all together now/all by ourselves/all together

July 4th is my least favorite holiday, my friend says, and it's a relief that someone else feels the same way and isn't afraid to admit it. As is usually the case with holidays that veer far from their origins,  this has nothing to do with the day itself -  the celebration of our independence is truly wonderful, but like so many holidays it's become about something else. (Do we really memorialize those who died serving our country on Memorial Day or embrace the labor movement on Labor Day?)  In its modern incarnation it's about being with others: BBQs and fireworks or relaxing vacations away somewhere, the culmination of all the themes of seasonal commercials where throngs of young people drink beer on the beach while effusively singing and dancing together, or some airbrushed multicultural mix of families enjoy whatever the product is: Coke. hot dogs. Home Depot'ed decks. Old Navy shorts.
For many years it's been one of the loneliest of days. We can't participate in the public parts: the parades or fireworks, the town picnic; and harder still, we don't get invited to any of the private parties I see walking around the neighborhood or when out for a drive, or hear and smell while I work in the garden.  I find the first green beans in their fecund hiding place while smelling barbecues and hearing music from the family behind us and  the annual pool party of my neighbor up the street and I struggle to stay grounded in the momentary joy of discovery.

Social rejection and isolation never feel stronger than on this day, with independence's lonelier definition: dissociated from others. Eventually I head inside to shut off the world around me and binge on Killing Eve, a BBC series starring the beautiful yet relatable 46 year old Sandra Oh because shows about psychopathic assassins (is there any other kind?) are so engrossing and I can say, well, things could be worse, at least no one is trying to murder me.  It's not nearly as fun as fireworks but it's highly entertaining if you have nowhere to go.

July 3rd and 5th are another story altogether - bookends of city and beach, two places that embrace everyone, at least for the day, since both have become too prohibitively expensive to actually inhabit. Oh the irony that Asbury Park, the town I have visited for most of my life, from its depressed abandoned state to its astonishing renewal, has become too expensive for more than a day trip!   Who could have imagined the decrepit old Howard Johnson's being a hipster nightclub, the majestic yet long-abandoned Convention Hall (a term I just heard in reference to Detroit - ruin porn - seems apt) now housing cold brew coffee and overpriced artsy fare, and the boardwalk selling Korean tacos and fresh cut fries alongside all the ice cream and salt water taffy of my youth.  But for all the gentrification it's still a typical inclusive beach: for five dollars it welcomes anyone and everyone.

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Any vestige of the 4th's social rejection vanishes as we become one with the blocks-long spread of humanity converging in the sand on a perfect beach day. V is back to loving the ocean, to the point of having to be almost forcibly pulled out when it's time to go.  We arrive early and leave early, with no traffic, no worries, and I come home feeling a good kind of tired. 

And the day before the 4th we are in the city, V does great on the train and subway and walking around. While he still has a hard time with crowds he somehow has always tolerated the density and spectacle of city life, where he lived his first four years. 

He can sense that no one pays him any mind in the best sense - no staring at the teen in the noise reducing headphones on the platform, the overgrown kid on a playground of wood - age-appropriate for anyone who likes to climb, eating sweet potato fries on a park bench like any other sweaty hungry park visitor. 
We go in to see and let him hang out with a former babysitter who we've known since she was a college student of B's age, now in her 20's  and living in Harlem with her boyfriend while attending Columbia for her MSW.  doing well and doing good, successful and down to earth, a wining combo.  It's so nice to see her and to be on familiar turf:

The Harlem Meer and Conservatory Garden in Central Park, the Museum of the City of New York. Even with the enormous gentrification of one of my favorite neighborhoods, it's not entirely whitewashed. We eat West Indian food in East Harlem, and I try to remain hopeful that its longstanding cultures, color, spice and roots will remain intact.

An exhibit at the Museum on public art is a sort of ' unexpected 'this is your life': programs and people I've worked with, interviewed, written about, funded or supported in some way.  I really don't want to live in the past or emphasize the gaps between then and now but sometimes it just hits me like a wave.  For nearly two decades you were a part of something and now you are not. 
It's why the plants in the garden are so healing, a constant reminder that there is something bigger we are a part of,  no matter how sparse our social or professional life becomes. Things keep growing. We find a way to survive, and eventually, with a lot of work and forgiveness and acceptance and patience, to thrive.  I'm not there yet.  But I've lived through the week and this morning the birds are singing and the forecast says brilliant sunshine; beautiful.