I’m not a fan of fireworks. I prefer to see the tiny explosions of fireflies lighting up as they dance across my yard. I love the quiet drama of a sunset, purple and orange streaks exploding across the sky. For the thrill of big noise, I’ll take a sometimes terrifying summer thunderstorm. Nature is the boss and her destruction intense – but she does not intentionally target populations like man does with bombs that, by the way, sound just like fireworks.
It’s almost 9 PM and I’m on my porch catching the last of this stunning day that was July 4. And boom – the first explosion in the neighborhood is off. Now a smattering of smaller machine gun sounding explosions. For anyone who has heard the real thing – this sucks. I had it easy. I was getting paid to be in a war zone and was able to take breaks and be in Italy or Austria ordering good wine and cappuccinos within hours. I knew people who could not leave, who didn’t want to leave their homes. To become refugees. So they did their best to protect themselves and family while bombs fell. They ventured into the street to get water, food, firewood, running on streets where they knew snipers hid in burnt out buildings ready to arbitrarily shoot them in some sick game. And this was a pre-drone time. I can only imagine how terrifying things are now. I don’t want to imagine either – but here I am – imagining.
Because I remember these sounds I hear from my front porch – as mortar shells exploding in Bosnia and Croatia. Once on the drive up into the mountains above Sarajevo for a meeting with a braggadocious man (now living in the Hague for war crimes) a tank fired off into the city. Our car was heavy and armored but the force of the explosion lifted the SUV. We made the rest of the drive silently, deafened and wondering about who and what was hit this time. How many injured, how many dead?
Don’t get me wrong – I once enjoyed watching the sky lit by exploding flowers and falling stars shot off on a barge in the distance. I have oohed and ahhed and enjoyed the festive atmosphere of a fireworks display. They are beautiful. But from my porch on a summer night it feels ominous and I think about war.
Sorry to be a downer but that’s my take. And besides, fireworks, especially uncontrolled neighborhood pyrotechnic displays are terrible for wildlife, little kids and pets.
There’s a brilliant organization around here (https://wildlifeincrisis.org/ ) that rehab every kind of critter. They’ve reported an increase in injured animals being brought in because of fireworks. And the internet is full of people looking for pets that ran off in terror. Our long gone Cairn Terrier Tetley hated them.
Here’s to sparklers!
Peace!