Of Fireworks, Spiders, and Wendell Berry

I am a peaceable person. There are very few things, outside of systemic social injustice, that can really get me rattled. One of those things is loud noises.

Photo by Julie Tupas on Unsplash

I really dislike fireworks. Even the big displays with the coordinated music and artistic displays make me anxious. All that debris has to fall somewhere. It’s completely uncontrolled by anything but gravity and wind and —

Wait a minute — which way IS the wind blowing? What is that in my hair and for the love of the ages IS IT ON FIRE?

So, on the evening of the 4th of July this year, you would think I would be hyperaware that my neighborhood’s annual festival includes a fireworks display, and that those fireworks are staged less than a block from my apartment. Of course I forgot.

I started driving home from my partner’s house at around 10pm, with little burst of firecrackers and bottle rockets all around. I was nursing an honesty hangover. We had just watched Brene´Brown’s “Call to Courage” and had a long talk about the show and about ourselves. We got good and vulnerable, just like Brene´said. We eventually got down to the sweet, luscious center where everything is good, but not before we scattered around a bunch of layers of anxiety and fear that still clung at the edges.