Let’s shine!

Happy Tuesday - 

I have a vivid memory from my childhood.  I grew up in Connecticut, easy biking/long walking distance from the beach of Long Island Sound—placid seas, for sure.  

My favorite summertime event was the fireworks display, which was fired off a barge in the Sound.  In classic 1970s fashion, the barge was clearly closer than it might have been, so those of us who were laying on blankets on the beach were watching the colors explode directly overhead, chemical expressions of joy literally lighting up the night sky.  

It felt like I was in some cosmic birth-of-planets reality—like I could reach up, god-like, and touch them.  In a manner of speaking, I got that experience when the ash drifted down on us.  (Again, it was the 1970s—this was a feature, not a bug, lol).  

I’ve never stopped loving fireworks; the silence, the interaction between the light and the audience (oooooh! woah!) —I’ve gone out in the freezing cold on New Years Eve on Martha’s Vineyard for fireworks, I’ve built a family vacation in Quebec around the International Fireworks competition (the year I saw it, it was staged at the top of a waterfall, with the audience below; amazing!)  

It’s been a while — I chose to have other plans this 4th and was happy to do so — so even a small touch of that magic, as we had recently with a bevy of sparklers, is a moment of Proustian resonance for me.  

Let’s shine.