The picture has to be just right, the enormous flag wavering
just so.
We stand in front of it for
several long minutes, watching it furl and unfurl and furl again, snapping
photo after photo. Her son is an Army
Ranger about to be deployed to Afghanistan.
My niece graduates from Marine Officer Candidate School soon and is also
facing deployment. We are in Boston two
days before the annual Independence Day festivities, here in this city where
America threw her first raw punches.
This day, this city, this flag, this photograph, this moment in time -
all of it - must be perfect.
My friend
wants to send the best picture of the batch to her son and also keep a copy of
it for herself. If they both use it as
cell phone wallpaper, she will feel connected to him while he is serving his
country in the Middle East. I intend to
add the better pictures to my burgeoning collection of US flag snapshots that I
have taken over the last five years, since I tucked the 35mm-film Nikon back in
its case and replaced it with a 35mm-digital Canon.
She and I
agree to share photos, and we both snap away while the wind billows history and
symbolism high above our heads. Tourists
infringe on our moment and I on theirs as I step directly beneath the Banner of
Liberty to the clicks and whirrs of memories in motion, stars and stripes
pouring down their tales of battles won and lost. I crane my head up, camera to my eye, and I
can see into the rotunda above and beyond into the blue sky of freedom.
For a split
second in time, the flag holds steady.
With a click and a whirr, Old Glory salutes me.
