Oldies But Goodies

This week will be filled with deep breaths, endless nights, copious amounts of tea and coffee, and a heaping sense of bravery that rests somewhere dormant in my soul. After this week, I will no longer be a student. This week, my MA dissertation will be complete, and with it, my first book. I need your good thoughts, my friends, and prayers if you have them to spare. God knows that I didn't make it this far on my own; I do get by with a little (enormous) help from my friends.  
Looking forward has made me a bit introspective, so I thought I'd dig up an oldie but goodie for tonight's post. 

June/08/2003
As it goes
Location: Wilmington, N.C.

I was fascinated by the nightly fires outside my third-floor bedroom window the first week in my new apartment. I don't know if there were no cops at that hour, or if fireworks were not considered enough of a disturbance to bother with, but at 1:00 a.m. the picnic tables by the pond sparked a popping orange. It scared me, that first night, I who claim an unease near uncontrolled fire. By Saturday I had made my peace with the firebringers, the young couple that silently appeared, and with beer bottles in hand, lit the pond. By morning there was no sign of the lighted fireworks, not even a trace of ash.

I shut the blinds and turned off the bedroom light. The pair huddled a few feet away from their pyro fantasy. It was a damp May night that I kneeled in an old men's shirt cast off to Goodwill and propped my chin on the windowsill to spy. The scheduled spontaneity of this event gave me a strange sense of comfort. This random celebration of costly fireworks wasted on a Tuesday night; the silent couples' silhouette revealing fingers intertwined in the reflection of the sparkling lights.

What private holiday was I witnessing? Was this a lovers ritual, to snap a lighter and create colored fire from tubes of packed chemicals? Was this something of the mundane, of boredom, or simply just because? The frogs paused in their cantos at the sudden sounds, the ducks long flown to quiet. I picked at the threads of my beige carpet and watched this mini-celebration, content to be a voyeur to another's joy.