I swear I am trying to write a blog piece that doesn’t provoke controversy.  I attempted to do that with my previous post about how we should all love one another, but even that had it’s detractors.  So…

I like fireworks.  Tonight, Eric and I watched the fireworks in our neighborhood, as we did last year and as I’ve done nearly every year since I moved to Larchmont Village.  A couple years ago, our first 4th of July as a couple, we were driving on the freeway from Playa del Rey to our home and the entire sky was filled with the fireworks going off in every Los Angeles neighborhood.  

Everybody knows that New Years’ is a time where we look at the year that has passed and we look at the year ahead.  But for some reason, every Independence Day, when I look at a sky filled with fireworks, I think about where I have been and what the future holds as well.  Two years ago, the year we were barrelling down the 710 to the 405 to the 10 to the 101, I thought about how lucky I was that I’d met this guy with whom I was building a new life.  Last year, my heart was heavy worrying about the surgery my Dad was days away from having.  And every year, there is a part of me that feels like a kid again, watching the Riverside Park fireworks from lawn chairs on Russell Road.  

One of our neighbors, a 90-something woman who used to be something of a, forgive me, firecracker was in her front yard tonight watching the fireworks.  When I first moved here, we would chat, she on her daily walks and me walking my dogs.  She’s wheelchair bound now, seldom ventures outside, and when we spoke briefly, it was clear she did not know who I was.  Still, when the fireworks were in full swing, I looked over at her and her mouth was agape and her eyes sparkled.  For a few brief moments, she was a child again. She wasn’t the only one.