Fifty years ago, I was hired to do archeology at two New York State historic sites: Claremont, the home of Robert R. Livingston who was one of the five who wrote the Declaration of Independence. I worked at Crown Point, an English fort located off Lake Champlain the same year we celebrated our nation’s two hundredth anniversary.
I wrote the following about digging at Claremont:
Sometimes I muse glass pieces we find
could be chunks of the Hudson River mined
and later tossed from the mansion.
The frosted glass cools
our fingers like summer water.
It’s cheap in the ground
unless it’s a candlestick base
wrapped in with air bubbles,
or a stem of a wine glass
with a twisted gauze stair.
Because they’re broken,
the wine glass, the candlestick, the windowpane
seem sturdier than when they bore
wine and flame and a view.
It’s hard to write about my love for this country because I have mixed feelings. Like the artifacts I pulled out of the ground, I know how broken we are—slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, genocide, so many millions killed in the womb, endless wars. But the very fact we name these evils, protest them, and work to change them belies our greatness—the sturdiness of self-reflection. But I wish we could stop ruminating on the wrongs and be grateful for the gifts this country offers like freely speaking and worshiping. Yes, I’m a little shy to admit that I love my country.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
