Brave Enough to Love, Brave Enough to Look
“Write about how what’s happening right now shouldn’t keep us from celebrating the Fourth of July and everything it’s meant to be,” my husband says as he glimpses the blank screen staring back at me.
“But I don’t feel that way. I don’t feel that way at all,” I say.
I would like to. I would actually love to.
I would love nothing more than to cloak myself in red, white and blue this Friday and belt out the Star-Spangled Banner (undeniably off-key) as a chorus of fireworks stream down from the sky. I would love to join the crowds downtown and watch my boys snag Tootsie Rolls and Smarties from the street as waving neighbors walk the morning parade. I would love to look at those neighbors, covered in the colors of the flag, and not wonder who they voted for. I would love to go back to a day when that wasn’t the first thing I thought when I saw the Stars and Stripes waving from someone’s front yard or the back of their Silverado.