Outward and visible signs

The tourist season just kicked into full gear here in Grand Marais. I struggle every now and then to fully see the draw to a place that is this cold year round. But people come, in droves, and the fourth of July is the first big town celebration. There are three parades (trust me it's a loose description) every summer and two nights where there are fireworks.

Last summer I went to all these festivities imagining how much more fun they would be this year. When my husband had arrived, when we were a family. Then it would be so great to be in this town.

I grew up in a fairly small town (nowhere near the size of Grand Marais, but small.) My hometown also had two summer festivals involving fireworks and in Oregon fireworks are legal and families gather on the street to set them off together and enjoy the holiday.  I have many memories that involve fireworks. Whether it was being gathered with family and friends on a curb while someone ran back and forth lighting the small time pyrotechnics, or being gathered in the middle school field with the whole town waiting for the big show.

I also have a few memories, mostly from high school,  one where I was walking home alone one fourth of July, watching all these families gathered, looking happy and together, enjoying the fireworks and each other. And a few memories where instead of being in that field alone, or tagged onto someone else’s family I just stayed home and watched the fireworks from our living room window.

Last year, as I sat in the living room of the tiny apartment Esme and I lived in, watching the fireworks, alone, it brought back a bunch of those memories. Only this time I thought of what I was building for my family and how much better this year would be. When we were all together, and all the loneliness would be worth it because finally I wouldn’t be watching fireworks alone, through a window.

Well I hate to say it but fireworks have always been very symbolic for me. They’ve always been something families do together. A very visible, blowing up loudly and brightly in the sky kind of visible, symbol of all that families are supposed to do together.

And I spent so many years waiting to have a family so that I could sit on a blanket with people who were mine and watch those fireworks loudly proclaim to everyone that I was not alone.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a beautiful amazing daughter and when she’s older we will huddle together on a blanket freezing our asses off and enjoying the show.

But tonight, here I sit, in my living room, and before I know it there are the fireworks. Another year, where they are there outside my window, reminding me loudly that I still don’t have it. That somewhere along the way I made the wrong choice and no amount of sacrifice or strategic planning could redeem it.

I may just have to decide that at home, under a blanket cozy on my couch is really the best way to watch fireworks, maybe I’ll just always have to make sure my living room window has a decent view of the night sky.