Life's Fireworks
Fireworks are slightly more legal in Maryland than they used to be. Certainly the small sucky ones are legal, but it is, apparently, less stigmatic to smuggle in the cooler more dangerous ones too. The result of this new availability? The long 4th of July weekend becomes filled with pops, bangs, and lights. As early as Friday night one could hear the impatient shooting off their stashes.
Driving home from an event on Sunday night there was a fair amount of such aforementioned aerial activity. The problem with these "prosumer" displays, of course, is that they don't last very long. 5-10 bursts, low on the horizon, at best.
The fun, then, comes from trying to catch glimpses of these shows. Manifested in a car ride (assuming you aren't driving) this means looking out the car windows, scanning the skies for a quick pop of bright green or red or (less often) blue.
Seeing them, by itself, isn't all that great. As far as fireworks they pale in comparison to the professional ones. But there is a different pleasure in catching them, an almost voyeristic feeling that you have snuck a peek at something meant for someone else. Or that you were made privy to this occurance through your own determination to see it while others around you miss it.
It is akin to catching a glimpse of a shooting star just as you happen to turn your head skywards. Why wish upon a shooting star? You have to be pretty lucky to catch a glimpse of one, so you might as well do the asking when fate seems to be paying attention to you.
So, there I was, sitting in the back seat of a car, for 30 minutes, starring at the sky to see a 2 second flash of light in the sky. My nephew, Jakob, was in the seat next to me, playing on his game-boy.
Me:Look in the sky, fireworks!
Jakob: I don't see anything.
Me:Keep looking at the sky. They might happen again.
pause... pause.... pause
Jakob: There are no fireworks in the sky. Why would you say there were fireworks in the sky? I don't see anything. Look. See? Nothing. No fireworks. It's not nice to make things up. I'm going to play my game.
8) Jakob's a fun and funny kid (you'll hear more about him in the upcoming weeks).
Now, I kept looking at the sky and there were no more fireworks for quite some time until we got off the highway and closer to home and the above conversation was repeated a few more times, in just about the same form.
And maybe it was that I like to stare out windows when I'm in the car, or maybe I'd eaten one too many spicy sausages at the picnic that day, but I was struck with an interesting thought:
Staring out a car window to try and catch a glimpse of fireworks is all about hope. Not important "I hope this surgery goes well" hope or "I hope I keep my job" hope, but it is hope nonetheless and, as such, has something in common with all hopes.
So I sit like a dork and scan life's skies trying to catch life's fireworks.
At the end of the car ride it doesn't matter if you spent those unrecoverable 30 minutes of your life trying to optimize traffic weaving or trying to find the best song on the radio, or trying to beat the next level of Pokemon, or just sitting like a dork looking out the window. Nihilism excepted, the what we do is often eclipsed by the why.
-Ed
ps. Wow. I called myself a dork twice in my own blog...
Driving home from an event on Sunday night there was a fair amount of such aforementioned aerial activity. The problem with these "prosumer" displays, of course, is that they don't last very long. 5-10 bursts, low on the horizon, at best.
The fun, then, comes from trying to catch glimpses of these shows. Manifested in a car ride (assuming you aren't driving) this means looking out the car windows, scanning the skies for a quick pop of bright green or red or (less often) blue.
Seeing them, by itself, isn't all that great. As far as fireworks they pale in comparison to the professional ones. But there is a different pleasure in catching them, an almost voyeristic feeling that you have snuck a peek at something meant for someone else. Or that you were made privy to this occurance through your own determination to see it while others around you miss it.
It is akin to catching a glimpse of a shooting star just as you happen to turn your head skywards. Why wish upon a shooting star? You have to be pretty lucky to catch a glimpse of one, so you might as well do the asking when fate seems to be paying attention to you.
So, there I was, sitting in the back seat of a car, for 30 minutes, starring at the sky to see a 2 second flash of light in the sky. My nephew, Jakob, was in the seat next to me, playing on his game-boy.
Me:Look in the sky, fireworks!
Jakob: I don't see anything.
Me:Keep looking at the sky. They might happen again.
pause... pause.... pause
Jakob: There are no fireworks in the sky. Why would you say there were fireworks in the sky? I don't see anything. Look. See? Nothing. No fireworks. It's not nice to make things up. I'm going to play my game.
8) Jakob's a fun and funny kid (you'll hear more about him in the upcoming weeks).
Now, I kept looking at the sky and there were no more fireworks for quite some time until we got off the highway and closer to home and the above conversation was repeated a few more times, in just about the same form.
And maybe it was that I like to stare out windows when I'm in the car, or maybe I'd eaten one too many spicy sausages at the picnic that day, but I was struck with an interesting thought:
Staring out a car window to try and catch a glimpse of fireworks is all about hope. Not important "I hope this surgery goes well" hope or "I hope I keep my job" hope, but it is hope nonetheless and, as such, has something in common with all hopes.
So I sit like a dork and scan life's skies trying to catch life's fireworks.
At the end of the car ride it doesn't matter if you spent those unrecoverable 30 minutes of your life trying to optimize traffic weaving or trying to find the best song on the radio, or trying to beat the next level of Pokemon, or just sitting like a dork looking out the window. Nihilism excepted, the what we do is often eclipsed by the why.
-Ed
ps. Wow. I called myself a dork twice in my own blog...
posted by Ed at 10:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home