I spent some time this morning wondering how I could put together a July 4th Happy Birthday card, and Maria pitched in by collecting some flowers and choosing a blue vase. I put it in a half dozen different places before I saw the windowsill sticking out of the barn. The wood had character, and what better backdrop for July 4 than an old red barn. I got out the big lens, the 300 mm and I liked the color, the texture and the feeling of it. Happy Birthday America.
Fanny has decided she wants to be pals with Red, and she might drive him to actually break off eye contact with the sheep and move. But I doubt it. Each morning now, she comes over to him, leans closer to him. When Fanny decides you are her friend, you are her friend. Red has not quite figured out how to handle this, he is ignoring her, peering through her legs at the sheep, even looking at me imploringly. “I have no advice for you,” I said, “I have no commands. When it comes to love, you are on your own.”
Happy Birthday. I know that my country is going through a discouraging time, it’s sense of promise and opportunity tarnished, it’s cherished democratic system mired in conflict and paralysis, it’s fabled economy struggling, the great middle-class pressured, the government taken over by the great and bloodless corporate coup. But it is still to me the land of dreams. To me, America will always be Minnie Cohen, her family slaughtered by murderers, a brave teenager smuggling herself out of Russia in a barrel of chocolate, getting to New England, finding her husband Jacob, starting a small grocery story that bought them a triple-decker house so they could rent two floors, sustained them for 60 years, took care of three children and brought them to a long life.
Even though Minnie threw herself in front of me whenever she saw a policeman – they might come for you one day, she would say, trembling, they will come for us – they never did come for her, or for me. I believe they never will.
They don’t do that here, I would tell her, I always knew that, and I think she may have come to believe me.
When I think of America, I think of the awkward and lonely boy, frightened and confused, who dreamed a lot of dreams. He dreamed of being a writer one day, of publishing one book after another. He dreamed of living in nature, perhaps on his own farm. He dreamed of falling in love with a sweet, creative and loving human being with whom he could share his life. He dreamed of having a smart and loyal dog who would walk through love by his side.
He dreamed sometimes of being an artist, of painting things, taking photos.
It took awhile for these dreams to come true, and there were many dreams that did not come true. He wished for happiness for his family, for help for his sister, for closeness with his brother, for his mother to be well and secure. He wished to talk to his father one day, to forgive him, and talk to him in a way that was honest and trusting. He wished for three happy and healthy children. He wished for lots of money so he could travel, experiment with writing, give some away to deserving people.
In America, the land of dreams, all of our dreams can’t come true. Be more of our dreams come true than almost anywhere else. That is still true, if we can push back on fear, gather our strength. My wish for my country, which I love dearly, is that we take back our politics from the corporations and the angry men and women, that we push the lobbyists out of Washington, that we stop warring on the parts of the world we fear and don’t understand, that we love the poor and striving again and help them climb up the ladder as my grandmother did, that we make work something we can love again, something that will lift us up.
Perhaps we need another American Revolution. If so, it will come.
I believe these dreams can come true, and I believe they will come true. I will never give up on my country, on American Dreams. Happy Birthday, country. I’m thinking of a still life to photograph, a birthday card to the U.S.A.
