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Fourth of July worth celebrating just about anywhere

BY ABRIELLE WILLIS

Posted 7/02/10

This Fourth of July will be the first I have spent at home in two years.

On July 4, 2008, I was gallivanting around the nation from which we emancipated, spending one last evening in London before hopping on a train for a two-day trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.

The streets were oddly bereft of parades and red-white-and-blue streamers, the skies disappointingly empty.

I asked the locals, in a joking manner, if the Fourth was as much a national day of mourning in Great Britain as it is a day of celebration in America.

Last year, I returned to America, though I was still far from home.

I flew to Colorado Springs, Colo., for a summer magazine internship (though, I was less interested in the internship itself and more in our white water rafting excursions).

On the Fourth of July, the daily Colorado rains lingered a bit longer than normal, drenching the grass and our clothes long past seven in the evening.

My friends and I ventured to the Air Force Academy, where we huddled on a hillside underneath some low-slung branches and waited for the shadowy clouds to clear.

They finally dissolved into a star-speckled sky just in time for the fireworks, which, when they echoed off the slopes of Pike’s Peak, boomed so loudly, they rattled my eardrums.

While I fell madly in love with the backward streets and ancient skyline of London, all I could think about during my Colorado holiday was how wonderful it was to celebrate independence again.

My return to America made me reminisce about my childhood revelries — how my father, who then seemed so infinitely strong, would pull us all in our little forest green wagon toward Main Street; how we chased the lightning bugs in circles; how we would nibble on fruit snacks and sip Capri Sun juice, staring wide-eyed at the clashing cymbals and tubas big enough to swallow us whole.

Then, I thought how the Fourth of July is about more than just catching fireflies in jars, watching decorated parade floats amble down the streets in all their sparkling glory or clapping my hands at the crackling fireworks raining down toward the horizon.

If I can be obvious for a moment, Independence Day is about, well, America.

It is about the America of song, with its wide plains and craggy mountains; its blood-red deserts, its rumbling ocean tides and slow, sleepy rivers.

It is about its people: those who work hard and play harder; those who worship and those who choose not to; those who fall in love; those who dream and make dreams happen.

It’s about the soldiers who fight and sacrifice for America, those who believe in freedom and who recognize that such liberties do not come without a price.

So, while I am not entirely certain of Sunday’s plans quite yet, I do know that I will enjoy a church service in the morning, grateful for a country that lets me worship unabashedly.

I might catch the Bel Air parade and fireworks, or I may venture to Havre de Grace for the afternoon. The Inner Harbor fireworks show sounds enchanting, too.

I was also tempted with an offer to go swing dancing with friends in Washington, D.C. I think it would be rather appropriate to enjoy what I love in the capitol city of the nation I love.

The fact that I have these kinds of choices is what makes America so beautiful.

I encourage you to be thankful for your nation not just this weekend, but every day you are able to wake up and do what you wish.

Pray for the thousands of people who have left their comforts behind to fight for the freedom to decide what to read, say, hear and watch.

Happy Fourth, everyone. Enjoy the lightning bugs, the cookouts, the marching bands and the firecrackers; but, don’t ever, ever forget about the meaning of independence.