Grand Canyons

I love my country
by which I mean
I am indebted joyfully
to all the people throughout its history
who have fought the government to make right
where so many cunning sons and daughters
our foremothers and forefathers
came singing through slaughter
came through hell and high water 
so that we could stand here
and behold breathlessly the sight
how a raging river of tears
cut a grand canyon of light
- Ani DiFranco

I have been taking my hot coffee to the front porch first thing in the morning. There has been a heat wave in the northeast. My neighbor’s car flashed 116 degrees when she turned it on- her laugh maniacal in the telling. My pajama shorts stick to the lawn chair I threw precariously next to the Meyer lemon tree I bought in a burst of out-of-character optimism.

Meyer lemon trees can’t grow in New Jersey.

Except it has been over a hundred degrees this week, and “Leo”, as my youngest, who names everything, has dubbed it, has thrived. His leaves are such a verdant green, I am surprised he doesn’t get right up and walk himself to the coffee shop down the block for an iced chai.

I force myself to get out of bed a little before 7 am, sit on the sweltering, painted-peeled, rotting from the inside, front porch next to Leo, and try to remember what it was like before people yelled at each other from the computer boxes in their pockets, from the safety of their recliners. Or their rotting front porches, like mine.

It is suffocating.

We replaced the tires on my car only to discover a cracked rim, a two-week wait for our mechanic, and a few hundred more dollars we didn’t have the budget for. People with good jobs, who haven’t taken more than 5 PTO days this year, will have to choose between a new swimsuit for their growing kid and a whole chicken at the grocery store.

I grew up keeping the lights off, counting green beans, wearing cousins’ hand-me-downs, drinking from the hose. Making dinner in the microwave for myself and my little sister, home from school. Pretzel sticks and Kraft cheese slices. Sleeping on top of sleeping bags with ice packs under our pillows, on the floor of the dining room- the only room with a ceiling fan in August.

I know how to cut squares of old bread and stretch two eggs into a frittata in the land of the free. I know how to make my own laundry soap and mend our own clothes, laying them to dry under spacious skies. I know which bills I can push to the next paycheck and which ones will call within 24 hours. I know how to spend less than 100.00 for a family of four for a week of groceries, and which three stores I will have to visit. I know how to go without. I know how to sacrifice.

I know what it has done to me.

It is suffocating.

There are so many of us. Stretching arms across the grand canyons we didn’t make. There are so many of us, rooted in hostile climates- the ones we didn’t ask to be born into- and yet, here we are, swaying like waves of grain, tethered to the land anyway. So many of us white-knuckling. So many of us counting change. So many of us holding on, with bloody fingers across the raging rivers. The vast darkness.

So many of us are still clinging- to each other.

The heat finally broke during a record-breaking storm that took down power lines and ancient trees in its wake. I stayed vigilant, whispering prayers over the giant oak teetering precariously over my bathroom roof. I made a cake for my niece’s second birthday that refused to rise.

This morning, in the aftermath, I took my hot coffee to the front yard wreckage to assess the damage. Righting chairs, gathering branches, calculating trash, I almost didn’t notice Leo- untouched, in his perfect terracotta pot. Leo, who doesn’t belong here. Leo whose delicate branches and sensitive ph weren’t made for the harsh rocky mountain soil. Leo, like a beacon, reaching for the light.