July 4th — by Elazar Aslan

By Elazar Aslan

I love fireworks. I’m not sure where that attraction came from, but I can barely remember a time that I wasn’t in total awe of them. Perhaps it was when I was a child in Iran and we would go, by special invitation, to the American Embassy in Teheran for the July 4th day of festivities. Perhaps it was just connecting the stupendous day of carnival fun and games with the bigger than life fireworks that capped the evening. I don’t know the reason for my intense joy around fireworks. I do know, though, that I’ve almost run out of friends and family that will accompany me to the annual July 4th fireworks in New York City. They just don’t seem to share my belief that standing outside and letting out different levels of grunts and wows and yeses to match the heavenly bursts, is after all, what fireworks are all about.

I would normally attribute their reserve and embarrassment to their upbringing and culture. In this case, though, I have to admit I’m the one who’s a little off on the matter. I’ve come to expect that my attendance at these fireworks spectaculars will always be solo. And no matter how crowded the area is, as the show continues, the radius of space around me will continue to grow. Usually, by the end of the evening, there’s a two to three foot circle of space around me. Remember that this is at a time and place where six inches is seen as the maximum personal space required. The movement away usually starts with parents shielding their children away from me. This does sadden me a bit, but more as a statement of our times than an indictment of me. Nonetheless, I do allow myself this practice of letting go in public, once a year. In fact, one year I overheard a man tell his girlfriend/wife, “Honey, you don’t even make noises like that when we’re in bed!”

One particular fireworks show will always stand in my memory; it was on the West Side of Manhattan in the days that preceded the new home of Macy’s fireworks display over the East River. The whole area was packed as usual, with a crowd that rivals the population of decent sized cities. The excitement was electric and the joint anticipation of joy—free of charge—was once again binding complete strangers together like the one family we truly are. So it was no surprise when, after a long waiting period, every one gasped in unison at the sounds of the first burst; all faces met the sky with smiles and wonderment. My celebration kicked into high gear.

The joy of these events went past just the bursting flames. The easy way that so many people enjoy themselves, the family dynamics, the beauty of strangers acting kindly on behalf of their neighbors, were all part of my joy. In fact, I’ve come to gauge the state of our worldly affairs by how long it takes for this camaraderie to dissipate after the show. Anything less than three blocks is a good indication of societal stress.

In between my skyward meanderings, I scanned the crowd and tried to get the full picture of this year’s mosaic. One scene that caught my eye this particular year was a couple with their two young daughters. I noticed how the father picked up the younger petite girl of about three or four and held her above the crowd so she could have a full view of the colors in the sky. My gaze again drifted upwards and I continued with the moaning and groaning. But I kept returning to that family of four about thirty feet away from me. Sometimes I’d see him tossing the younger daughter up in the air, sometimes noticed him having trouble picking up the older daughter, who looked to be about ten years old.

The booms continued after theses momentary pauses and I returned to the task at hand—releasing with the explosions.

But my gaze kept returning to the family, and I couldn’t help but notice that the father was having trouble holding up his older and much heavier daughter. I was now watching two stories unfold, the one above and the one below. In the sky, great explosions and colors bursting; on the ground, one daughter whisked up with joy, the other laden with disappointing attempts. I saw her facing him, clinging to his neck as he tried to pick her up that way—no good. I saw him kneel as she tried to hold on to his back while he stood up—no good. Regardless of all the failed attempts, every time he put the younger daughter down, the older one wanted to try again. Despite my sounds of ecstasy at the fireworks, this tableau saddened me. I could feel the older daughter’s pain. Not just for this evening, but how discrimination and a subtle sense that there was something wrong with her, something not enough, would probably continue to haunt her until it became a supposed truth—the prison that she would learn to call home.

As the show approached the end, something inside me stirred and almost unconsciously I approached the family. As I got close to them, I put my right hand over my left elbow and made an L. Somehow I remembered a game we used to play as children in Iran where two kids would make a seat for a third child and raise him off the ground. I was trying to build the same seat with her father. Time was of the essence as they were playing the Star-Spangled Banner, the requisite closing song. Her father didn’t have much time to ponder, he just followed directions. As we clasped arms and created a seat for his older daughter, we bent down so she could sit on it easily and we lifted her high above the crowd. She was ecstatic. We were joyous. We started gently bouncing her up. She started singing the Star-Spangled Banner. We bounced her higher. She sang louder. Her exuberance inspired everyone around us to sing. As they joined in, she started belting out the words with full force. As the people around us began singing louder, the people around them began to sing. By the time this girl was singing, “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” the whole place—the whole million strangers—were singing it along with her. I have never heard anything that stirring and that beautiful sung by so many, so spontaneously. It was as if the powerful charge of the explosions in the sky was running through the enormous crowd and connecting us electrically.

* * *

Two strangers held hands and the whole world started singing. I will never again underestimate the force of a single act, powered by compassion.