community

what's great about independance day?  not much, i used to think.  just a bunch of pollution, loud noises and gratuitous money wasting and debauchery.  but after living in edison a couple years, i've changed my tune.  the fourth of july has become a spiritual experience.

last night, for instance.  at rodney's party, the daffodils played a set to a diverse crowd.  everyone was represented:  there were good old boys, hillbillies, rednecks, couch potatoes, hippies, hipsters, rock-and-rollers, butt-rockers, artists, mamas and papas, oldies, outdoorsies, athletes, grown-ups, kids, grown-ups posing as kids and vice versa.  yup, there was one of everything. the party-goers were just as diverse as the potluck table's offerings, which were a'plenty.  

which is precisely what i like about valley parties.  out here, we're not fronting, pretending like we don't see each other, like we aren't neighbors.  we are neighbors, and we have no choice but to coexist, to eat together, to live artfully, to share space.  out here we are anything but homogenous.  the one thing we do all have in common is the land.  we live here because we love the land, that fertile productive land, not to mention the ocean air, the big big sky, the softly lulling waves, and the view of those majestic mountains peeking over the hills.  yes, i think it's safe to say, the land unifies us, brings us together in rare and magical ways.  so sitting on a beached dock last night as the sun set across the water, soaking it all in with a collection of my favorite people, chatting drinking whiskey and passing a smoke around while the swimming kids coated themselves in seagrass, i wouldn't have traded my spot there with those people on that rocky beach for a million nights on the town.  and tonight, after watching several delightfully creative and constructed pyrotechnic exploits, and while lighting my paper lantern in the dark open field and watching it float away until it disappeared, i cried a little.  because i am so fortunate.

this independence day, i celebrate my inter-dependance.