Eve of memories

For me certain holidays have memories that I never erase.  They become layered over time with newer images and thoughts like a double exposed piece of film.  Back when I used a dark room with family and friends I became somewhat fixated on the process of deliberately double exposing a piece of films to cause specific effects.  The ghostly images of people crossed with scenery or stark emptiness colored in various shades of gray captured my mind. 

That is how my thoughts are near holidays.  Driving through the desert on the way to Reno with my family and in the distance all the fireworks.  We drove into towns that littered the way that were completely deserted as if the occupants had all be snatched up.  The music in the distance wherever the town was gave off a feeling that everyone had gone.  Those images forever haunting the holiday for me.  The writer mind already spinning the magical thought, "What if...."

Massive firework display in the sky overhead while a band played fusion jazz on the stage.  My friend and I wandering amidst the scattered picnic blankets and people quaffing wine while softly talking.  The back drop of the ocean and the wind picking up the scents of briny deep mingling with coconut oil, clove cigarettes and Taboo perfume.  Then the heavier percussion of the fireworks as the wind shifted and the scent of burning.  A misfire by the pyrotechnic 'experts' and suddenly the lovely evening was interrupted with screams and hysteria as it began literally raining fire.  My heart racing as my friend and tried to make it back to her car while avoiding stampeding people and bits of red embers. 

Sitting on the edge of a canyon overlooking the fairgrounds in pitch black.  Swatting lazily at mosquitoes that nibbled at me.  The aroma of Off that wasn't working along with the local chaparral odor.  A thick scent of pine, manzanita and odd bits and pieces of brush that drifted up from the canyon floor.  Sitting on the sandstone cliff with my feet hanging off into the nothingness that was below.  Bursting lights a mile or so away at eye level.  A brush of a hand over mine - a friend?  An unknown male trying to catch my attention while I gazed with flutters in my stomach wondering who was he?  Did he live here?  Yet, I was too shy to talk and just took the casual hand trailing gently down my arm in the dark. 

Walking over to a friend's house and going up nearly to the top of the building to watch the pier light up with bursts of light.  Oohing and ahhing in time laughing while the sky is lit up with red, blue and purple always ending with the traditional red, white and blue no matter how long the show lasts.  Seeing the boats in the water of the Atlantic having an ocean view of the display.  Knowing now one of the faces in the crowd I used to share the balcony with is no longer alive.

So goes the layering of my memories of the 4th.