My Country, Tis of Thee...

Outside my front door, America is celebrating. I can hear the rockets and the fireworks going off in the warm, Southern night, and in my mind I can easily imagine night flowing westward, as a whole nation joins the party.

I absolutely adore the Fourth of July.



Adore.



It's because I'm an American Girl, and the 4th of July makes me feel like I'm living in the movie Pollyanna. Our entire neighborhood came pouring out of their homes this morning, riding bikes and pulling wagons decorated in streamers and pinwheels and flags. We marched proudly around a park with our children, and then rocked out to the Chicken Dance. We grinned at strangers, gave and received compliments. We ate until we thought we were going to pass out, dripping watermelon down our elbows. We listen to (questionably) great music with lyrics like "we'll put a boot in your &%$ it's the American waaaaaaay...". Does any other country do this?! I know that the Swiss sent up fireworks like crazy on August 1st, and England has their Guy Fawks Day. I know Canada Day was only a couple days ago. But I seriously can't think of another place where people go so crazily, dizzily, all-out for their love of country. We are Americans, and I adore it.



I adore it like I adore this country. Like I adore the black, slippery rocks on the craggy Oregon coast. Like I adore the beaches south of Santa Monica pier, with their teeming boardwalks and their film crews. Like I adore the churches of Manhattan and the cobblestone streets of Charleston. Like the Cumberland Gap and the red rocks and mountains of my home state, Utah. Like the endless skies of Montana to the twisted Cypresses along the Georgia coast. I have not seen a place in this great, wide country that has not bewitched me, in it's own way.


Land where my fathers died.
Land of the Pilgrim's pride.
From every mountain side
Let Freedom Ring...