Rocket's Red Glare

Last night we had the best seats for the fireworks downtown we've ever had. Usually the Hawthorne Bridge is so packed you can't get on it, but this year it was closed and easy to find a good seat. We drank tea and ate peanut butter cookies, and I couldn't keep the silly little kid grin off my face watching the sparks whirl across the night sky.

I thought of my dog back home, who doesn't understand all these explosions in the weeks around the Fourth and spends most of her time shivering at my feet, poor thing. I had to wince a few times myself at the sounds overhead. Josie was frightened by the first big salvo and burst into tears, but a few minutes on her dad's lap and she was fine again.

But I couldn't help think how lucky I am that those big booms, the whistling, the bursting lights in the sky, are all something to grin about, that I don't have to think about taking cover, that there's nothing at all negative for me in these sounds, these sights, this vibration in my bones. How unusual that is in the course of human history! How lucky we are!