It was always so surprising to me — how much people loved picnics or potlucks. In my head, I called them the “p” words, as cursed as any of the other bad names we cut down to one letter in hopes of diffusing. But they remained, and my “p” word turned to panic. 

My mother, knowing me, having talked me through all of the other significant choices in my life — books on library day, candy from Ben Franklin — knew how to calm me as I stood dripping of lake water, shouldered in a colorful towel, hair clinging to my face, knees shaking, wishing the “hour after swimming, before eating,” could be extended just a little further. “Focus on what you like,” she said. I had heard it before, so many times, but standing in the warmth of her hands on my shoulders, I could see it more clearly. In this sea of tabled panic, there were good things, still, and I focused on them.

I was struggling on what to say for America’s birthday. Near panic I stand before this spread. So much hatred and fear and unkindness tabled before us, it’s hard to see anything at all.  But even still, I am steadied by the hands of love on my shoulders, as she tells me to focus on the good. Be it tear or lake water that drips from my face, I still see the ones I love. The people who sparkle without noise. Who shine a light beyond table and holiday. Who keep gathering in with steady hands and hearts. Who still find a way to giggle and scoot, barefooted in the hour before the feast. Is it the American dream, or the dream inside youth of every age and place, wobbling in knees, not at the expense of choice or of others, but among them, beside them, still waiting, in the dampened hope — toweled on sun burned shoulders… I hear the waves lap against the shore, in time with my heart, and the whispered sounds of someone singing Happy Birthday.