2021 Life Logs, Day 185: July 4th
Date: Sunday, July 4, 2021
Weather: Overcast with Periods of Light Rain, Cool; High 65, Low 55 degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here on Cape Cod we celebrated the 4th of July with a 4th overcast day with periods of light rain. The sun actually tried to peak through a couple of times today, but it was not successful. This weather has managed to get me into a blah mood where I really just don’t want to do anything. So, Shadow and I spent the day alone doing nothing until about 4 pm. I finally decided to take Shadow for his morning mile walk and by the time we got back home, I was feeling much more energetic. 
I had planned to use the strawberries and blueberries left over from making fruit salad for Friday’s luncheon to make two red, white, and blue fruit flans as 4th of July gifts—one for Heather and family and one for Shirley and Doris next door. So, with my renewed energy after the walk, I did get them made but it was too late to deliver them. They will now get a July 5th patriotic food gift.
There were no 4th fireworks in Falmouth again this year, so I searched on the television for some sort of 4th of July celebration. I saw that there was a program called A Capitol Fourth on public television. So, after watching a recorded Meet the Press, I tuned into the public television program. It was a music concert of different artists around the country interspersed with lots of video of a very red, white, and blue enthusiastic audience on the mall in Washington, DC. They looked so happy and so normal and that set off emotions in me that I didn’t know were there. Just seeing normal, happy people in our nation’s capital brought back all the dark memories of January 6th and that made me both sad and angry. I have always loved Washington, DC–the mall, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the White House. And not until tonight did I realize just how horrific January 6 really was and how it has affected me. I am not ready to ‘kiss and make up’ and act like nothing happened. Sacred grounds were denigrated and because the leadership of the Republican Party has not willingly wanted to cooperate in getting to the bottom of what really happened, I no longer feel like I live “in the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I feel more like I live in a land with a whole lot of cowards who put political gain ahead of democracy. Because of this, this 4th of July was tough for me. I did enjoy the fireworks during the last half hour of the PBS program. And just as the program ended, I saw the sky light up out of my living room window. I opened the door so I could the fireworks lighting up the Eel River. They, too, were beautiful and lifted me out of my dark mood. Happy 4th of July.
