july 4th: a retrospective

independence day typically defines a new year for me. new year's day always felt too anticlimactic, a cold afterthought tacked onto the end of a gluttonous christmas season. but independence day, signifying the birth of our national consciousness, always filled me with a similar hope about the coming year as the fireworks exploded over me and my family, our bodies recumbent in the cool summer grass. i spent this year on the shores of santa monica next to the pier, drinking wine with one of my best friends from college and watching firework displays occurring down the southern california coastline. the fireworks this year felt like pinpricks, their light eclipsed by the glow of neon from the pier which lit the ocean with an eerie effulgence. it felt appropriate to my current state of living. here i was, staking out my meager picnic blanket shelter at the edge of a desolate ocean with one other human being, our existence submerged beneath a towering hodgepodge of plastic lights, our eyes feverishly watching the fireworks crackle in the distance.