R and J in the USA

Written by Julie

For me, the visit to Independence Hall in state 49 of the trip was a highlight and a powerful way to be moving into the close of our 50 states adventure. 

Somehow, as an American, it felt a powerful thing to stand in the room where the Declaration of Independence was debated and crafted and signed. It was a powerful thing to sit in the chairs where the components of the constitution were fought over, hashed out and settled upon. It was powerful to read such language that we have been hearing about our whole lives, spoken and written in ways that people don’t tend to write or speak anymore, and claiming things that have come to mean something to a lot of people – definitely, to me. 

We have seen a good deal of this country on this trip and learned about a lot of history, some totally new to us, much of it that we were familiar with in broad strokes that became more colored in and fleshed out with detail, physicality, perspective and specificity as we crossed the miles, looked at the monuments and the memorials and breathed the air across the country. We’ve done our best to be curious, to be reflective, to learn, to absorb as much knowledge and understanding as we could in our often tired brains.

There is much history of this country that I am proud of and inspired by. There is much of it that I am not proud of and disappointed by – to put it lightly. How to embrace one without denying the other has been an important thing to me, to at least attempt to do. For me, it’s been an important thing to carry my little American flag into every state capitol and through the miles of every 5K. I never really know what that does or doesn’t mean or symbolize to anyone looking on (there were some places where it elicited great cheers and expressions of gratitude for me carrying it, and other places where it made no stir and simply seemed to be a piece of the background), but to me, it means, this is home, this is the place that I am part of, that I am one of the beneficiaries of and that I do my best to contribute to. For me, it means trying to understand what it means to be part of this place, to call it home and to have this be the very extended family that raised me. For me it means embracing facing all of the history, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, that has shaped the place that raised me, and, in that, helped shape my life and helped shape me.

But, sitting in Independence Hall, it meant something even more specific, and, for all the dark truths and realities that exist right along side the glorious ones, it felt pretty neat to be in the place where minds were coming together, though treasonously at the time, to try to imagine something that didn’t exist into being, to put wholehearted thought into thinking it through in great detail in the hopes that that thought would be able to carry forward generations into the future. To know that their thinking was meant to be in service to me – not me specifically (and in some ways, specifically not me), but me in the general sense of the posterity of those that would grow up in the systems that they built and according to the values and principles that they treasured in hopes that future generations, like myself, would inherit all of this and be part of the intention that an ever more perfect union would be sought after, it felt powerful. To be in the places where people aspired to ideas that, though they were not completely new to humanity or to human thought, were new and revolutionary to that lineage and in that form was also powerful. Though those values and aspirations of human behavior were not executed to their purest meaning, in their purest form at the start, I do see them as a thing of beauty and an act of true boldness and vision to reach for. Though these words that all men are created equal were, in their purest form, beyond the limitations of their own humanity to fully execute on in the very moments that they were swept away by the words and ideas themselves, the act of vision and the audacity of that aspiration and the depths of thought and effort they put into it at the scale they did, deeply inspires me and moves me. 

I found myself feeling very glad and grateful to have been born in a time after so many people had the courage to further invest the blood, sweat and tears towards that more perfect union such that those original aspirations of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness could, in equal part, include me. But, despite the fact that much of the dreams in those buildings originally were conceived by men with only white men in mind for the full measure of those ideas, despite the fact that, as a woman, my place in that original dream was marginal, and others’ of different skin color was even less than marginal, still the audacity and the aspiration of those dreamers to have those dreams and put the efforts into creating the soil in which they could grow into one that included me and others more fully, it uplifted my spirit to a deeply proud and inspired place. 

And, there was just something about being there in the flesh. Getting to see some of the first copies of the original documents, getting to read words that we knew about, but hadn’t read since elementary school education, getting to be in that place was just neat.

Perhaps, more than anything else, being in that place where the start of America was an act of thoughtful purpose, design, aspiration and dreaming, where a group of people sat down and did the hard work of hashing it out, talking it out, working it out, trying to find common vision and common ground because they saw themselves as creators of their own lives and of the community in which they wanted to live, and of the world in which they wanted to live, that, in itself, felt like one of the most powerful parts. To me, that alone is one of the biggest legacies of that room.

Especially after seeing capitol building after capitol building, where that effort carries on, where the deeply difficult work of democracy is marching on, sometimes limping, sometimes raging, sometimes stumbling, but marching on, nonetheless, it is inspiring to sit where this particular strand of that human attempt had its start. In learning as much as I can about America, the globe, humanity and history (which, in the grand scheme of things, is admittedly, such a teeny tiny amount), I think it is easy for some of us Americans, myself very much included, to think or to want to see ourselves as singular in the pursuit of democracy and liberty. I do not observe that to be the case. But we are a particular and, in my opinion, significant chapter in that human story, and a chapter with many parts that are, in my opinion, worthy of note, worthy of praise, worthy of critique, worthy of admiration and worthy of the inspiration and pride I found myself feeling, if for no other reason than this is the story that I happen to be part of and I am deeply glad and grateful to be, with all of its imperfections and striving to be more and more perfect. 

Yes, for me, the power of being in that room where a group of people, collectively, had the audacity to look at life and the world as a blank slate and to say, I, myself, with those with whom I will live and create my life, can look at that canvas and ask, “What do I want to paint?” That is not only an act which I admire, it is one by which I have tried to live my life. And that is certainly the genesis of this trip itself. There was no playbook for this trip. There was no predetermined step that said this was the next thing to do in life. This was a dream that took planning and thought and patience and conversations. And, for all of the joy, adventure, fun and good times that it has been filled with, perhaps one of the greatest triumphs of the trip, for me, is simply that – I had a dream, through collaboration and conversation with my husband, we found a place where it was our dream and we decided to find a way to make it happen and then we did it. That is a good feeling. 

Being in Independence Hall, I felt we were in the presence of the ultimate role models for such a way of being, and perhaps at least among the forefathers of such instincts that showed up in me. I am grateful for what happened in Indepenence Hall and how it helped to shape my life and shape me into the person I am today. It’s been a grand adventure and I hope, in some small way, I can be worthy of that legacy, that in my own unique ways, I can pitch my hat into the ring to help appreciate and take care of the gifts that it has bestowed on me as the baton keeps passing forward.