Recently, we took a family trip up to Washington DC. For me, it was a familiar return--I grew up near DC and as an Air Force Brat spent a lot of time with my very patriotic father showing us around the town. Later on as a teacher I had several occasions to chaperone the annual 8th grade field trip, and I even had one memorable chance as an adult to participate in a rally, gathering with thousands of others on the Mall in support of a cause close to my heart.
For my husband, it was also a repeat visit, but for our children, it was their first trip. It's cliché but true that one of the joys of parenthood is getting the chance to experience things for the first time all over again as you watch your children take it all in--the marble, the museums, the monuments--- all those icons of America and Americana.
This was the first time I had visited Washington DC, though, during the Bush administration's tenure.
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Knowing my politics, friends and family joked about what I would do when we got to the White House--just offer a middle-fingered salute or do an outright drop trou and moon the whole place? Spit on the ground? Make a sign to ward off the evil eye? Would I be circumspect for the sake of the kidlets, or would I be seen on the local TV news, being cuffed as I spouted about free speech and rights to protest and the incompetents who were living in that residence?
In the end, though, I did none of that.
Because when you get there, when you stand on the Mall and find that sweet spot where in every direction you can see the all the carvings and buildings and marble and statues and temples to American heroes, American accomplishments, American dead and American ideals, you realize that what we are as a nation, what we have been and what we still could be--- far, far transcends any one man.
George W. Bush, my America is bigger than a single president. It is bigger than a single administration. It is bigger than you.
After the 2004 election I remember one British writer describing America as entering her "silly season" again. Referring to such diverse events as the Salem witch trials to temperance to McCarthyism, he described how from time to time, we on this side of the Atlantic seem to lose our collective heads to some sweeping movement, and it seems to take far too long for someone to rise up and say, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
When you stand on the Mall, it's both hard to hold onto your anger and impossible to let go of a sense of righteousness. You realize just how small a period of time any president has to govern this country, and how many others have held the wheel for the dream and potential of the American people. I don't like the direction we're steering in now, and I'm certainly not fond of the driver, but the road behind us and my traveling companions sure are grand.
There are many small moments of patriotism that hit you in DC, moments when you catch your breath a little bit as you consider the scope of all we've dreamed and accomplished as a nation: watching my son scale the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and tip his head up to look at that huge statue of that great man.
Watching my daughter lie on her back to look straight up into the night sky at the Washington monument.
Skimming through the new WWII memorial, with hands lightly brushing over the carvings, looking for our home state. Smiling over the TV icons at the Smithsonian, like Oscar the Grouch's garbage can or Dorothy's ruby slippers. Actually touching a moon rock. Gathering at the twisted piece of metal that came from the World Trade Center, looking up at the flag that flew over the Pentagon that day, and spending the next 15 minutes with all the strangers around you sharing our "where-were-you-when" speeches from September 11th, as compelled to tell our stories as any Ancient Mariner.
And looking at portraits in the National Gallery, reading about our Founding Fathers and once again appreciating the truly revolutionary thing those rebels did to sign their names to the realization that yes, when in the course of human events it does becomes necessary to .... And then they did the most revolutionary thing of all, to go on to build a society where the victors of that revolution refused a crown in favor of a ballot box.
Sometimes the patriotic determination to never quit pushing this country, moving us forward to our best version of "America" comes not from what we've accomplished, but from realizing the cost of all we've lost along the way. Seeing my son's reflection in the WWII Memorial pool next to the gold stars and knowing how many other mothers were out there that night whose sons never came home. Listening to my husband, who was visiting the Vietnam memorial for the first time and looking at the row on row of names carved into that black gash of marble, as he said quietly "I knew the monument would be big. I didn't know the print would be so small."
So yes, America may be in a "silly season," caught up like other times in our history in the grip of ignorant nationalism, with apathy and greed weighing in equal parts for leaders who use the language of Christ and of our American heroes while using none of their wisdom or compassion. That's the America we find ourselves in today, but it's not mine. It's not what I celebrate on this Fourth of July.
Mine's bigger.
Cross posted at Street Prophets.