July 4th, 2022
When work wouldn't tug incessantly at the collar that clenched tightly around my neck, I would be spared the burden of labor to enjoy the ritual of Fourth of July at the lake. There, the banners of pride and country danced in the wind that moved up along the shores. On stunted grass littered with geese droppings, families lay sprawled out on blankets and beach towels or seated in unfolded thrones, sipping hidden spirits.
I dimly remembered childhood fears wrapped up in the great bursts of fireworks that created canopies over my young head. I also remembered those early months of blissful love when Sam and I sat with friends now gone, and it seemed there that I was blessed with a brief moment of ignorance in love though unappreciated at the time. Here now, the ritual was maintained, but the circle of friends felt small. It pained me to think of the branching lives of those around me, and the narrow window in which we could have loved and enjoyed the company of one another.
The melancholy of my unarticulated thoughts weighed down on me, and I grew distant amongst my peers whom I stood beside in line to the lake entrance. It would not be the first time the nature of my sadness would escape me and I would be left feeling vague, unable to explain or justify myself to others. As was often the case when I would go out to socialize, an internal debate lashed inside of me that strove to curtail my brooding for the sake of those I loved. This antisocial disposition served only as a bitter reminder that I was indeed a self-obsessed person stripped of the desire for noble humility, and that no amount of self-determination could seem to shake me from my bad habits.
But my personal cross was overshadowed by a more perceptible tension that lay thick in the air. Those of us that gathered together in the late afternoon of this overcast day stood pensive, restrained in our eagerness to be outdoors amongst friends. We stared warily with suspicion at the strangers who stood beside us in line, eyeing their concealed hands. Our bodies tightened as cars slowly skated across the road, searching for parking. We each had many thoughts racing through our minds, all tethered to some terrified connection. This social tension was startled by a sudden loud crack of distant fire poppers in quick succession. A palpable state of fear and panic mingled with impatient excitement was written on the faces of those around me, and it was small comfort to know that my weak anxiety was shared by others. There was no moment of relief before another thunderous boom sounded in the streets, which vibrated the concrete in its brutal strength, shaking us deep in the pits of our stomachs. We made an attempt to recompose ourselves, laughing nervously at our own skittishness as several car alarms sounded off in some unseen street. The roaring siren of a distant fire engine echoed and pitched down corridors of traffic, hunting for rogue kindle that might start a blaze, but the sky itself was already dotted with little puffs of dull-brown smoke in that late afternoon. Nature held its breath in fear and confusion; no bird dared stir in this torrent.
Being beside myself, I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of this moment. Here we were standing in line by tall ringed fences like refugees in denial, fleeing a war zone. The fading sirens seemed like the final hilarious punctuation in this bizarre farce. I thought of the fruitless and unending debates between veterans and neighbors, between those who owned pets and those who held sacred this day. To complain on the Fourth of July was to be met with a courteous pity and a fair bit of resentment for jeopardizing everything like a wet blanket smothering a beautiful bright blaze. Here though, there seemed to be a collective moment of empathy at the realization of its chaos, and that though the celebration may be beautiful, it held a violence caked within the country itself. What did it mean to partake in such a way when hours early on this day of commemoration, others died standing in line such as we were, unaware and unable to distinguish the sound of firework from firearm?
That night, I stared up with my head craned far back watching the massive pillars of fire disperse across the edges of my vision. I failed to see new ways to photograph the same things. In boredom, I aimed my shutter for the moment preceding the explosion, when the trails of light scattered and painted the puffs of clouds in crimson, silver, and emerald hues. At some point, I put the camera down and remembered how many Julys I had let slip through my thoughts as I peered greedily inside that viewfinder. I rested on Sam's blanket so that the lights seemed to face parallel in front of me and I was glued to the sheer face of a grassy cliff. My friends lay beside me, each in their own thoughts; Sam's portable speaker making a pitiful effort to compete with the noise. Each burst of fire grew larger and closer, and I began to pant nervously, scolding myself for being more vulnerable than I was as a child. But no amount of fear was enough to wholly remove the awe of that moment, and I was held transfixed by something that was mightier, somehow less transient than I.
Before long, actually much longer in fact, for the minutes I rested on that dirty lawn unobstructed by my camera felt like ages, we jointly stretched our limbs and packed our things, gazing deeply about the dark grass to search for lost items before shuffling in congestion to the gates. There I watched the busy bodies with their many frames highlighted under the piercing sheen of a multi-armed lantern.
We eventually removed ourselves from the lake to join our friend Evan in his backyard. There we sat in reclined chairs by a still pool that churtled occasionally in its quiet filtration; a warm hearth lapping its flames in the wind, heating us just outside of danger on this chill summer evening. Little Gigi shivered in the nipping night air as it tickled her frail bones, but she reclined obediently at the lap of her preoccupied master. I gazed up at the sharp shrubbery towers that pierced the black sky, the ambient house light crawling up their textured surfaces. I was enjoying this moment of companionship more than the spectacle of the fireworks, and we sat for late hours on that cold night in the warmth of good company, speaking softly of simple things, hard of hearing as we were, before saying goodbye and returning to our gentle beds.