1812 It Isn't

Tchaikovsky











The thing about holidays for me is that they mark time. Yesterday being 4th of July has made me think about this. Try to remember where you were on July14 and you can’t you usually can remember where you were on the 4th. I remember picnics, parades. I remember one year my grandmother had passed away a few days before, and I was sent off to the local festival. I remember not wanting to go, but happy to be away from family.



Then I remember going to the same festival to work. I don’t remember what table I was sitting at, but I do remember the star of the basketball team, a friend and one whom I had a secret crush on, was a table not far away. I spent one 4th in England. I met my partner on the 4th of July. We moved to D.C. driving the car sick cat on the 4th of July. I’ve experienced this holiday in the city and in the most rural of settings.

This year we drove back from upstate New York. Later, we raised our blood pressure with the neighbor’s fireworks. (Though illegal in this state, they set them off in the backyard towards the woods. As if this were not bad enough, the police refuse to take the complaint about it.)

Despite it being an anniversary, I don’t really like the 4th. Too loud, too patriotic and I am too contrary. I don’t like the neighborhood fireworks. But, I do like how it places me in time and space.