Patriotism

I was not in the mood for celebration. Those were rainy days, miserable, bleak, any embers of festivity dampened by fog.
    But some part of the crowd buoyed me. All those people, with their stubborn determination to celebrate, turning parties and concerts into military parades
    Did I search for your face? Maybe. Flashes of faces on TV screens- I catch my breath still. Maybe not.
    I saw a string of bunting fall in the mud. The flags were coated in seconds, but lifted by a hundred raincoat-clad arms in surprising and probably never-to-be-repeated unison.
    Like me, the flags were stained and aged beyond time- but something in the crowd had brought them high. Is this patriotism? No burning fires or stamping feet, but a comfort in knowing not all the stereotypes are false. Even outside, looking in, the earth surrounds you.
    Eons of time and tongues create 'England'... And something in me says: Here. Here is home.