standing on this bridge right beside me, looking at the astonishing details of this tranquil summer scene. That’s the Little Beaver, and I’ve seen beavers here, from this very bridge, no longer than a year or two ago, right over there. How many cars cross here in a day would you suppose? A couple hundred? Maybe more? Could be. How many who cross even turn their heads to glance at this? They already know it. It’s the creek and trees. Imagine we stand here together, taking it in, smiling in the moist, warm air, listening to the creek’s songs, our bodies lightly swaying with the dances of the trees.
