Fifth of July

Posted on July 5, 2005 in Festivals Silicon Valley

The Fourth (or Independence Day as my friend Gareth insisted when she called to ask a question about her blog ) is a holiday which I happen to like. People go downtown to watch a parade, stroll through a street fair, and, in the evening, go to a promontory to watch the fireworks displays taking place on the plain.

When we lived in Palo Alto, we used to go out to the very end of Embarcadero Road, mount the odd dolmen fashioned from concrete blocks, and watch the several firework shows which various cities shot off over their waterfronts. The lights and fire-painted spectacles of San Francisco and Oakland were also visible. As one show ended, we sought the next one by scanning the baylands until a crimsom or a sapphire comet caught our attention. Better informed observers knew where to turn at what time: local newspapers published the details. In our latter years, we would enjoy both the explosions and the music from Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, a little more than two miles by a straight line but demanding an ability to levitate or walk on the soft mud and estuary waters as if one were Christ.

I always felt sad when the last chrysanthemum exploded. It meant brief gridlock and, on the Fifth of July, a return to work.

We don’t get enough holidays in this country.

Every Fourth, I’d feel that the day was wasted if we didn’t get out. Emotional bayonets stabbed through me from all directions. The Revolutionary War refought itself inside of me and the Civil War, too. If we didn’t see something, didn’t go to a landmark or a spectacle, I felt cheated.

And this year was an exception. I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t even see the sky except through the bubble in our roof. The most I saw of the sun was when Boadicea knelt in a patch of sunlight. It was in this way that I celebrated my independence by not celebrating it. I withdrew from America. And yet, there was no escaping it. For that, I was grateful.