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The Artist’s
Almanac
July 2004
download and print this installment as
a PDF
(you will need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this file, you can
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it here free)
July is a month to
celebrate.
We mark it in song,
pageants, worship, family parties, readings of Thomas Jefferson’s
Declaration of Independence and that phrase which never fails to
stir us: The Fourth of July! If any holiday is to be
celebrated with thunderous fireworks, let it be this one.
We’ve been here almost
four hundred years, over half of them as Americans. In four
centuries we’ve become a unique people. The idea of Liberty – a
people governing themselves – is one so unique to our world that
even those most jealous of us seek to come and live here. I’ll try
to keep steady Sunday as we sing America The Beautiful.
There is much to
celebrate this July. Tomatoes are in, and I believe figs will ripen
this year. Annual gardens are shoulder high and climbing, with
phlox, shasta daisies, and bee balm setting new records for colorful
exuberance. Corn is tasselling high above us, the streams are
flowing, and fish are biting.
Abundant rainfall,
cooler days, and the prettiest summer I ever remember. Driving up
Station Camp Creek from Hendersonville through Cottontown to Bugg
Hollow this week I saw dozens of scenes Constable would have envied,
with the creek whispering alongside, the green hills and meadows
reflecting sunlight, the full trees luxuriating with sparkling
highlights, and designer clouds parading and gathering for the
afternoon’s shower. So many scenes, so little time.
Asked to define
eternity, a child responds, “all summer long.” Officially it
began June 22, when the sun paused and turned from earth. Yet as the
days grow shorter and the sun cooler, our weather grows hotter and
hotter. Earth is a solar battery, returning into our lives the
radiation stored from the sunlight of springtime. Hoses, swimming,
picnics and patio cookouts celebrate the season, and in summertime,
we are all children.
The confluence of the
giants who gave us Liberty with Law, Jefferson, Adams, Madison,
Marshall, Franklin, Hamilton, and Washington, together with the
rendezvous of De Grasse’s fleet with the army of Rochambeau at
Yorktown within a two week window of time and weather just before
the execution of French royalty: this could not have been an
accident.
John Adam’s last words
as he died on July 4th were, “Thomas Jefferson still lives.”
Indeed.
Let the fireworks
begin.
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