I.
One Fourth of July,
I took a photo of a woman.
On the Coney Island beach, blocks from the men sliding hot dogs down their throats, pursuing a kind of glory. Yards from the zooming coasters, their riders' shrieks becoming an unwitting choir. Feet from the wood-studded boardwalk, caked with salt and sweat and sugared ice that slipped through fingers before anyone could catch it.
This woman has come all the way to the edge. To the water, the shoreline, the not-quite-an-ocean that, for New York City, is close enough.
She sits back on a weather-beaten jetty, her large brown body wrapped in a bikini of stars and stripes. Head cocked toward the sky, she looks up through red-slatted sunglasses, here at the edge of the world.
I didn't take the photo because of this woman, but now she's all I can see. A big, beautiful goddess, soaking in this moment, staring down the sun.
The music blares. The children squeal. The waves come in. The waves go out again.
This is America. All of it. The heat and the skin, the sunburst technicolor, the glorious urban abandon.
It was 2016, the last Fourth of July. The last fourth of July before this.
I took a photo of a woman.
On the Coney Island beach, blocks from the men sliding hot dogs down their throats, pursuing a kind of glory. Yards from the zooming coasters, their riders' shrieks becoming an unwitting choir. Feet from the wood-studded boardwalk, caked with salt and sweat and sugared ice that slipped through fingers before anyone could catch it.
This woman has come all the way to the edge. To the water, the shoreline, the not-quite-an-ocean that, for New York City, is close enough.
She sits back on a weather-beaten jetty, her large brown body wrapped in a bikini of stars and stripes. Head cocked toward the sky, she looks up through red-slatted sunglasses, here at the edge of the world.
I didn't take the photo because of this woman, but now she's all I can see. A big, beautiful goddess, soaking in this moment, staring down the sun.
The music blares. The children squeal. The waves come in. The waves go out again.
This is America. All of it. The heat and the skin, the sunburst technicolor, the glorious urban abandon.
It was 2016, the last Fourth of July. The last fourth of July before this.
II.
One Fourth of July,
I saw a photo of a tank.
A military tank, inching down the highway in the night.
A reflective green street sign points toward the capitol, lighting the behemoth's path.
(don't get lost, it seems to warn. don't lose your way.)
This tank is journeying to the center. The center of everything. A country's past, a country's future.
It's meant to be a symbol, these tanks and jets and guns: Look! they say. Look how free we are! Look how free and righteous and good.
This tank is miles from the people crammed into cages, whose flight from terror has been labeled a criminal act, punishable by dehumanization and disease and unspeakable, family-wrenching violence.
Miles from the people whose homes have been washed away, or burned away, or taken away. Whose water has been poisoned, whose mountaintops have been cut down.
Miles from the people whose bodies are decaying, whose bodies are violated, whose bodies are blown open by bullet holes.
Miles from the people whose wombs are being invaded, whose race and faith and identities are being condemned, or erased, or both, or worse.
Look how free we are! Look how free.
This is America. All of it. The heat and the skin.
These people, and others—they're all I can see.
I saw a photo of a tank.
A military tank, inching down the highway in the night.
A reflective green street sign points toward the capitol, lighting the behemoth's path.
(don't get lost, it seems to warn. don't lose your way.)
This tank is journeying to the center. The center of everything. A country's past, a country's future.
It's meant to be a symbol, these tanks and jets and guns: Look! they say. Look how free we are! Look how free and righteous and good.
This tank is miles from the people crammed into cages, whose flight from terror has been labeled a criminal act, punishable by dehumanization and disease and unspeakable, family-wrenching violence.
Miles from the people whose homes have been washed away, or burned away, or taken away. Whose water has been poisoned, whose mountaintops have been cut down.
Miles from the people whose bodies are decaying, whose bodies are violated, whose bodies are blown open by bullet holes.
Miles from the people whose wombs are being invaded, whose race and faith and identities are being condemned, or erased, or both, or worse.
Look how free we are! Look how free.
This is America. All of it. The heat and the skin.
These people, and others—they're all I can see.
III.
One Fourth of July,
a group of men signed a piece of paper, once.
These white men who owned property and people and carved out the best world they could envision (for others like them.)
There were no photos then, but there is the document. The writing down of it, the etching of names, made the act a declaration and a vow. An inheritance and an offering.
This is yours now. What you do with it is up to you.
That was America, in the beginning. Messy, unequal, and deeply flawed, but still: glimmering with possibility.
It's getting easier and easier to forget, now, even with photos and papers and faces. Who we were, who once thought we could be.
This Fourth of July, we will marvel at fireworks that sound just like gunshots. Wave a flag whose colors are fading. Play an anthem whose notes sound wrong (was the melody always this hard to sing? It was. Of course it was.)
Remember it now, this day, because it could always be the last one. The last one as we know it.
This is America still. All of it. The blood-drenched history and the flickering promise.
What we do with it is up to us.
a group of men signed a piece of paper, once.
These white men who owned property and people and carved out the best world they could envision (for others like them.)
There were no photos then, but there is the document. The writing down of it, the etching of names, made the act a declaration and a vow. An inheritance and an offering.
This is yours now. What you do with it is up to you.
That was America, in the beginning. Messy, unequal, and deeply flawed, but still: glimmering with possibility.
It's getting easier and easier to forget, now, even with photos and papers and faces. Who we were, who once thought we could be.
This Fourth of July, we will marvel at fireworks that sound just like gunshots. Wave a flag whose colors are fading. Play an anthem whose notes sound wrong (was the melody always this hard to sing? It was. Of course it was.)
Remember it now, this day, because it could always be the last one. The last one as we know it.
This is America still. All of it. The blood-drenched history and the flickering promise.
What we do with it is up to us.
