Mamarati

I’m really not that much of a holiday person. Truly, I’m not much on celebrations, period. Holiday days feel much like any other day to me, and it’s rare that I put a lot of energy into holiday type activities and I don’t really talk a lot about holidays before they happen.

Now, that doesn’t mean I’m down on those who do enjoy holidays and do lots of preparation to make a day seem special or who really get in the spirit of celebration. That’s all fine, too. Sometimes those folks can drag me in and make me have a good time. But my natural inclination is toward calm, quiet reflection and time spent alone, with family or with a very small group of people I’m close to.

Today, my son went with his father to swim. Yesterday, my boyfriend, son and I watched fireworks from the car one street behind us. It was a serendipitous occurrence; we were driving back from getting something to eat and saw some cars parked looking toward the railroad tracks. Not something that happens around here on a daily basis. Then we remembered that we could see the fireworks at the lake from our back yard last year and we decided to stop. It was a nice show. About 20 minutes.

When my son was leaving, something got into my nose and eyes and turned me into an allergic train wreck. I took some Benadryl and napped for a bit. My boyfriend and I then went to go get some tacos. We drove by the place where we have made a habit of watching fireworks in the years since we bought this house. It was bumpin’. I thought about driving back, but find that my heart is really not in it. I don’t feel like that’s something I have to do in order to celebrate this day.

As I was eating my tacos, rung up by and prepared by a Spanglish crew… I did think about today and what it means, though. About folks coming over here from other countries. Declaring independence. Starting new lives. Struggling. Having fun. Making new ways. Keeping old ways. Fighting wars.

I thought about Texas and the people who lived in Texas before it was a state. The flags that have flown over this piece of the land… I thought about the border fence. I thought about the Alamo. I thought about this High School.

I thought about how my 12-year-old poked fun at some instructions we got with some new purchase recently. Because they were in Spanish and English. And that’s how he’s grown up. With things in two languages… or more. And he doesn’t take issue with that and it’s funny to him that others are so hung up on it and want so badly to make everything in English.

I thought about a book I read in college. And I thought about how many generations it takes for a group of people to forget where they came from for the most part and only remember here and now. One may know how to make tortellini from scratch, but may not be able to speak a word of Italian (unless you count the dirty words…)

I thought about my Native American roots and also the roots from somewhere else that give me my auburn hair, fair skin and freckles.

I thought about how the song God Bless the U.S.A. always fills me with emotion and makes me cry. And then I thought about how the song America, Fuck Yeah always makes me laugh my ass off.

I thought about the last 8 years of life in this country and my pervasive feeling of despair… mostly about things in government or the political scene… but mostly not things in my neighborhood, say. Those things have stayed pretty much the same no matter the party lines… aside from the bitching and moaning about gas prices.

And then I thought about the recent surge of hope. Oh, the audacity. It makes my every day a little brighter thinking about November…

And that’s how today has shaped up for me. Happy Independence Day… to EVERYONE. No matter how you got here or who you had to kill to get your freedom… no matter what side of the fence you’re on or what language you speak. If you’re here, you’re here. That’s the bottom line for me.

So, have a great day!