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July 4, 2001
The Fourth of July
Independence Day is our country’s birthday.Independence is a right (or rite) of adulthood, not of birth, when we require care from others.
We are born from something; we are born into something.
We are dependent coming and going.
A nation goes on longer than a person, yet it is not independent of its citizens. No one of us is America, but all of us are. And when we are gone, I imagine America will remain.
That’s how it is with the other species. Every Red Maple is just that: another Red Maple, replacing those that fell before. Every Robin bears the same two names: Turdus migratorius. Seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. Rarely do we have time to see elsewhere in the World the individuality we find among our own kind.
So independence is a matter of perception, and, at least in this matter, ours is keen. Keen enough to see boundaries between people who are much the same. Homo sapiens all, but each with our own names. And our own lineages.
I’m moved to think of mine.
The occasion is an impending family reunion.
A family is not quite so abstract as a nation, but is much like one. Family groups appear, at least briefly, in many vertebrates, but the lines are lost among generations of unmarked individuals. Keeping track of the line is like drawing a border. A lot of the old countries really are families in a way that America is not, their boundaries drawn along ethnic “ranges”.
The American family is bred more of myth than genes.
In my family, in my mother’s line, the mythology is Scottish. We’ve reached our fourth American born generation, but you’ve got to start from somewhere. The details are not particularly mythological, but the romance of the old place endures, providing a sign under which to gather. For my part, I need to come up with a few suitable words, so to speak; a toast, perhaps. These things must be kept in perspective, and I don’t want to say that the affair is a distraction from the Park, but it will remove me for a while, and something, great or small, will be missed.
Much of history is missed in our 4th of July parties, but myth is well celebrated. As luck would have it, I met two Scottish gentlemen in the Park, keepers of History and of Myth. Maybe they’ll give me some advice on what to say.