Watermelon

I’ve never been a July 4th fan. Fireworks are a polluting celebration of warfare, an existential and environmental lose-lose. It was the holiday I took a flaming marshmallow to the chin and those tasty bastards, when molten, hurt. I am also thinking we’d be better off now as British subjects, because it seems legitimately possible we are poised to coronate King Donald the First.

The one thing that saves July 4th for me is watermelon. It’s really tasty and always on sale around now, and there is something so fun about a group of people tearing into a fruit too big to be consumed solo.

The New York Times came out with an article yesterday that caught my eye, because it had a lovely photograph of a watermelon. The headline was is watermelon actually good for you? My response was to panic-scroll to an article about $550,000 houses in Maine, DC, and Louisville. Why risk it?  The world is already too full of terrible news.

Of course I was thinking about the article all day, and by afternoon, had broken down sufficiently to glance at it. Guess what? Watermelon is okay! Hydrating, not as much sugar as you would think, and they offered a bunch of recipes including watermelon soup and some savory dish with pecans and farrow. Their ultimate conclusion was the best way to eat a watermelon is when someone carves up a ripe one and hands you a slice to bury your face in.

I could have told them this, of course, but I think they needed an excuse for the alarmist headline and the content filler of needlessly complicated recipes.

Anyway, what I want to say is like a slice of watermelon, I am holding my July fourth in my hands, close and sweet, surrounded by family and the tastes of the season I can fall into from my own back yard. I am willfully going to forget the aggressive nationalism of the holiday in this dark season and embrace its divine seasonal aspect. There will be no flags in our yard, or toasted marshmallows for that matter, but I can promise you watermelon seeds everywhere.