• The moment I get outside, I know the camera dangling from my hand is going to be nothing more then an accessory. Swaying slightly on the gravel that makes our driveway, I pick my footfalls in the blue-gray light, seeking the best places to step.

    Barefeet padding on the pavement, I watch the skyline for any sign of the festivities I can hear all around me, crashing, banging, exploding with the ooo and aahss I know to be painted on the mouths of those watching it.

    But like a phantom specter, all I can do is know its happening. There is no lights, no crowds, nothing that takes this darkened trailer park street from its place in the country, from any other summer night, save the orchestra of celebration that rings out above the trees that block my view of the burning lights that fill others eyes.

    If it wasn't for this.. this holiday, i know that knowing I have nothing more then I do any other day, nothing less, I would be content out here. The grass, only slightly stiffened by the recent lack of rain, presses against the bottom of my feet, a reminder of my mothers wishes for storms tonight.

    Not because, as you may think, that the farmers need a good drenching to save their crops, but instead because my mother loathes this day above almost any other.

    She hates noise. She hates sounds. She prays for the day she will go deaf. At times I'm shocked she hasn't taken a fork, snapped off three of the tines and done it herself, instead of waiting for age to do it for her.

    And if it had rained.. there would be no fireworks, like the ones exploding unseen around me.

    But I.. I love all the different things the world has to offer. Without sound, I would lose so much.

    Standing on the cement left from the trailer that use to stand between us and the neighbors, I search the sky again, the only fireworks I see are those provided by nature.

    Fireflies dot the forest like forgotten Christmas lights in July, blinking and fading as the bulbs cling to their last moments.

    Its beautiful.

    Its perfect.

    Abandoning the want of the colors of the holiday, I sit and instead watch the beauty on a cool summer night in the country, cicadas and bullfrogs my soundtrack to the moment, if I can fade out the sound of the fireworks miles away.