I decided to lay low this year and spend Fourth of July at my house. My new dog, Tennessee (more on her in a later post), was a quivering mess at the sound of firecrackers so I doped her up early. She spent most of the night in the closet or with her nose in a corner, shivering in fear. Poor baby.
As darkness fell, my neighbor Mary Ann (I call her Ms. Mott but she wants me to call her Mary Ann—I have a feeling we will be “discussing” this issue for many years) and I plop on our neighbor’s steps across from our homes and enjoy the dueling fireworks at both ends of the street. As soon as one group would send up a bevy of sparkling lights, the other end would reload and try to outdo them. I liken it to being in a gang war but with sparklers and fireworks and of course, no violence.
The big fireworks in Nashville are launched from LP field, which is about a mile from my house, and can be viewed directly down the middle of my street. All of our neighbors were in their lawn chairs or lying on their cars or up on their roofs because we had the best view in town…with no traffic! The couple that lives across the street had their grandkids with them and their granddaughter, Mow Mow (spelling?) crawled up in my lap. Her favorite color is pink so every time there were pink fireworks I would whisper in her ear that I arranged those special for her. I could slowly feel her relaxing into my lap, her head nodding off, and before long, even the excitement of Fourth of July couldn’t keep the three year old awake. After all, it was almost 10P.
As I clasp my hands around her round little tummy so she wouldn’t slid off my lap, I thought, this is why I moved here. To share these moments with my community, to have my neighbors gathered around me, celebrating special events, to reconnect to people, heck to my own life. Yep. This is why.
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