Recovery Week with Goldfinch, Almost Fourth of July and the 250th, and the Question of Patriotism

Sunset with hummingbird garden

Recovery Week with Goldfinch

It’s been a quiet week here. Remember that tooth that kicked me out of the writing residency at the beginning of the month? Finally got it fixed, but it took almost a week to recover. On Tuesday, it was ninety degrees. Today it was gray and in the sixties. The Strawberry moon tonight looks more like spooky October than end of June. Meanwhile, I’ve been watching birds and listening to audiobooks and watching Film Noir on TCM.

Me with red hair and wildflowers

Almost the Fourth of July. How Patriotic Are You Feeling?

Saturday is the 4th of July and the 250th anniversary of this fair country. This week the Supreme Court ruled, in line with Donald Trump’s well-known contempt for not just women and people of color but also disabled people (sound like any Hitlers you know?), that people with disabilities don’t have a right to live in their own homes. A lot of us are worried this means a return in being placed in institutions for being “inconvenient.” You can read more about it here. A load of laughs, right? It also took away some of the rights of people to claim asylum here. Whenever I get a bit of patriotism back, like while watching the World Cup, the USA reveals just how evil it can be. It’s hard to stay upbeat.

Spooky Strawberry Moon

But you can look back at history and see that even at its inception the so-called founding fathers didn’t agree on what America should be. One said that slavery was an evil that would rip the country apart. He was right. Another said without the votes of women, the country wouldn’t be granting everyone a voice. We went another two hundred years without the vote. They didn’t agree about the rights of states vs the Federal government, either. And we are bearing the brunt of these theoretical arguments. We the people are supposed to be able to define what America means, what it is, what it values. Gerrymandering and court decisions can’t take away our power, but it can certainly feel like our voices are diminished.

This woodpecker thinks he’s a hummingbird

We have to remember right now that there are freedoms and joys in the world. If there are things you love about America—freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion—or even things like national parks, ice in your Coke, and the ability to wave a rainbow flag in a parade—then it is worth fighting to make this current America more like the one that contains your American dream, where the one percent don’t control everything, where we all have a chance to make a decent wage and own a house, where we have equal opportunity for medical care and education and jobs. Where the disabled and people of color and women aren’t pushed around by a fascist regime.

Glenn and I with wildflowers, at the Woodinville Lavender Farm

Yesterday I braved the outside world long enough to walk in some wildflowers in the lavender garden down the street. I’ve invited people over for the 4th of July for a cookout and even dyed my hair red. I thought about a playlist for the 250th birthday of America, and thought of Paul Simon’s 1973 American Tune and Aimee Mann’s 4th of July. All the songs I could think of, in fact, were more bittersweet. I remember how optimistic I felt in the nineties, about tech and my own future and yes, America. I hope to feel that optimism again. Wishing that for all of us.