She has always been on fire. That is the thing they do not put in the history books, or rather, the thing they put in the history books in the passive voice, as if the fire arrived on its own, as if no one held the match.

Lady Liberty Belle Fierce was born in a year that does not appear on any calendar because the calendar was made by people who preferred she not be born at all. She arrived anyway. She tends to do that.

There is a particular kind of woman who is described, in the historical record, as difficult. What the historical record means is that she had opinions and expressed them in full sentences, in public, without first checking whether the room was ready for her. The room was never ready for her. She walked in anyway. She tends to do that too.

Independence, she would tell you if you asked, is not a destination. It is not the moment you sign the document or cross the border or leave the house for the last time with one bag and a very clear sense of direction. Independence is a practice. It is the thing you do every morning when you decide, again, that you are the one who gets to say what your life is for.

The torch is not a symbol. The torch is a tool. You use it to see where you are going. You use it to warm yourself when the night is long. And occasionally, when the situation calls for it, you use it to burn something down.

We celebrate independence on the Fourth of July with fireworks, which is the correct response to the idea of freedom: loud, brief, spectacular, and faintly dangerous. We eat things off grills. We wear the flag. We do not, as a general rule, sit quietly and think about what independence costs, or who paid for it, or who is still paying for it now.

Lady Liberty Belle Fierce thinks about this. She thinks about it while she is doing other things, which is the particular gift and curse of women who have too much to carry and not enough hands. She thinks about it while she is making dinner and while she is making decisions and while she is making do, which is a phrase that sounds like acceptance but is actually a form of resistance so quiet it is almost invisible.

Almost.

The fire is not metaphorical. The fire is the thing that keeps her warm when the world has decided it is not responsible for her temperature. The fire is the thing that lights the page when she writes at midnight because midnight is the only hour that belongs entirely to her. The fire is the thing that she carries in her chest, the one that no one gave her and no one can take away, the one that has been there since before she had words for it and will be there long after the words run out.

She is not waiting to be extinguished. She tried that once. It did not take.

Happy Fourth of July. May your fire be inconvenient to everyone who would prefer you smaller.