Americana - Happy Anniversary
By: Daniel E. Kramer
The sand of the beach is on me, like a wrapped gift from a thousand atoms splendid in their chaotic, random array of perfect chance. A microcosm is evoked and awakes in me this morning after listening to an immigrant chant by Mr. Miranda, and now I sit ready to celebrate the 4th of July on my 11-year wedding anniversary, just before heading to the Sunday morning service.
How lucky I am indeed, born to a land that was claimed once by another, who had themselves claimed it from another, and another, and another. We are the so-called destined sons and daughters of liberty, and I do believe that we are here today by the hard work of immigrants and slaves, but also by the toil and amazing skills of the lazy as well. We sit back to enjoy the amazing sun and surf of the local lake, taking in all that is the bounty of our lives, meanwhile behind closed doors somewhere there are the deals of a thousand good intentions being swept into the frying pan of the American melting pot.
We are the differential melting pot, the light crust separated, the dark crust below breaking off like a heavy root of a magmatic chamber, falling back into the mantle of our historic upwelling, and sinking into the mix to be refreshed again. Are we destined to survive, or is this surviving at its best? The tree of liberty must be refreshed sometimes they say, but which and where are the patriots to do it?
My heart considers the chaos and order necessary for a life to be successful, for a free country to operate, to allow for all to magically coincide, those that have and those that do not, and I see how lucky I am. Married to the one I love, holding her in my life, care to be with me. What is the meaning of it? The love is both the meaning and the answer, the question, and the purpose. There is no doubt that this one simple action adds to the sense of the day more than any other thing. We are all immigrants here, coming from afar for the hope to dream a story that is bright, to give a chance, all for what? It is all for love, and today I love my wife more than ever, my children more than ever, my country more than ever.
Mist of the morning clings to me as I stare out onto the Audi that my Chilean friend now drives as he heads out to New York, on his cross-country adventure, here from a far-off land, 4-years deep into Americana, and how lucky that story is. What we have here is a bundle of string, that at the surface appears to be wound tight, with order and systemic nature, but at the next level, the matter is jumbled and wild with nothing more than a little recognizable landscape. Look again though, and at the deeper level there is no order, the underlying tone of a thousand classes and cultures somehow mixing and melting into a supra-mold. We are a permeated living thing that is not human in form, but cosmic in nature, that is more human than we care to think it, and is yet animalistic in so many ways. We are the Americans, and today is our birthday. Every one of us worldwide is as American as we want to be, and anyone can be here, can come here, can live the dream of the world, whether it is real or not, whether you believe it or not.
Happy birthday to my Country of life, love, and the liberty that is given to those that try to cross the borders, that seek to make the journey of life into this country whether it is down the birth canal, or across a border wall. Welcome to all my American brothers and sisters.
