In-dependence Day

This was my day.

A car alarm pulling me up from sleep in the morning, a cat taking advantage of my waking to beg for breakfast. A lovely large cup of Community Coffee New Orleans Blend (thank you, C.J.). A long mosey (slow walk with destination) to the Cathedral, followed by an amble (slow walk, no particular destination) down 110th Street, where I discovered Labyrinth Books, a real bookstore, and bought a used copy of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. I ran into a singer friend from Ashokan on upper Broadway. She had to call out my name; I didn't see her at first because I was looking at a dog.

Indulged in a latte and a browse through "Burnt Norton" at a sidewalk café where a young woman was studying Russian on one side of me, a gentleman with a British accent was discussing photography at the table behind me, and a man opposite me was reading The Secret rather apologetically, by which I mean that he said, "well, a friend gave it to me, so I have to read it." Two Schipperke dogs trotted by on long leashes.

The sky clouded over and the breeze started to smell wet.

A man standing in front of the Romanian Orthodox Church told me about how much better life had been in Romania when it was Communist - "nobody too little, nobody too much, everybody middle. You understand?"

I walked past my car to find I had been given a parking ticket on a holiday.

Now it is raining. Fireworks will begin soon. My cat will hide under the sofa. I will go to bed with a book.

I declared my independence today by staying off the phone and computer, and my interdependence by talking to strangers in the street. I declared my independence by buying a second-hand book at an independent bookstore, my interdependence by the book being poetry that calls the reader into communion with the writer. I declared my independence by walking everywhere I went, and my complete utter dependence by having as my one destination and as every step I took the kingdom of heaven wherein we live and move and have our being. As St. Catherine of Siena said, "all the way to heaven is heaven." I know this is always true; all the same, it is easier to feel after Ashokan, where all the way to the dance is the dance.

That was my July 4th. How was yours?