Blow Stuff Up

July 4th was my mother's 14th wedding anniversary. I had the day off, so Amber, Erin and I went over to Amber's aunt's pool and laid out. I used to hate laying out, hated the immobility of it, but with a good book, an iPod, good company and a body of water in which to immerse, I have begun to enjoy it. Around 4 Erin and I left to go change and head into DC for the fireworks. The daily monsoon hit just then, and it was like trying to drive in a carwash. But there was no one on the roads! No one! We're driving into DC at 5:30pm on July 4th and it may as well been 9pm on a random Tuesday. It was beautiful. The monsoon probably scared them all away. Wussies (That is a technical, literary term). We were headed to our friends' house on 5th up past Chinatown and got there without a hitch. As soon as we arrived the rain cleared up, the sun came out and the roof dried off in no time. I spent most of the evening sitting on a sheet on the roof with my friends, drinking bad sangria (here's to you, Chris and Steve) and marveling at the fireworks around us. Darkness lay upon us softly and the explosions around became more frequent and stark against the humidity of a DC night. The Capitol's fireworks started and we had to sit on the neighbor's roof to fully see them (tree in the way). Over to the east it seemed as if the whole of NE was alight with bombs of reds, golds, purples and greens. Crackles and bursts of delight. As both these massive displays were occurring I began to think about how we can do this without even a suggestion of shell shock. We are the lucky ones, who have never heard a real bomb go off, who've never felt the jarring of those colors and sounds in malice rather than celebration. I don't know why that struck me as it did--in every direction there were fireworks and cheers, car horns and sparklers and it was all in joy, we didn't even consider it sounds of danger. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written by a man as he huddled, watching a fort being bombed, and we sing it and celebrate it by blowing stuff up. It would be like celebrating Thanksgiving by doing a month-long fast. Weird. Here's to you, Independence Day: Our 230th year of snubbing the Brits.