Last night I left the barbecue and decided to forgo the fireworks so I wouldn’t have to add an extra 45 minutes to my drive home. Instead, I stopped by the reservoir and sat at the edge of the water in the fading light. I could hear the booming cannons, and ricocheting gun fire of the fireworks going off in small towns all around me. The sound echoed around the lake and reverberated in the trees.
I lay back and looked at this one bright start that hung in the sky. Maybe it was a planet, the light from it was so strong. We are celebrating war, I thought to myself. All of this tributary fireworks, simulating battle. And we drag our lawn chairs and kids out into the fields and watch them, ooing and aahing and eating fried dough and funnel cake.
While war after war, year after year, and decade after decade, rage on. Killing hundreds of thousands of people, innocent civilians, innocent soldiers. Destroying landscapes and lives. Is this really something to celebrate?
I sat on the grass and declared my independence from war. I could forgo the pretty and exciting fireworks for the rest of my life, if we could never have another battle. Maybe, instead, on the Fourth of July, we could run around town passing out handfuls of daisy’s, which right now sprouted from ever gully and ditch and field in the region. What if we had barragements of smiley face flowers to remind us that we can be independent of the crazy ideas and misplaced ideals that get us into war in the first place.
This could be the new Declaration of Independence:
We, the people, will no longer be dependent on oil. We commit to doing whatever it takes, from intense conservation, to innovative investments, to find another way to live our lives. We, the people, will no longer be dependent on the military-industrial complex, the multinational corporations, the boo-big-to-fail predatory banks, the war mongering decisions of power hungry politicians – for creating any aspect of our lives.
We, the people, will depend on our own ingenuity, our communities and our families. We will create lives of honest labor, and good intentions – right livelihood. We will treat our earth, and each other, with respect and caring. We will honor the diversity among our nations, and protect the weakest ones, who can’t protect themselves.
I lay on the grass, thinking all these grand and powerful thoughts. Am I just naive, I wondered, to still be hoping this idea is possible? After just four decades on this planet, couldn’t I see what was inevitable? What was right before my eyes?
Another bomb went off, and then another, in rapid succession. It was the grand finale. The light was almost completely gone from the sky. I was losing my own battle with the mosquitoes.
I wrapped up in my blanket, and in my idealistic and hopeful dreams, and walked with the puppy, back to my car, which I wished – as I often did – was a horse and carriage. Someday, I thought. Someday it will all be…just as it is meant to be…
