​“July is a blind date with summer.”  ~Hal Borland

July arrives with sunburned shoulders and laughter in her voice, her pockets full of fireworks and ripe peaches. She doesn’t tiptoe in like June—she bursts onto the scene, barefoot and bold, trailing the scent of charcoal and sunscreen, her hair wild from the wind and her eyes reflecting the wide blue sky.

She is summer in her prime—confident, unapologetic, a little wild. The days stretch long and luxurious, their edges blurred by heat and possibility. Mornings shimmer with birdsong and dew, and afternoons pulse with grasshoppers and the hum of lawnmowers. Even the evenings have a heartbeat—drums of distant thunder, guitars on porches, the crackle of bonfires beneath star-salted skies.

July is parades and popsicles. It’s the smell of fireworks and the boom that thunders in your chest. It’s laughter echoing across lakes, the snap of a beach towel, and the sticky sweetness of watermelon juice running down your chin. It’s children with stained lips from wild raspberries, and grownups chasing a little freedom in the golden haze.

Gardens are riotous with color now—coneflowers, zinnias, black-eyed Susans—while bees work overtime and butterflies float like scraps of confetti. The world hums with life. Hydrangeas spill over fences, tomatoes plump on the vine, and thunderstorms roll in like orchestras tuning up for a passionate performance.

Time moves differently in July. It stretches and melts, thick as honey. Days are measured not in minutes, but in moments—bare feet on hot pavement, the hiss of something grilling, the flicker of fireflies over the lawn.

July reminds us to live with both hands open. To laugh loud. To stay up late. To say yes to one more swim, one more scoop, one more story told under the stars.

She’s not here for long, but while she’s with us, she turns the world technicolor. So step outside. Lift your face to the sun. July is here—radiant, roaring, and alive.

~Wylddane

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"Leona" (Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)

July:  A Month of Observances,  A Time for Awakening...

"A Time to Reflect" (Image and Text Copyright Wylddane Productions, LLC)

“I have a dream.”  ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

July carries fireworks in her pockets and banners in her hands. She arrives not quietly, but with brass bands and bold declarations, her calendar marked with days of remembrance, resistance, and revolution.

Canada Day. Independence Day. Bastille Day. Friendship Day. Nelson Mandela Day. International Justice Day. A month steeped in celebration—but also in reckoning.

Once, I celebrated July 4th with unshaken pride. I believed in the story we told ourselves—that we were striving toward “a more perfect union.” I believed we were learning, faltering, growing. That we were, however imperfectly, trying to expand liberty, protect dignity, and uphold justice for all.

But this year, I hesitate.

Because I wonder: How free are we, really?

Free to be shot in a grocery store, a school, or a church.
Free to die without healthcare.
Free to live paycheck to paycheck while billionaires rocket into space.
Free to be abandoned by systems meant to protect us.
Free to be exploited, silenced, erased.

That is not the freedom our forebears envisioned.
That is not the dream.

And yet… I am not without hope.

I was a history major. I know America has sins to atone for—slavery, genocide, war, discrimination, systemic injustice. I know the record is bloody and flawed. But I also know history moves in tides. And sometimes, in the darkest waters, the current begins to shift. Quietly at first. Subtly. Then with force.

France’s Bastille Day reminds us that revolutions begin with whispers. That the people, when awakened, can shake empires. Mandela Day reminds us that justice can triumph even after years of injustice. That empathy can become power. That peace can be forged by those who never stopped believing in its possibility.

And I do feel it—beneath the weight of disillusionment, beneath the grim headlines and orchestrated chaos—I feel the low, steady rumble of something greater. A groundswell of hearts unwilling to give up. A rising of those who are awake, who see clearly, who care deeply, who believe fervently.

I believe in the dreamers. I believe in the kind. I believe in those who fight not with fists, but with love and action and truth.

I believe the future belongs not to the tyrants, but to the empathetic.

Not to the oligarchs, but to the people.

Not to the loudest liars, but to the brave voices who keep whispering: we can be better than this.

So this July, I observe. I reflect. I question.

But I also dare to dream again.

Not just of parades and flags, but of liberation in its truest form—justice that is real, dignity that is shared, and freedom that is not a façade but a foundation.

I dream of a country that lives up to its ideals.
A place where truth is not feared.
Where kindness is not weakness.
Where being “woke” is a badge of honor, not a slur.

And so, like Dr. King, I say it out loud:
I have a dream.

Still.
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~Wylddane