At Home in America

Someone planted a flag in the middle of Malaga Lake. I don't know how long it's been there (it was living here before I was), but I'll bet if you measured it from each side of the lake, you'd find that it was smack dab in the middle. That just seems like the thing to do. If you're going to put a flag in the lake, might as well do it right.

It's a little past the dam where the water runs down into a concrete bowl and bubbles out the other side of the bridge into a shrinking forest on route 40. I see it all every day on my way home from work.

For awhile I wondered why someone would put a flag in a lake. I suppose it's one way of being patriotic...then again, does drowning the Stars & Stripes count as patriotism? Maybe it was some fisherman's idea of declaring his Americanism to the world (or at least to Franklin Twp). Or maybe one of the homeowners that lives along the lakeshore wanted a good way to predict a flood and couldn't find a long stick ("When the water gets up to the first red stripe, it's time to evacuate, Ethel.")

I'm not really sure.

It used to bother me that it was there. I don't particularly like the American flag. I know how dreadfully un-patriotic that sounds but I actually mean it to be quite the opposite. From the time I was old enough to recognize political showmanship, I recall seeing people wave that flag like it meant the world couldn't stop them. Don't get me wrong - that sense of self-efficacy and power could be a good thing. But I suppose I've only ever really noticed the bad sides. The flag seems always to be hanging in the background when people claim democracy as the only true method of governance, or when they're pushing citizens over the border into Mexico because they have brown skin and accents. In truth, the flag is one reason I'm glad that my half-Puerto Rican husband doesn't look Hispanic - at least I can be sure he'll never have to face the discrimination the flag is often used to justify.

Yes, my feelings about Old Glory are complex.

When we moved here and I saw the flag in Malaga Lake, I wondered if this was the neighborhood for me. I'm always a bit leery of communities where the flag-waving sentiment seems especially strong. I worry that they'll come for me next, especially once they realize I was the one who took the Sawzall to the tall, white, self-constructed flagpole that used to stand in our front yard.

On the other hand, every day when I drive down route 40 and past the lake, I find myself searching for the flag. Sometimes it stands out like a giant among Lilliputians; other times it blends into the lake so well you wouldn't even notice it. One day I didn't see it at all and I found myself wondering in a semi-panicked way what happened to it. Did someone take it out and if so, why? Did it finally sink into the muddy abyss of the cedar water? The lake didn't seem unreasonably high, so it couldn't have drowned completely...

Then I saw it, hanging limp in the middle of the water, no breeze to blow it out and make it wave at the rush-hour traffic. I actually found myself breathing a sigh of relief...and then I wondered why it would have bothered me so much if the flag had permanently gone missing.

I don't have any real answer to that, other than to say I have a like-dislike relationship with the American flag (love-hate is far too strong a phrase in either direction). When I think about its storied birth at the hands of a local seamstress (still unsubstantiated by historians, of course), I'm reminded of how much I loved geography and history in elementary school, especially when we got to visit Philadelphia and march the cobblestone streets arm in arm. It seems to me that all old buildings should have a flag draped in the window or hanging over the front stoop.

But when I think about how often it's been waved as a harbinger of war and hate, I cringe. And when I see it plastered on someone's bumper, I find myself believing that whoever is driving that vehicle must be a conservative nut who approves of the U.S.A.'s short-sighted and narrow-minded foreign policies. I know my assumptions aren't always true, but still, there is this gut reaction that I can't seem to shake...

So then why did I panic when I thought the flag was gone forever from the lake? I think it's because it has grown to be a fixture in my life, a welcome sign that tells me I'm only minutes from home. It's probably also because I want very much to like the sight of the Stars and Stripes, to pledge allegiance to it as every student in America must do on a daily basis.

But in fact, I can't or won't. I resist because I don't like to be bullied into things and all too often, I think the flag has been used to bully us into action (or at least into a declaration of intended action). That is not the America I want to know or take part in, although it looks as though I have no choice.

So until I feel free of the undue pressure to conform to this "national" standard, I wonder if I will ever actually be at home in America.