Oh, to love America

To love America is to be greedy with desire for what might be possible.

I heard something recently that was helpful. It was about how humans are young, as far as species go. On that timeline, we are just teenagers. Angsty, violent teenagers. Teenagers who spit in the face of our elders. Our concept of the country we live in and the lies that have been told to create that concept is even younger. An infant. As we know, babies learn to crawl, eat peas, and chew on crayons. Then, they learn to relate to others, keep promises, and show care. To love America is to allow for growth – no matter how many tantrums our colicey baby has had. 

Loving America asks us to remember the gifts of fluidity. We know that attempts at empire, dominance, and rigidity are always swept away by the tide of human softness. Because we are nature, and nature refuses containment. 

Have you seen the Badlands in North Dakota? Wondered how the Tetons got so sharp? Thought about how far a message in a bottle might flow through our undammed rivers?

To love America is to find every single crack in the door and stick our feet, elbows, and necks in it to make sure it stays open until we can find our crow bar. 

If we didn’t love America, we wouldn’t be so damn busy trying to heal it. To want to heal, to remedy with zip ties, chewed gum, and kerosene is love. 

To give up on America is to give up on the possibility of us. We have never been free, but we might be. Someday. But only if we love us. 

For me, to love America is to walk on the land that my Ancestors were buried in after being hunted for sport. I pay for a coffee with a $5 bill, and on that $5 bill is the face of a man who lined my people up and hung them. It is a face carved into a sacred mountain. My hope is that some birds have comfy nests in his nostrils.

To love America is to make choices that improve the lives of people who would proudly call me a squaw or a fag. I don’t carry this love lightly. I carry it because I don’t have any other choice. We don’t have any other choice. To want to be free is to want it for all of us. 

There is almost nothing that I like about America. I’m not fond of the people in charge of this place. I don’t like what will be according to the powers that be. But I love us. I love the people they are determined to annihilate. I love the people who use the systems that were designed to be unusable.  I love so much of what has been codified as illegal. 

I love our stories and our collective shuffle toward liberation. 

This land wants us to live. This land wants to hold us. This land wants to heal with us. All this alchemy requires our love.