Friday, July 31, 2009

Sweet Land of Liberty?

I've decided that my blogs will not always be generated from my job although most probably will. Here is a piece of today:


Earlier I rode my bike to a semi-desolate area near Lake Michigan in order to stare at the clouds/read/write/contemplate the purpose of my existence/etc. in peace and as I was lying there I heard someone playing the harmonica. I like the harmonica so I was all cool with it and then I realized where it was coming from. Not too far from where I had set up camp was a hispanic family having a picnic and I’d noticed them when I first arrived but paid no more attention other than, “There’s those people.” So anyway, the husband is playing the harmonica and I can hear his wife’s voice, very delicately, singing along. Whatever, right? No. He was playing “Let Freedom Ring”...you know, “My country ‘tis of thee”....I don’t even know if that’s the actual title of that song and I was born and raised right here in the land of the free. 


For some reason it really struck me that as their children ran around the sometimes grassy, sometimes cementy (I don't care that it's not a word) shores of Lake Michigan they sat there and played/sang that song and more so that it was obvious it meant something to them. I can’t picture anyone I know doing that. It made me so fucking happy and I often times have to calm myself down because I get in these dreadful fits about how much America sucks. Today, though, I loved America and I was proud of it. It was only for about fifteen minutes but I was perfectly fine with being a citizen to a country that makes those people feel so lucky. 


PS- I have a rose petal bed and the sun on my shoes.