Ended up at a BBQ at the Cotton Mill yesterday to celebrate Independence Day – the food was abundant (pulled pork, jambalaya, beef tips, hot dogs, sausage, chili, ribs, cabagge salad, tomato salad, apple pie) and there was a daiquiri machine churning away frozen Voodoo delights! All of this was a product of two men, friends who put the whole meal on themselves. Amazing. Just like the Can, a lot of people relocated to the Cotton Mill after their homes were flooded and a new kind of community was established around these flood diaspora collectives.
While we are celebrating our independence – at one point yesterday a guy asked me who we actually freed ourselves from in 1776 (this is a question?) – suffice to say we can look at what happened over 200 years ago as a young country, but we can’t think where we have ended up was inevitable. Our history books like to showcase our success in fighting for our independence – but we became free to do what?
Free to neglect all that is good about us and our country?
I’ve learned again and again that the rich delta soil I stand on is my home, but I live now with the uncertainty of it being terra firma. I also think that as a mighty country we enjoyed a meteroic ride to the top since 1776 – but after two centuries we have passed our inflection point and are on the waning side of the equation – the mightiest nation in the world? – is that who we are? – we’re at war on foreign soil while our own soil lies fallow – health care, education, poverty, environment – the list of what needs our attention gets longer every day.
Maybe next year we might really celebrate freedom and independence – freedom from war, free from negligent and irresponsible leadership, free our cities from poverty and raise children independent from ignorance, freedom to reinvent a new humanity, and independent from the teat of other countries’ oil and gas supplies. Then we can let freedom ring, light the sparklers, and dance a jig and truly call ourselves free.