My first ride today was a neighbor with her laundry. My last was a grandma to the fireworks. Somewhere in between, I figured out what we are actually celebrating. And I am not sure you are going to like it.
I drive for a rideshare company, and by the middle of the day I noticed something: in my neighborhood there were two groups of riders. One group was going to BBQ parties, to celebrate. The other group was doing laundry, washing cars, going to the hospitals and restaurants where they work as nurses and waitresses.
All of a sudden I realized: it’s the 4th of July. I am usually in the clouds, so me spacing out and not knowing which day is today is not a news. But today the 4th of July was the news. The only news going. Everybody in my car was talking about it. Which got me thinking about what happened on July 4th, and what independence means.
After a little thinking I came to a conclusion: what’s actually celebrated today is that in 1776 a group of people ran away from their authorities to claim somebody else’s land as their own, then they fought their authority over the ownership of that land, and after they won. Independence got claimed. Sit with it, have a moment or two. Or 250 of them, and don’t shoot the messenger.
Let me tell you what I think might have happened here.
A man ran away from his father’s home, because he was treated badly by his own father, or maybe his uncle. He ran away to the neighbor’s house. Then the two of them, the son and the father, fought over the neighbor’s house, over who is going to claim it as their own. The son won, so he claimed independence. The rebellious son is free of hanging. So more of his rebellious cousins come.
Now I have to sit down and think for a moment … or 250 of them…
Wait. What the fudge happened to the neighbor?
Many question marks or 250 of them…
Maybe we find out at the end of this tale.
Don’t take me wrong. I am not trying to blame the founding fathers here. I am just trying to figure out what happened. I got confused for a moment. Every nation that got formed in history claimed independence by claiming land that had a native tribe on it. And every tribe that was there: nomads who happened to be there. Humans walking around, moving with their families and livestock, season by season, trying to survive. So nobody can really claim the land, including the people we call native. Being native is relative to a time window: are we talking about 900 years ago, 9,000 years ago, or 9 million years ago?
Between two rides I looked up the word itself. Independence comes from Latin: pendere, to hang. Dependere: to hang from something, the way wet laundry hangs from the line. To depend on somebody is to hang from them. So independence literally means: not hanging from anybody.
Not hanging from anybody? Sit with that one for a moment … or 250. Because today the whole celebration was hanging from somebody. The BBQ hangs on the people in the kitchen. The fireworks hang on the nurse riding to the emergency room, just in case. The clean shirt at the party hangs on somebody’s laundry line. The son said: I am not hanging from my father anymore. Fine. But he was hanging from the neighbor the whole time: the neighbor’s house, the neighbor’s land, the neighbor’s clean hands. So who is not hanging from whom?
Everything hangs from something. Today on my street, two things were hanging: the flag from its pole, and the laundry from its line. Same physics. Only one of them gets a salute.
This afternoon I had a server in my car, on her way to work. I told her some of what I am telling you. She did not argue. She said, “It’s a good story. You should write it down.” Then she looked out the window.
“And here we are.”
When it got dark I drove a grandma to the fireworks, and I stayed a minute to watch. That’s where the bulk of my rides were going anyway. Bombs bursting in air, like the song says. The pretty kind: the kind that lands on nobody’s house. The son and the father fought over the neighbor’s house with the other kind. And here we all are, once a year, watching the lights, going ooh and aah.
So what happened to the neighbor? Nothing happened to the neighbor. The neighbor is still here. The neighbor drove you to the fireworks tonight, cooked your food, is washing your clothes right now. The neighbor never went anywhere. We just stopped calling them the neighbor.
And the neighbor from 1776, and the neighbor doing the laundry tonight. Sometimes I wonder if it is the same neighbor. One country later, same job: hold up the house, and don’t get invited to the party.
So, to the celebrants, from your driver: whatever you celebrate, celebrate respectfully. Drink your kool-aid responsibly.
Before you decide who the hero is, ask yourself which one you are in this story: the son, the father, or the neighbor. Most of us are sure we are the son.
Look around your own street this week, and tell me in the comments. One word: son, father, or neighbor?
Picked up during the rides, written in between: the neighbors to the laundromat, a nurse to the emergency room, a server to a restaurant, students to a BBQ party, and a grandma to the fireworks.