It always takes me away and puts me back a little too fast.
It's a lot like Christmas, but thankfully less presents and more spontaneous lights. And warm weather.
It's the Fourth of July.
Blast…crack…
We spend it every year at the beach, always looking across the sound. Tiny towns all near the coast set off their fireworks and it's one of the most beautiful moments I have all year. It's like they are all calling out into the dark at once "I am here I am here I am here". I feel like we forget how powerful it can be to celebrate something together.
Ameeeerica…oh it's America
God shed His grace on thee
BlastBlastBlast…
I play music for everyone, I don't remember when it started but one year I walked out with a speaker and put on "America The Beautiful", the Ray Charles version. It felt like the song was meant to have fire works in it. Maybe I'm just a fan of Sandlot.
Light mine!
Light mine first!
When do you want to take the golf cart out?
The simplicity, consistency, and collective beauty of the holiday has elevated it to my favorite holiday of them all. It's so much less pressure than others. It feels like celebrating together, not at one another. Every face is turned to the lights in the sky, to the flags in the wind, to food, friends, and kids with sparklers. It's a little mischievous and a lot less commercial and its one of the few times a year I truly permit my self to be entirely patriotic.
Boom
Deep breath
Boom
I've started marking my years in 4ths of July. How am I, now? It's a very reflective moment for me, to take stock of our country, my family, and myself right then and there. You can do that in the dark of the back deck, even surrounded by people. You can see your life reflected across the night sky and the open expanse of water and for a moment feel sorrow and joy at exactly the same time.
Can you play that one again?
Crash…crackle
It makes me thankful. I am thankful to be here: in this life, on this earth, in this country, at this place. I am thankful for how dark it is; only because it's night time and you sense the privacy that dark affords is it so comfortable for me each time. It's dark all the way from us to the fireworks and it makes you feel alone first and then immediately together the second those lights hit the sky. I am here. I am thankful most of all, though bitterly at times, for wealth. Wealth of family, of stability, of privilege, and that dangerous middle class income that makes it all possible. I couldn't have any of these moments without thinking of the alternatives. Without thinking of all the things I could be without, that others go without every single day or go with but only because they fight so much harder to keep those things. I won a birth lottery and it put me here and I refuse to let myself forget that because we need to do better in the world, but I also can't let it take away the moments and the people I love because I am still a person too. I am thankful because it's such a good time to be thankful.
I love you
I love you too
Happy Fourth of July