I wanted to be outside this morning, before things got too hot.

Chose the cemetery for a couple reasons.

Shade, for one. Lots of trees.

I like the ups and downs, too. Lets you choose your own adventure, depending on whatever ambitions you bring with you.

I’ve also found that it’s just a good space for reflection … remembering … reminding oneself.

I park in a small pull over that can fit three or four cars, depending. Was still stretching out when someone pulled in next to me. I saw it was an older fella. I was going to wish him a Happy Fourth, but he was taking his time getting out of his car, so I just set off.

The route I usually choose starts with a downhill (I like to be kind to myself), and then a short climb under a canopy of pines, from where it drops a little before flattening out to a roundabout, where I will just do some loops for some easy distance, before hitting a straightaway that takes me past where I parked.

Midway through my first loop, I saw the gentleman who had parked next to me. I’m bad at guessing ages, but based on his silver hair, I’d put him a bit north of 70. He’s shorter in stature, but solid.

He walks with two walking poles.

Not fast, but persistent.

I waved as we passed.

“It’s good to be outside on the Fourth of July isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes it is,” he said.

And then I did this thing that I do sometimes, when I’m out for a run and encounter elders doing their outdoor things.

It might be a by-product of the endocannabinoids that get released in my brain when I’m moving. I’ve noticed that they like to take over my broadcast system sometimes.

I turned back around and said, “I just have to say … you inspire me.”

He looked up at me and smiled, surprised.

“I just have walking sticks,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

And I said the true thing that I say sometimes.

In so many words, that there is no such thing as ‘just.’

“Well, I hope to live as long and be as wise as you someday, and get to enjoy being outside on the Fourth of July.”

“Well, I am enjoying it,” he confessed.

Then, for good measure, my endocannabinoids bid him adieu with a, “God bless ya’ sir.”

And we went on our respective ways.

Continuing past where I parked, there’s a straightaway that passes in front of the cemetery’s crematorium — or what my daughter affectionately termed the “Easy-Bake” during our Covid walks — and up a hill where I like to take a right and descend to another small roundabout that overlooks the veterans’ cemetery.

In the lead-up to Memorial Day, they put flags on all the markers and gravestones, and leave them up through the summer. The flags catch the natural breezes of the hill, and are always fluttering, which I always find moving as I am moving.

Among the things I appreciate about the fluttering flags is how they invite your attention.

“Looky here,” they say.

Which reminds me that the flags’ stars and stripes aren’t meant to be the stars.

What’s sacred is the ground beneath them.

This past Memorial Day I remember pausing at the roundabout. For some reason I felt compelled to slowly scan from right to left across the field to try and register each one of the flags on each one of the headstones.

Felt like a respectful thing to do.

I’m not sure how many veterans are buried there … a couple hundred at least.

As I scanned, it occurred to me how the graves spanned across many generations, commemorating service personnel from different places, backgrounds and homes. Who all answered and honored the same call, each for their own reasons, if they had a choice. Whose lives were probably all changed in different and complicated and meaningful ways — some ended — by their experiences in uniform.

The flags always catch me the way the breeze catches them.

Passing by them this morning, I felt compelled to capture the scene … for posterity.

Felt like a respectful thing to do.

I was barely a couple seconds into filming when the sun peeked from behind a cloud and cast the large flag behind me that anchors the overlook.

And all of a sudden I was standing in the big flag’s shadow …

… overlooking a Veterans’ cemetery …

… in a small town named for the man who once referred to the country’s then-new government as “the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness,” …

… on the Fourth of July of that experiment’s 250th birthday.

Standing still in the shadow of all of that, I found myself deeply moved.

And so I did my best to reflect … to remember … to remind myself.

My hunch — and this might have been the endocannabinoids talking — was that not many of the souls buried in front of me spent a great deal of time patting themselves on the back. That, when their service was done, they likely appreciated that what they came back to — country-wise and life-wise — was still very much a work-in-progress. With just as much work to do as had been done.

I’m hoping that each one of ‘em at least took a measure of pride in having done their small part in keeping it going and giving the whole experiment a chance.

After taking a moment to pay my respects … I picked up my stride again … just grateful to all those who came before me for the gift of being outside on the Fourth of July before it gets too hot.

And I said the true thing that I say sometimes.

In so many words, that there is no such thing as ‘just.’

May this experiment live long enough to get to be as wise as our small town’s namesake and country’s first president.

May we re-commit to the goal of promoting human happiness for all and co-create a world that promises no more and no less than what a good cemetery does — all the ups and downs you want, but letting you choose your own adventure, depending on whatever ambitions you bring with you.

May we close the gap between the truths and unalienable rights that Jefferson knew were self-evident to our creator, but still very much work-in-progress to those of us standing in our creator’s shadow.

And even if we don’t live long enough to see its fullest manifestation, may we at least persist long and far enough to inspire younger striders with our walking sticks.