Happy July 4....celebrate at will!

Today is July 4, 2009. This morning when I woke up, I wallowed in bed for a while trying to decide how I felt about that. I spent some time attempting to determine what this major national holiday means to me. I mean, by rights and history, it should be THE national holiday for this country, bigger than Christmas. Is that even possible? Christmas seems to start earlier every year, before Halloween sometimes, and lasts at least until the new year begins. July 4 is just, well, July 4.

I know my basic history for July 4 and the Declaration of Independence, as do most people who live in the U.S. Intellectually, I understand the importance of it and the fantastically big set of cojones that a small group of priveleged thinkers must have had to think that not only could they publish such a defiant document taking on one of the biggest superpowers of their day, but that they could convice the average Joes living among them to support it and die for it. It has become the basis for the idea of what constitutes the "American Way" - bearding tyranny in its den, suceeding against all odds, bringing home the gold medal, and we all live happily every after in patriotic splendor.

So if I understand it and appreciate the true significance of what it meant at the time and how it has informed and created the nation I live in today, why do I feel so blah about this holiday? Am I unpatriotic? Do I not love my country? Well what does it mean to be patriotic? I can say unequivocally that if we are allowing Bush Jr. to define patriotism, then I am most definitely NOT a patriot. Dictionary.com has three definitions for the word patriot:

pa⋅tri⋅ot

  [pey-tree-uht, -ot or, especially Brit., pa-tree-uht] Show IPA

–noun

1.	a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.

2.	a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, esp. of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government.

3.	(initial capital letter) Military. a U.S. Army antiaircraft missile with a range of 37 mi. (60 km) and a 200-lb. (90 kg) warhead, launched from a tracked vehicle with radar and computer guidance and fire control.

I do love my country and support the ideals it was founded on but I don't consider myself devoted - that word just rings hollow to my ear. I do believe that people need to be wary of interference by our federal government but I also don't see myself as some sort of Xena Warrior Princess fighting off evil politicians. The last time I checked, I was not any sort of military antiaircraft missile. So, am I a patriot and if so, why am I not out waving a flag and singing the national anthem on the street corner? Does anyone else wonder about these things or is this a solo form of dementia?

Eventually (obviously), I did get myself out of bed after having a fairly long, rambling, internal debate with myself. The gist of it is that I spent a lot of time thinking about how I have celebrated July 4 throughout my life and what the day has meant to me. As a child, it was often a time when my family would get together for a picnic or a barbecue and celebrate various birthdays that landed near the holiday. At that time, it was still possible for families to buy and set off any number of fireworks and the potential danger of it was always thrilling to me. I loved the sulpher smell and when I closed my eyes, I could still see the brightly colored flashes of lights behind my eyelids. If we were at the beach that year, my family including my parents, sisters, aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents would pack up half of the house and drive down the coast to a little town that put on a huge display of fireworks. We would all drink hot chocolate and occaisionally my uncle would allow me to have a sip of his with the drop amoretto in it. Yum. It was all very fun, but I never remember thinking about what it meant, about why we were celebrating that holiday on that date, why that holiday is so important to the people who live in this country. I think children can be forgiven for just enjoying the moment during their long break from school; it is part of the joy of summer.

As young adult, July 4 celebrations did change a bit. For the most part, I did still spend them with some part of my family, but the large gatherings of relatives pretty much stopped when all the kids grew up and flew the coop. Most often, I would meet with friends for some sort of barbecue and drunken beerfest, then we would all head down to the river to meet up with my sister and watch the fireworks. Some years I would go home to the little town I grew up in and along with everyone else, head over to the tiny highschool to watch the volunteer fire department set off the fireworks on the baseball diamond. If I sat up in the bleachers, I could often see the fireworks displays from some of the other small towns around the area. If we were lucky, it would be a nice, balmy evening and the sky would be a perfect velvety black backdrop. I do not ever remember thinking about what July 4 means and why we were all there celebrating it by shooting off mini-missiles while the community band played Sousa marches.

Nowadays, I live in a city that is known for foggy summers. This last week was a rare, beautifully clear, warm week but of course today it is overcast and the weatherman with his crystal ball is forcasting fog this evening. I will spend the day with my family, enjoying playing with my nieces and nephew, eating good food, and gossiping about the same old things we as always do. This is how it always goes when my family gets together, whether it is a Saturday night or a major holiday. I know that even though we will wish each other a happy July 4, none of us will really discuss what any of that means. We won't tell the story of what happened so long ago on that original July 4 or what has happened throughout our country's history since then. While the city will shoot off fireworks, we won't be able to see them under the heavy bank of fog. Rather, the day will be nice and lazy and we will all be happy this evening when we finally wander home to our beds.

So, at the end of this long internal conversation, I came back to my original question - am I a patriot and do I give the July 4 holiday the respect it deserves? I think I am and I do. Why did thirteen colonies originally go against their ruling superpower? To have the right of self-determination and equality. Yes, there were all sorts of other political and economic issues, but basically that is the gist of the Declaration of Independence. I think part of the legacy of that document is that while we need government to manage things and represent us on local and international levels and while we need laws to protect us from the idiocy humans are capable of, we are all encouraged and expected to live our own lives in our own fashion. This should be applied to everything from what political parties we identify with and who we vote for and how we treat our neighbors all the way down to how we spend our free time and which holidays we choose to celebrate and how we go about that. I will never be a flag waving person shouting out the glory of my country, but I do believe in the essential ideals that began this great experiment and in my own way I celebrate that by gathering with my family, reconnecting with friends, and enjoying a day that has been set aside specifically to remind us where we come from.