I spent the 248th anniversary of our country’s birth eating a hotdog at a baseball game. Doesn’t get any more American than that does it?
Actually, it does. The extent to which I spent any time reflecting on the importance of our nation’s founding was the three minutes it took for a soldier to perform our national anthem. Perhaps our country deserved a little more from me on July 4th.
Born more by accident than intent, I found myself in the nation’s capital two days later with a chance for a do-over. During a trip for a book event, my daughter and I visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History. For three hours, exhibit after exhibit gave us pause to reflect on our nation’s values and how we have or have not lived up to them over almost two and a half centuries. One exhibit, Within These Walls, featured a two-hundred year old house that was actually moved into the museum and shared the stories and sacrifices of the different families who have called it their home. Lives both ordinary for their times and extraordinary in comparison to today. Another exhibit, How We Become an Us asked us to consider how we come together to form a more perfect union, what it means to be an American and who gets to become one.
We strolled through two hundred years of shared culture at the Entertainment Nation exhibit bringing us smiles as we looked at Dorothy’s Ruby slippers and Rocky’s boxing robe. We sat in awe as we stared at the four seats from the Woolworth lunch counter that inspired a nation to stand up for what’s right. We marveled at the desk that Jefferson used to write the Declaration of Independence, at the same time realizing the imperfection of that document that excluded so many from its promise.
This is to say that reflecting upon any anniversary need not be done with rose-colored glasses, unless the intention is to diminish it.
This week I will celebrate another, more personal, anniversary. Twenty years ago my wife and I were married. It was unquestionably one of the happiest days of my life. Every time, I think of that day, I smile. I wish we could could go back and live it all over again.
As I think of how best to celebrate that day and to do justice to the twenty years since, I hope we don’t do the wedding anniversary equivalent of the cliched hotdog and baseball game. But rather afford ourselves the luxury of time to wander through a figurative museum of our life.
How marvelous would it be to spend hours walking through the many exhibits of our life together? To see “within these walls” of our homes all we have experienced, loved and lost. To appreciate how “we became an us” – all that we’ve sacrificed, how we have stood strong together, and yes, remembering those times we stumbled and did not live up to our ideals. To recall all the joy we have entertained. To at the end of our day, to sit back in awe at all things, ordinary and extraordinary, about our journey together and just feel the love.
An anniversary is simply the commemoration of a date in time. One notable and worthy enough to make us pause and reflect with undivided and prolonged attention. The days between one anniversary to the next often pass without notice, one blurring into the next, creating an illusion of insignificance. Yet here we are and they do indeed add up. As a country we are not perfect but have, through love and determination, made progress towards a more perfect union for two hundred and forty eight years. As a couple, we have done the same for an impressive eight percent of that time.
Whatever anniversary comes upon you next, I hope you make the time to take it all in and come to appreciate it as much as I now do mine.
This Week’s Recommendation: I’m reading An Unfinished Love Story by the historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin. It’s a beautiful and loving reflection on the history she and her husband made and lived through together.