Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Fireworks + Monuments = Desire to Salute (but not tap dance)

May I just take a brief moment to say: Independence Day is cool. Profound right? My life is pretty great. I got to watch fireworks over the Potomac, on the National Mall, with the Washington Monument in front of me and the Capitol behind me. I got to do it with great friends and thousands of patriotic strangers gathered and grateful that we can do things like lay back in the grass in safety and freedom delighted by explosions of color and happiness and with little fear of less desirable explosions. Doesn't it make you just want to salute everyone you see, wear a shirt with a giant flag on it, and maybe learn to tap dance? You don't want to tap dance? Yeah, me either - too far... That's the beautiful thing! We can change our minds. We don't have to tap dance unless we want to. Freedom! The desire to salute things was pretty real though. I refrained, but just barely.

I did not refrain from singing God Bless America aloud to myself on the way home though. It was extra special because the top on my car was down and I was sitting in S-L-O-W traffic and it was a lovely evening and well... other people, also enjoying their convertible, heard. I really need to remember that I lose my bubble of privacy when that top is down. Oh well, we're all happier for it. They have a really good story about a weird girl belting out God Bless America on the bridge. I got to belt out God Bless America. Who needs to be embarassed? (Me, but this has so many bigger things to compete with on a regular basis that I probably won't even remember it tomorrow. Earlier today, I walked right into a sign post. See? Who cares about singing in traffic. Sign post in plain sight? Hilarious - what's wrong with me?)

Another good 4th of July tip free to you all: Never opt to participate in fireworks by radio instead of in person. It is not the same. I was reminded today of a funny memory of "watching" fireworks in bed with my Grandmother one Independence Day when I was 10 or 11. Enthusiastic gentleman narrated the colorful (or so we were told) bursts of sound. If given the option, don't choose radio - unless you can do it with your grandmother and laugh about it forever. Ridiculous makes some of the best memories.

2 comments:

  1. LOVE it Megan! You have a great voice--your personality totally comes through in your writing.

    And yes, we are very fortunate that we can do the things mentioned--even the silly, embarrassing things. Me? This weekend, lying in the back of a pontoon boat in the dark waiting for fireworks on the lake, I mistook lightning bugs for shooting stars. Yes, that happened in real life to me, the science major.

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  2. Shooting stars are so far away. They probably do look like giant lightning bugs up close. Nobody can really prove that they don't. If they try I promise to ignore them entirely. :)

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