Ah, Independence Day again is upon us, which at our house means only one thing: It's time I go a little crazy about my flagpole problem. Specifically: my failure to attach a flat flagpole bracket to the round column on the porch.
When we moved in three years ago, it took me a while to realize that the house didn't have a great surface for a flagpole bracket. This was a bummer. My mom thought Old Glory was the only kind of flag that should decorate the front of a house — all the seasonal ones being gimmicky and a little gauche, as she saw them. But I like a good flag on a house, and even some bad ones. They tell the world you're in a celebratory mood, even if you're celebrating by huddling indoors with a book. (Introvert here!)
Anyway, back to my predicament.
Your standard flagpole bracket is flat, and your standard round column is, er, round. You can go ahead and screw that bracket into the column if you want — go ahead, try it — but at best it will sit only almost flush, and the screws will slowwwly start to unscrew themselves and then one day a big wind will come along and the next thing you know, your Be Mine valentine flag is in the neighbor's bushes, still attached to the pole and the bracket, which has been ripped out of the column.
After that, you're out there filling and patching the screw holes in your once-pristine column, and entertaining envious thoughts about the folks up and down the street with their perfectly rectangular columns off of which hang their nice bright flags, and you start to feel a bit out of sorts.
Certain holidays make my flag-poor situation more painful than others, and I'll admit — July 4th is one of them. Sure, I love a pumpkin blowing in the breeze at Halloween or a shamrock trying to make cold gray March seem festive. But there really is nothing like the stars and stripes on a patriotic holiday, which is to say that while I loathe the way the word "patriot" has become a partisan rallying cry, patriotism itself? Well, I still dig patriotism.
I'll just sit here for a minute if you need to roll your eyes a bit and argue with me in your head. It's possible you'd like me to count the ways that our country is FUBAR, and perhaps remind me how either it ain't what it used to be — or that it wasn't that way even when used-to-be was a thing.
You'll get no argument from me on the details. And still.
And still I love the flag and the hope and determination that was there when the first American flag was born and that is evident still if you look for it.
I love America's spirit of ingenuity and forward motion, and that it really was born from some core visions agreed upon (more or less) by smart, purposeful men and women.
I love the shared value of freedom that by now is embedded in each individual's DNA, even if we disagree — sometimes fiercely — about where personal freedom should yield to collaboration and responsibility. I love it even though we sure talked a better freedom game than we delivered when it came to the role of Black people in the development of the nation.
Our history is laced with hypocrisy and still I love it here, where you really can see amber waves of grain if you drive across the right states at golden hour. I am gutted sometimes by the breathtaking division we're experiencing in this season of our country's life, but take solace in remembering that a country is not a Netflix series with an eight-episode contract. It’s not over.
It's never over.
The downside of our little experiment here is that we have to keep trying to get it right. The upside is that we get to keep trying to get it right.
This work gets grimy and ugly sometimes, but the work is still worthy, beautiful and necessary because the grand experiment is still all of those things. It's important to remember, too, that even when our country is in a season of relative contentment, the work of nurturing democracy still has to get done. Complacency won't do. I'll admit that I struggle sometimes to figure out my own role in that, beyond voting and donating, but that's a topic for another day.
If there were one thing I could give friends who have kind of turned on the flag, and feel something less than all-in on American patriotism, it would be permission to bear-hug this flawed and troubled place we call home. Love it without self-consciousness, without worrying that you look like a nitwit who doesn’t know how bad things are.
Maybe remember how you were taught to love it when you were a kid and things seemed less complicated, then do that.
It's a flukked-up beauty badly in need of repair.
It's our home, and even if its crummy round pillar does not play well with flag poles, it's really such a great place. So we love it while we fix it, and maybe most importantly, we can love it just because.
We don't need a reason and we don’t need this country to be perfect.
We don't need it to be serene.
Independence in the United States means a lot of things, and one of them is that we are free to love anyone and anything — including the country itself — without reason. Just because we love it.
Isn't that beautiful?
Borrow or buy this book
Writer Sarvinder Naberhaus and superstar illustrator Kadir Nelson made a picture book for children, and the rest of us, called Blue Sky White Stars (2017) that combines glorious paintings and spare, poetic text about the beauty of the U.S. Borrow it from the library or fetch it from your favorite bookseller. It'll make you feel good, I promise.
This is my favorite Independence Day moment: my beauties watching fireworks on our favorite beach on a perfect night. Happy Fourth, friends.
In the spirit of community (which is everything we have and all that we don't have at the moment), can't someone near Karen create a perfect little shim to solve her round vs square problem? Round out the flat with some spray magic foam/resin? Attach a rounded out piece of wood to the column? It's a perfectly neighborly thing to do this holiday weekend.
Those of us who are alarmed at the weaponizing of flag (and family) might consider defanging the right by making it impossible to differentiate political affiliation on the basis of fervent flag-waving.
Bleeding heart liberal here who probably alarms her conservative neighbors. I wish our country was better in many ways, yet still believe in it and still fly OUR flag. Great essay, Karen - thank you!