It’s July 5, and last night’s revels seem far away. It’s a day of sodden flags, old watermelon rinds, the burnt casings of a bottle rocket. The smoke has cleared but we’ve lost our brilliant reds and greens.

Last night at the block party in Suzanne’s Arlington neighborhood where we watched the fireworks, a man in a tricornered hat read aloud the Declaration of Independence. The mic he was using kept fading in and out, so that he was forced to pepper his recitation with the words “testing, testing.”

It was an interesting interjection as we “test, test” our resolve to become a more perfect union and we’re “tested, tested” by a divisiveness unknown in my lifetime.

Now that I think of it, “testing, testing” isn’t a bad motto to have as we strive to make ourselves heard, to make ourselves whole. Our nation is a work in progress, always “testing, testing.” Seeing it that way is a good way to celebrate July 5.