spirited bug-hunting

Can you see the spider lying in wait in the center of the web? This is just one of countless sights that elicited whoops of excitement and gasps of awe from a group of eleven bug-hunters ages 1 - 6 that we led on a nature walk earlier this week. It was our turn to host the homeschool-style science camp we're participating in this summer, and we were excited to share our growing passions for bugs and birds with some new friends.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I tell you it was awesome. All of the kids were already lovers of nature, and when I explained what we were doing, they set out on the trail with adorable gusto. Every couple of steps there was something new to admire and enthuse over; as soon as our attention was waning with one bug we would hear another urgent cry of "Everyone! Come look!" The wonder of the kids before moss, larvae, skinks, raccoon tracks, butterflies, cicada husks and daddy long legs was completely infectious. It was the camp counselor effect: when faced with a crowd of bright, enthusiastic faces, one cannot help but mirror back some of that same effervescent glow. So at one point a mother and I shared an interesting bug with each other with big grins on our faces, noticed there were no children present, then smiled sheepishly at one another. Were we really so thrilled by a beetle? In that moment we were, despite our years of practiced adult callousness towards nature.  

After the walk, everyone came back to our house for a totally superfluous bug-themed craft (though the clothespin dragonflies did look nice), some playtime, and lunch in the backyard. Some of the older children hit the dress up box and decided to put on a play of Snow White. Frances immediately took over a directorial position, assigning roles, digging out costumes, and creating scripts. As I watched her, I started to feel nervous. This was a set up if ever there were one.

Somehow the kids agreed take a break from rehearsing to have lunch. As we sat outside, Frances and I told a couple of kids and moms about our new Wink Lists. The wink originated at the beach with our friends, and was inspired by my recent reading. When I noticed Frances getting ragged around the edges and looking for a fight at the beach in the late afternoon, I pulled her aside and we talked about what it feels like in our bodies when we are getting more and more upset. It wasn't easy for her, but we did agree that our hearts start beating fast, and we feel tight in our muscles. Then we made a pact: if we noticed the other person looking like her heart was racing, we would give her a wink. That's our secret code now: the wink means hey, I notice you're a little upset, maybe you could use a break.

We made our Wink Lists the day before the nature walk. We thought of all the things we could do when our hearts are racing to slow them back down again, like deep breathing and listening to music. Frances wrote down my things, I wrote down hers, and we posted them in the kitchen at eye level. We told our friends over lunch how Frances gave me the wink within minutes of writing our lists, after I spilled a container of markers all over the floor. It worked! I was too irritated to even look at Frances, who persisted nonetheless in saying Mama look at me! When I did, and saw her exaggerated wink, I had to laugh. A couple of deep breaths, and all was peaceful again.

As soon as the kids were done eating, they rushed back down to the playroom to resume rehearsals for Snow White. I overheard Frances yelling with exasperation at a three year old who, surprise surprise, was not interested in taking direction. I made my way downstairs, fearing the worst. It wasn't good: at that point Frances was near tears, threatening to quit the play because Gabriel wanted to be a knight instead of the woodcutter. A few kids were gathered around her, watching the mounting tantrum with curiosity. I braced myself and started to reason with her (when will I ever learn? reasoning is useless in these circumstances) as the muscles in my face began to harden into stone. Just then six year old Mackenzie stepped in front of me. She gently addressed the frazzled auteur. 

Frances? Frances, look!

I watched Mackenzie, who was had a little smile playing around her lips. She gave Frances a big wink, then waited expectantly, grinning. 

I wanted to hug that kid. Frances smiled - a little. The tension broke, and I quietly got up and left the room. 

back to the kitchen

We returned from a restorative interlude at the beach and at my mother's house last evening. Despite many a conversation with Mike exploring the nature of our conflicted feelings about the suburbs during our time away, it sure was nice to come home. The kids felt it, we felt it. They were reunited with their toys and cozy familiar beds, and I was swayed by the experience of walking in the door at 6 pm and realizing with pleasure that dinner was waiting for us not in the empty refrigerator but in the garden. Gorgeous squash, tomatoes, and basil over pasta made a fine homecoming meal. The suburbs do offer nice big backyards in which zucchini plants can sprawl, after all. It ain't so bad.

In fact, I'm happy to be home. All the same old quandaries about what to do with my life, how to properly balance family and work and everything else, and how to parent my mysterious children remain as unresolved as ever. But our little vacation at the beach served as a reminder of all that is good and right amidst the persistent uncertainties.

Our friends Amelia and Michael welcomed us warmly in the home they had rented overlooking wild grasses, sand, and the gentle bay beyond. We all sat back and watched our big brown kids discover the pleasures of a quiet beach, delighting in their friendships with one another that now operate independently of us -- especially Frances and Henry, whose intimacy is of late fueled by playing cards, nerdy jokes, and a passion for Harry Potter.

Something about this short trip was different. We were able to relax, because our kids are now big enough to sleep in weird places and play with friends and invent entertainments for themselves. I enjoyed their company in a new way; with a bit of distance, without duties beckoning from every corner, with only the abundant beautiful scenery and excellent conversation to tend to, I realized how much I like them.

We went to Lancaster after the beach, to see Twelfth Night and visit with my mom. We squeezed in a trip to the Homefields CSA to pick up shares for friends with Gabriel, who carefully filled bags with green and purple beans and scampered through fields of flowers (at least before he wilted in the 100 degree heat) in one ridiculously adorable scene after another.

And after all those happy away-from-home happenings it still felt good to come back here to this unexpected stopping place, this split level suburban dwelling that is slowly accumulating children's artwork, new trees and plants, and most importantly countless loaves of bread, batches of granola, and pots of fragrant dal. Because the cooking, for me, is a how I slowly nudge this place closer and closer to real-home status. After a trip, the kitchen pulls me toward it with an undeniable force. My hands itch to chop, to re-establish that this is our home.

Hence those cornmeal-sage-apricot cookies at the top of this post, made this afternoon with Frances' help for Taco Sunday. Here's the recipe; I think it originates in this cookbook. We didn't have dried apricots, so we refrigerated the dough for a couple of hours and made most of them as thumbprint cookies, filling the depression in each with apricot jam. Some we decorated with a small sage leaf.

I rarely write about cooking here; the preponderance of beautifully conceived and photographed food in the blogosphere makes it feel pointless. But forgive me the excess: the small scale harvesting and simple meals from today are somehow central to the story. In addition to the cookies, there were buckwheat pancakes, a snack of cucumbers still warm from the garden, and fantastic, simple zucchini fritters (from the current issue of Martha Stewart's Living, so I can't point you to the recipe online yet, but I'd be happy to share if anyone is interested).

Gabriel and I cut a jarful of bright red zinnias to bring to our friends' house for dinner tonight. We found fuzzy baby green melons nestled under green leaves that magically appeared in the time we'd been gone. The life that happens here - in the kitchen, at my desk, in the garden, while we amble slowly to our neighborhood pool? Sometimes it takes a vacation to help a person realize that it all amounts to something. That all the tiny moments that are easy to slide through while I worry about what comes next or what has just happened are where our life is lived. When I pause long enough to notice, it is impossible to miss how they shine, suffused with quiet meaning.

It's late, and all is still. I can still smell the frying zucchini. We're home.

notes from the field: carnivorous bees

Are bees carnivores? A bee put its front legs on a dead daddy long legs. It does the same with honey. At home lets print the pictures we took when they come to our house I will put them in my book. I think bees are omnivores. 

Direct from the field journal of Frances to you. She said our nature walk yesterday was in fact the first official meeting of the field explorers club. The first time didn't count. That was just our backyard.

Yesterday morning I had no plan for the day. If you read my last post, you might understand how I was feeling. Done. Empty. I tried to pretend like reading the paper in my pajamas at 8:30 was a normal thing for me to do. (It's not, and certain people noticed). As the freshness of the early morning became a fading memory, as humidity set in and the cicadas started to really belt it out, we all began to stumble precariously around the opening of The Pit. Do you know the one? It is awfully hard to climb out of once you're in it, and is characterized by slow movements, irrational digging in against any suggestion of mobilization to visit somewhere beyond the pit, laziness that lapses easily into irritability, and a general heaviness of spirit.

So I had to move quickly. I announced that we were going on an adventure, which caught the attention of two small people who were already sliding down the steep walls of The Pit like a helpful branch that juts out of the side of a cliff in cartoons. I came up with a nature walk in Truxton Park, whose trails we have strangely never explored. We put on sturdy shoes and packed for a mini safari with field guides, journals, water, snacks, and binoculars.

The accoutrements of adventure and scientific inquiry made it all real and exciting. We probably walked less than a mile, but along the trails we collected many feathers and pine cones, and saw all kinds of bugs, one gorgeous swallowtail butterfly, two lizards, a nest full of three juvenile hawks (thank goodness for those binoculars), and witnessed the above-mentioned scene, in which a honeybee seemed to be feeding off the corpse of a daddy long legs.

What? asked Frances. Bees are carnivores?! We three sat and watched for a long time, pondering the implications of a meat-eating bee. Notes were taken. Illustrations followed. Our club is not for the casual naturalist. 

And the best part? Our trail emptied out near a playground, the sight of which had my studious field explorers yelping with excitement and sprinting towards within seconds. I sat in the shade and watched them play, which is a new development (versus me pushing kids on swings and assisting in challenging climbs). They looked so lithe and brown, summery big kids possessed of all kinds of unknown capabilities.

 

I've been reading about how my daughter is spirited lately, which has indeed helped in our most recent struggles, if only in granting me some much-needed perspective and space for reflection. (Not unlike the pleasure of sitting in the shade and watching my kids play.) It also provides a theory, which as Anna commented in my last post, is invaluable - the theory itself isn't necessarily important, but the reassurance that comes with an approach to interpreting present behaviors is. 

So while I haven't hit on a magic solution, things are looking up around here. This spirited  mama is beginning to see her spirited big girl in a new light. She is her own person: inquisitive, creative, intense. She would like to know more about the eating habits of bees. Where did this singular child come from? In the push and pull of everyday life, it's easy to forget how extraordinary it is to watch someone grow up, slowly but surely becoming the person she is meant to be.

dinosaur yoga

As I've become more committed to yoga this summer (especially thanks to my weekly practice group), Gabriel has become more enamored of playing dinosaur yoga with me. He's the expert on dinosaurs in our family, so it affords him the rare pleasure of exerting his knowledge and authority. Dinosaur yoga is also the place where his dinosaurs and my asanas overlap, coming together in a unique, creative mishmash. Plateosaurus, corythosaurus, and ankylosaurus all make appearances on the mat. Yesterday we pretended to be a pair of pteranodons soaring above water (blue mat) and land (green mat), arms stretched in a T, one leg behind us (think warrior three), scanning the surface below for prey.

I've been trying to be more mindful about spending time with my kids. You'd think that wouldn't require quite so much effort and intention, considering my very part-time work schedule and my love of writing about family life. At the very least, I need material to work with, right?

And yet. One-on-one time together is a rare occurrence. I have less child care this summer than I do during the school year, and so I am squeezing in work email-checking and freelance pitching while the onions are caramelizing or while Frances is momentarily absorbed in a book. Plus there is the garden to weed, the weekend trip to plan, the insurance company screw up to investigate, the grocery shopping to do, the clothes to fetch off the line before the rain starts. And so it is remarkably easy to spend a day together with my kids without ever truly being together...I distract, I manage, I tell them to wait five more minutes. Let me finish this phone call, and then I can help you with your bathing suit.

Frances has been especially difficult lately. It's as if she has been living life with her toes lined up at the edge of a precipice, and any discomfort or unexpected obstacle life throws into her path can send her right over the edge. A lost hair band, a tricky shoe buckle, a request to put her clothes in the hamper before we can read together - all potential reasons to scream, to panic, to begin the descent into emotional free fall. Relax, we say. Take a deep breath, we say. She responds as if we are nuts: people, I'm falling over the side of a cliff here, and you want me to relax??

Talking about it isn't helping. Yelling at her isn't either. (Oh but I do it, all the time, and I am ashamed). I made an appointment last night with the child therapist that I talk to occasionally, and put out a desperate plea for book recommendations (more are welcome) to help guide us through this challenging moment with our intense, brainy, sensitive child.

But my intuition says what Frances and I need is some dinosaur yoga. Or her version of it, whatever that may be. We need one-on-one time doing something creative and fun, something we both care about that engages our bodies and feelings and imaginations. Reading together on the couch during Gabriel's nap just isn't cutting it these days. We need something outside of usual life, and we need to do it together.

These moments of parenting, when I realize myself to be at a complete loss, are humbling. I can so easily fall into painful doubts about my ability to provide my kids with what they need to grow and flourish.

I really like to be good at things. (So much so that it's kind of a problem sometimes). In previous jobs, I enjoyed positive feedback and the satisfaction of successfully completing concrete tasks. But this mothering job is all about process, about moment-to-moment shared experience, about the accumulating days and ever-shifting colors that make up family life. With the exception of a nicely executed birthday cake or Halloween costume, there is no resting in the uncomplicated happiness of  a job well done. The job is never done.

And yet, most of the time the small beautiful moments that catch me unawares - sweetening a chaotic morning and opening me anew to life's wonders - are more than enough. Most of the time, my cup overflows...except when it doesn't. Sometimes life with a beloved someone who is small, vulnerable, amazing and infuriating can really hurt.

connected & in constant motion

I met Emily Rogers in 2002, during our first week of graduate school. I remember scanning a cavernous room filled with women (and a tiny handful men), all milling about during an orientation meeting for the social work program at Bryn Mawr. I spotted Emily right away. She had a long braid, beautiful posture, and an air of quiet confidence about her that made me want to be her friend. We discovered that we both lived in Center City, and along with another excellent new friend named Patrice, we began carpooling back and forth to the Main Line together. 

I haven't seen Emily in over five years, ever since she and her husband Gregory left Philadelphia to return to their native Austin. But somehow she has remained a presence in my life, and I'm unfailingly enriched by my occasional virtual brushes with her sensibility, perspective, and clarity of expression. She has always struck me as a profoundly honest person, which is why I invited her to write a guest post for Homemade Time. I am so very grateful that she agreed.

*                    *                    *                    *                    *

I started, actually re-started, potty training my four year-old this week. At this point, we have several failed attempts behind us, but we took the leap out of diapers even though Lena’s ability to communicate still hovers well below her chronological age. Since there isn’t any way to explain to her in words, pictures, or gestures that she absolutely must use a toilet any time she needs to go, I’ve chosen a method that combines the regimentation of a production line with the social isolation of house arrest. 

Surprisingly, I don’t hate it. Her toddler brother, Simon, has spent the last few mornings with his grandparents. I’ve pared down our schedule to the minimum trips away from home. The result is that I’m spending more time alone with Lena than I have since Simon was born more than a year and a half ago. The single-minded focus that I have on her bodily functions echoes the time when we were mother and first-newborn when I kept a chart tracking all her input and output. The co-existence of tedium and joy has given color and texture to many of our days together.

The readjusted pace that potty training has imposed on our family has opened a small clearing in our usually frenetic schedule of learning opportunities and therapy appointments. From this vantage point I can see back to an old way of being that is barely comprehendible any more, a time when my own self-interest was all there was.  As I’m sitting on the edge of the tub in my tiny bathroom with my knees resting against my daughter’s knees, I can foresee a time when all of us will be more engaged with the outside world, and it will be a good thing. Between Lena achieving steady, albeit delayed, progress in her development and Simon marching steadfastly through the toddlers’ milestones of autonomy, I wonder what kind of parent I will be in response to their expanding worlds and my own.

The encompassing dependency of babyhood and the amplified attention I’ve given to Lena’s special needs, have marked the perimeter of almost my entire experience of being a parent. When my children were babies, I spent most of the day physically connected to them: nursing, wearing them as I went about my day, and sleeping next to them through the night. I functioned as an extension of them with my whole self eclipsed by their need to eat and feel comforted in a world that was completely alien to them. And since Lena hasn’t yet formed a relationship with the world outside a very small circle of comfort, our normal total mother-infant absorption morphed into a different type of relationship that in terms of time and energy is very similar to what I would give a baby.  While I don’t see their need for all of me vanishing overnight, it’s clear that as time goes on there will be ever-widening clearings in my life and eventually something else will fill them.

At first I thought the vague agitation that grew out of this expanding space was about my need to participate more fully and permanently in a career, but I think that is only part of it. Parenthood transformed my own trajectory to one that mirrors the development of my children. As our life course spins us away from one another, we are still bound by some cosmic gravity. Having children presents a constant pull and tug between intimacy and independence, between confidence and doubt, and between having expectations and releasing expectations. Being connected and in constant motion has created a new sensory awareness of the world in me, and I am curious to find out how it will alter my own perceptions and experience from this point forward.

Emily Rogers lives in Austin, TX where she is surronded by an extended family and many supportive fellow parents. She works part-time, bringing a social worker's perspective to a community-wide planning body on ex-offender reentry.

field explorers club

So after four days away from my family, I did not slip back into the waters of daily life with my kids like a jumping silver dolphin who slides gracefully into the sea after a brief flirtation with the air. Nor was I like a sea turtle who suddenly moves smoothly and effortlessly after flopping around on the sand. I was not like any creature who belongs in the water at all. I was more like a kid who has not yet learned to swim but thinks the water looks awfully inviting, and so jumps in only to find it's cold and foreign. Thrashing about in utterly exhausting futility ensues.

Gosh. That doesn't sound too good. It hasn't been terrible; it just hasn't been smooth. Wednesday was my birthday and I felt mad at Frances especially for not being nicer to me (perhaps a misplaced expectation to have of a six year old, but it bothered me all the same). Maybe she and her brother were punishing me for going away. But maybe I was asking for it: I felt behind in various areas of my life when I got back, and commenced to multi-task at a fiercer than usual rate around the house. Such as simultaneous laundry-folding, email-checking, pesto-making, inner wheel-turning...all while I am ostensibly listening to one of my kids tell me about his dream last night. Sort of.

Between their acting out and my evasive distractedness, I have been missing the feeling of true connection with my kids. So this morning I finally made a move to break our bad habits. I proposed we form a field explorers club.

Inspired by a new favorite from the library, Field Trips by Jim Arnosky, each child packed a notebook, binoculars, and pencils in a newly designated field bag. Frances brought along her bird books. Then we set out across the 30 feet that separates the back deck from the garden, and began to record our observations. Gabriel planted himself on a garden path and began drawing a daddy longlegs he found on a zinnia leaf, and Frances gravitated towards the swings, where she listened to the birds in the trees and tried to identify them by their calls.

We were driven indoors within 30 minutes by the fantastically aggressive mosquitoes, so the club members continued drawing indoors, aided by books. We have not yet made membership cards, but I think that would be a good idea.

 

Because maybe a membership card tucked in my wallet might remind me that sometimes all it takes is a deep breath, an intention to slow down and look around (if only for a half hour!), and join together in a simple, common pursuit. Creating our club was hardly a silver bullet (I nearly strangled Frances about two hours later) but it did gently realign something inside me. On a hot and humid July morning, that slight adjustment in my vision made all the difference.

grunts and squeaks

In the end, I spent nearly 48 hours with Rachel, Kehry, and little Louisa, who is not yet two weeks old. When I walked into their cozy home on Saturday afternoon, she was sprawled along a nursing pillow on Rachel’s lap, head tipped back, eyes nearly closed, limbs draped heavily in every direction. It was the most iconic, adorable portrait of a milk-drunk newborn imaginable. I put down my bag, sat down next to Rachel on the couch, and cried.

I don’t know why. Maybe I cried for her tiny perfection, or her abundant black hair, or her intimacy with my sister who had been so recently transformed into a mother. I think I cried simply for her incontrovertible thereness -- she had not been there before! It boggles the mind. 

Also, I had not known that I would love her right away.

Being at their house brought me right back to the time-out-of-time mode that defines life with a newborn. Day and night become less meaningful concepts; the world is reduced to a room, or a couple of rooms, where the ins and outs of nursing, sleeping, and diapering dominate the agenda. Being in newbornland elicited vivid memories from my own first days of motherhood: sitting with day-old Frances in our packed up Philadelphia apartment that sweltering June, admiring her golden skin, distracted by how very hard our futon couch suddenly seemed. (But really, after an episiotomy, what sitting surface isn’t cruelly firm?) I remember the novelty of being attached, of our bodies operating in tandem. At times it felt oppressive, relentless (especially at night), but at the same time I could not ignore the strange ache that set in my arms if we were separated for more than an hour or so. 

But there was plenty of breathing room between me and my niece, who is ultimately not my responsibility, and so being in her presence was a simple, easy pleasure. (A window into the joys of grandparenthood!) Louisa did make me think also of my own parents as they must have been when we were born, young and beautiful, tired out, admiring us as we flung our arms wildly around in a bassinet. I thought of my in-laws, imagining them hovered over a tiny Mike: watching his irregular breath fill his belly and then draw his delicate ribcage into relief, fingering his toes, nuzzling his head, laughing at his baby grimaces and worried brow, relishing the smell and feel of him, perfect and precious.

We were all so once. My husband, who is off talking about Hegel at St. John's College; my neighbor Barbara who was widowed last year and loves to garden; Miss Bernadette the mail carrier who always has a kind word and regularly delivers our mail to the house next door. We were all covered in soft, paper-thin skin, possessed of impossibly tiny fingers and toes, unable to lift our heavy heads. 

Doesn't it change things somehow, to look around and remember that we were all once exquisite, small, and helpless, too?

the journey to louisa's house

So there I was, standing outside the Minneapolis airport after midnight last night, using up my last reserves of energy for the purpose of remaining upright. Countless other stranded, tired passengers joined me. An airport worker stood smoking listlessly nearby. One by one, at least fifteen hotel shuttles pulled up who were not there for me. Each time one turned the corner, my hopes were lifted, only to be dashed once the logo on the side of the van came into view: Ramada Inn, La Quinta Inn, Best Western, Hampton Inn, Embassy Suites. Who knew Minneapolis boasted so many chain hotels? My peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a distant memory. I was wearing the wrong shoes. Desperation set in.

But then I heard this guy on a cell phone behind me. He was a handsome man in his fifties, traveling with a strikingly fit and put-together wife, and he had come unhinged. “We’re in Minneapolis. No, really. It’s fine. I like it here. We’re going to go to the goddamned Mall of America, that’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go buy myself a hundred gold watches there, I swear to God.”

I started giggling. I looked at his wife, who was smiling placidly. I found someone else who was also waiting for the mythical Hilton shuttle. She was a fresh-faced, earnest young woman who crunched numbers for the Department of Education and was traveling to a 50^th high school reunion in Sioux City to collect data on people who had taken part in a wide-ranging longitudinal study called Project Talent. They had been asked questions about their career ambitions as 10^th and 11^th graders, and now she was going to see how it had all turned out (in a quantitative survey sort of way), fifty years later. She couldn’t have been older than 24, in a messy blond ponytail and flip flops, slinging a bright green tote bag with the Project Talent logo on it. I somehow resisted the urge to hug her and wish her well on life’s way when we parted at the hotel.

Then I slept. And showered. A nice man brought me an enormous vegetable omelet and two cups of coffee in the hotel restaurant this morning. The world was looking a lot brighter. 

I was the only person on the hotel shuttle heading back to the Minneapolis airport, so the driver and I talked. He is a studying international business at the University of Minnesota. Born in New York, his parents emigrated from Nigeria, and he speaks three African languages (in addition to French and English). We talked about traveling, about how Africans laugh all the time (me: I think I would like that, maybe I belong in Africa? - him: it’s kind of annoying though. Will somebody please get serious?), about his experiences traveling in Zimbabwe, and having to stop the car for an elephant crossing the road.

Who else have I met in the course of my airport adventures? Squirmy, three year old Ethan of the beautiful blue eyes, reunited with his military Mommy after a month’s separation while she was in training. Boy scout Troop 90 of the Chippewa Valley Council (the braces, the gangly limbs, the hatwear…!) hoisting sleeping bags and backpacks over their shoulders, en route to a doubtlessly memorable camping trip. A middle-aged Dominican couple hoping to finally make it to Las Vegas before the holiday weekend was over.  A Middle Eastern man carrying the most outrageously trimmed lap dog you can imagine, attracting the attention of every child within a hundred foot radius. He held it over the wide trash can in line in security, joking that he couldn’t take her through so he’d have to dump her, much to the delight of one particular airport security worker who clearly loved dogs. And all of this, all of this was set to the music of so many Minnesotan accents floating on the air around me.

Sometimes I just love America. I love it. Who knew getting stranded on my way to visit my new niece Louisa would inspire this kind of overwhelming love for my fellow man? And woman? And country? Maybe it’s the solidarity that comes with these kinds of experiences. Maybe it’s because our new suburban lifestyle has deprived me of city streets and buses and the diverse strangers one is privileged to inhabit those spaces with. But honestly, where else in the world could I have met the above collection of people? Where else do they brush up against one another and share daily life?

Despite persistent and frightening xenophobia that courses through American culture and politics, this country continues to be the place that admits more immigrants legally than all the other developed countries of the world combined. What distinguishes us more as a nation than that? What better to be proud of, than a young man who speaks five languages, who wakes at 4 am to drive the hotel shuttle to pay for college, who is more New York than Nigeria – who is so decidedly, so extraordinarily American?

I’m about to board a plane for Cedar Rapids, Iowa now. Things just keep on looking up.

Happy Fourth of July, friends!