American Nostalgia
I lived in a small white house at the top of a hill. It had a blue door and a lamp post with a wooden sign painted with four leaf clovers and our family name. The house overlooked rolling farmlands speckled with cows, goats and sheep, like white and gray freckles among a sea of green grass.
I remember one summer I watched my grandfather pour cement for our new front walk. Before there were bits of broken slate that led to the porch steps, but soon we would have a proper path leading home. It was bright cream, like the color of fresh milk, and if you looked close enough, little bits of silver gravel sparkled in the sun.
My grandfather worked hard that summer, and though it was over 80 degrees most days, you'd never catch him in a pair of shorts. That man lived in dark blue dungarees and t-shirts, and he'd always have a red bandana hanging out of his back pocket that he'd use to wipe his brow in the summer sun. Sometimes, he'd soak it in cold water and wrap it around his neck as he worked, and I always thought he looked like someone who belonged in an old cowboy movie.
"Feel that cool Southern breeze?" He'd ask, pausing to drink as he tilted his face toward the sky, eyes closed, searching for something.
The truth is, I never could. We lived in New Jersey and most summers, the air was thick and humid. Walking outside some mornings, it was like a weighted blanket had been tossed on your shoulders. The heat was suffocating after sleeping inside, enveloped only by light cotton sheets and the cool whirring of a window air conditioner. It was like that breeze was meant only for him, and it carried memories of a different place and time. He'd escape there, for just a moment, and I'd wonder where he'd gone.
We never wore shoes unless we were riding our bikes, and sometimes not even then. Summer is for bare feet. In the those precious days between June and August, when school was out and the world was our own, we'd run to our friends' houses, catching dandelion heads between our toes. We'd laugh and cannon ball into the pool, watching the little bits of green float up to the surface of the water, undulating. We'd eat tomato sandwiches fresh from the garden and take our secret path through the woods to get into town for slushies and VHS tapes.
One fourth of July, we went to a little field on the side of our path through the woods. There were trees on either side that made it feel closed in, sealed away from the noise of nearby pool parties and barbecues. The sky was the color of rainbow sherbet, soft oranges, purples and yellows as the sun began to set. We laid on beach towels and watched the fireflies start to emerge, like the night sky was calling for them to be part of the show. When the fireworks finally started, I felt I'd burst along with them. We laughed and gasped at all the different shapes and hues, some loudly crackling, others fizzling into the darkness leaving a tail of shimmering light behind. That night, there was nothing else, just wonder and possibility.
As a child, I'd always had an earnest belief that growing up in America was the best possible lot in life. I wondered what it would be like to grow up in other countries, in tiny homes and tiny towns without wide open spaces and good pizza and The Phillies. I confidently watched the Olympics and movies assuming Americans as the heroes of every story. I learned about the forefathers in Social Studies and read about the revolution with reverence. I did not question America as a city upon a hill, just like my own humble house, a place where anything was possible if you worked hard enough.
Though at times throughout history the needle has moved, sometimes closer, sometimes further than the ideals that are supposed to drive us, the truth is that America has never been the place in my memory. Growing up, this discovery started as a dull ache that I thought could be fixed somehow; there was something there I felt worth saving. But now, I'm not so sure.
What once was just a bruise feels like a dozen broken bones to me now.