Smiling At the Sky

What is it about fireworks that keeps us so entertained?  Is the pyrotechnic power illuminating the sky?  Is it the sheer impermanence of something so beautiful?  Perhaps its the just the apparent magic of all those sparkly things.  Maybe it's all of them.  But for me, the thing that gets me the most - and makes me cry every time - is the connection of the experience.  Millions of us, big, small, rich, poor, happy, sad, millions of us, crane our heads to the sky and watch, enraptured - like small children gazing at what seems like the most amazing thing we have ever seen (no matter how many times we've seen them).  The colors reflected in our eyes, mouths hanging open (I bet a lot of you don't realize how many of us do that during a display), in utter awe...it's almost religious.  For almost 2,000 years.  For almost 2 millenia, we have taken time from our lives to look to the sky and share an experience that is unlike anything else.  For a few moments, relatively, we are all the same, gathered for the same reason, sharing the same experience...in joy, and in peace, as we have done for a significant portion of recorded time.  You can explain it.  You can watch documentaries on how fireworks are designed, assembled, prepared, and launched.  You can study the science.  But the end result, no matter how diagnostic you've been, is always, ultimately, magical and uniting.  And maybe that's the magic that keeps us engaged...