Bare Feet, Hot Meat, and Fireworks

The Patriotic Trifecta

If days were measured with daisies, year in and year out, July 4's chain would wrap itself around the world many times over. From start to finish, it is always feels like one of the longest days of the year. I don’t know if it’s the sticky heat in southern California or the constant buffet of food that steams from its wait on the barbecue that weighs me down by the end of the day, but one thing is for certain: though the fourth of July may feel like a marathon of a day, it never lasts long enough.

I have always been a fourth of July advocate. But I don’t think I really decided it was my favorite holiday until the summer after I turned 20. I think I can chalk it up to three things: bare feet, hot meat, and fireworks.

I was in that transitional period from pre-adulthood to adulthood. I had just finished my junior year in college and I think a small part of me realized that this summer was my last hurrah before life got serious and vacation never meant a full break. That small period of control post high school to pre college graduation was coming to a close and I felt the uncertainty of the future closing in with every ounce of small talk. “What are your plans after college?” And then that pre-graduate bravado and fake confidence would answer with a multitiude of dreams even though they stood on shaky wisps of “plans.” I was going to be an adult and I was not even close to being ready for anything that came with it.

But I was ready for that fourth of July—with my bare plans and bare feet. I remembered that as a child I liked to feel the squish of mud and powdery dirt and slick grass after a rainstorm on the soles of my feet. But nothing was better than the hot, wet concrete around my pool on that fourth of July. My feet could tell the story of my holiday better than any picture ever could as they gathered pieces of my day. Dirt colored my footprints from my house all the way to the pool until the chlorine washed it away. I’d walk inside again and the smell of chlorine permeated the hallways of my childhood home. Walking outside, my footprints created a trail straight to my favorite spot of the day: the barbecue.

My family is all about food on the holidays, but that fourth of July was different. There wasn’t just food, there was FOOD—and lots of it. Juicy hamburgers, endless hot dogs, and more chips than I knew what to do with. ‘Isabella, pace yourself,’ I thought, as bowls were refilled and guests brought more tasty treats to snack on. All early 20's ideas of diets were nowhere to be found. I ate until I was full and then I kept eating because I wanted to taste the salty, forbidden gluttony that is summertime around a barbecue. My grandmother always told me that “eating is an important ritual, whether meager or rich.” Maybe that food really was important because it prepared me for the most important part of the day: fireworks.

My hometown of Redlands, California, boasts a spectacular fireworks show at the local university. The country club in the area also puts on a small display of fireworks. Both of these shows are easily attended and easily viewed from various points throughout the city. The fireworks were shown to be seen and there was no way that you could miss them. And after expending all my energy jumping in and out of the pool and becoming so groggy and full with food that I could barely move, the night came with a sense of calm as I readied myself for the lights.

I think that fourth of July was special to me in my transitional stage because of the consistency it represented. I could walk inside my house with wet feet. I could eat delicious food all day and not be limited in the least. I carry this memory with me. But does this really exemplify what the fourth of July means? Is this what being an American is all about? Patriotism is so easily treated as a mob mentality of sorts. Of course I love my country. But I love it more when I’m around red pants, white shoes, and blue t-shirts. And I love it even more when the sky gets dark on the fourth of July every summer and I can pinpoint this emotion back to that fourth of July when I was 20 — that summer before the downhill tumble of early adulthood and burgeoning independence.

And here is why: there was something about the fireworks.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that they lit up the sky and dazzled against the black background before fizzling into faint embers of a surprise. I don’t know if it was the deafening boom that widened my eyes while setting the stage for the apprehension of that first flash. I don’t know if it was the fact that seeing red sparkles in the night reminded me of my childhood when I played in the mud and chalk-painted my face and thought that every explosion in the sky was a miracle. I don’t know if, in all objectivity, it was anything all that special.

What I do know is that every little sliver of brightness that rocketed upward made me feel excited. And that noise, that crack in the evening silence, that is what told me that I was about to see something amazing. Then it happened. It happened and my breath caught on the beautiful innocence in a firework. Everything was different and my life was changing, but that fourth of July made growing up okay because fireworks could still make me stare.

I love that every fourth of July, I can’t fight the corners of my mouth turning upwards. I love that every fourth of July, millions of Americans are standing and sitting on the ground to look up at the sky. The fourth of July may not be about bare feet or hot meat or even fireworks, but the positivity and unity that each of those aspects encourage create a trifecta of patriotism. I may not review my history lessons in years past, but every fourth of July I am proud to be an American. And every fourth of July, I am grateful for the passing of time.