This might have been one of my favorite fourth of Julys ever, and that's something, coming from a Texan.
We had a spectacular view of the firework display from the boys' playroom upstairs. We opened up their window and gathered around and watched the fireworks. It was incredible. It was so nice to be together as a family, with the boys chattering excitedly and Adrian running his hand over my back as we took in the view.
The fireworks were just...wow.
Red, white, and blue. Purple and green. Glittering gold. Red sparkles that were shaped like flowers. Blue exploding stars. Red, green, gold, and blue rings. I was completely awed by the shapes. The show just went on and on, and each time we thought they'd shown something that couldn't be topped, we were surprised with a splash of color and light that was even more amazing.
Feeling the Hawaiian breeze floating in through the window, and watching the light from the fireworks being reflected against the tufts of clouds in the sky there with Adrian and our boys, it just seemed like a perfect moment. The kind of moment or experience that you'd like to be able to hold in the palm of your hand and squeeze tightly, knowing that it was yours to keep forever.
Leading up to the 4th, I'd felt a twinge of longing for Texas. Growing up, my cousins and my brother and I would go to the fireworks stand and spend all the money we'd pooled on smoke bombs and black cats and bottle rockets and then we'd go to our Pa and Gran-Gran's house and complain that we didn't have enough money to get very many fireworks.
They'd always give us more money, and we'd walk back in the dry Texas heat to the stand and buy as much as we could. The man who owned the stand we used to always go to was a kind man, very active in his church and in the community, and he'd find reasons to give us free fireworks. "I like that Jesus shirt you have on...why don't you take one of these turtles," he'd say, or "I don't know about these new sparklers, why don't you guys take one and then let me know if they're any good." I don't know if he ever made any money off of his stand, but I suspect that he enjoyed selling and giving away those fireworks as much as we kids enjoyed playing with them.
I'm not a child anymore...I have my own little ones with pyrotechnic ambitions, but before tonight I'd felt a longing for those Independence Day nights with parents and grandparents and cousins and friends out in the yard with bags and bags of fireworks sitting on the hood of the car. I missed lighting bees in the sandy road and watching them buzz straight for us, and then hurriedly clearing all the debris before a car drove through.
As much as I miss those old traditions of my childhood, tonight was special and I wouldn't trade it.
The boys still got to write messages in the night sky with gold sparklers and we still found some excitement in lighting a massive group of snakes over the grill to make a slithering Medusa of ash. And the fireworks we watched tonight, while not the interactive experience of my own youth, were something my boys will talk about for days.
Many things are different here and now (the ability to purchase hard core fireworks at Wal-Mart, for example) and some things are the same (firetruck siren in the background as I type this), but I've discovered that the comfort of tradition and familiarity can evolve and change and still remain powerful, and I am incredibly grateful for that.