Entry tags:
glory :: josh (crossposted to ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
drabblemania)
Every year when I was growing up Uncle Dan and Aunt Marian would have a huge fourth of July party. Me and my mom and dad, my uncle Mike and aunt Maureen, uncle Dan and aunt Marian, and all my cousins. It was about ... a dozen or more people? Yeah. My uncle Dan had this ranch just outside Missoula - seriously, barns and corrals and the whole nine yards, it was really something. Well, he didn't have any horses or livestock or anything ... but he had all the stuff. Uncle Dan was a great stuff collector. You know. Cowboy hats, chaps, guns. Lots and lots of guns.
But yeah, I was talking about the fourth of July.
Every year we'd have food - buckets of food, macaroni salad, fried chicken, burnt things on the barbecue. Uncle Dan, of course, being chief grillmaster, because it was his grill. Of course, my aunts had to do all of the rest of the work, and he got all the glory - my mother spent her time as far away from uncle Dan as possible. I remember once she ended up driving halfway to Helena just to calm down.
I think that was the time he wanted to know when she was going to quit her job and 'do what women were supposed to do'. Whatever that was. I think he meant stay at home and raise kids ... but I also remember being about thirteen at the time, so it didn't really make sense.
Of course, neither did uncle Dan.
But I was talking about the Fourth of July.
After dinner and my Aunt Marian's flag cake and the usual three or four beers, there was always fireworks - sparklers for the little kids, and a big show for the rest of us.
The time that sticks out most in my head I was about fourteen. My littlest cousin - Kaylie - was about three. She was a late walker, I think, so she'd only fairly recently learned to toddle around. Yeah, three.
Someone - I'm not sure who - gave her a sparkler. She just sat there, staring, terrified of the thing ... I remember her eyes, huge and blue and round, and she started to cry. I mean, you're holding fire in your hand.
Poor kid. She had to go inside ... I don't remember what happened after that, but uncle Dan was seriously pissed off, and Kaylie went to bed early for some reason.
I don't want to think about this.
Did I tell you about the day I flew into Tibet?
It was a little three-seater plane ... held together with duct tape and spit, the pilot spoke about eight words of English, and the turboprops were so damn noisy that I could barely hear myself think, and I was trying to remember if I'd written up my will. Which I hadn't ... so I was fumbling around in my backpack looking for paper and a pencil and hoping that we didn't go down in a ball of fire, because then writing this out would be basically pointless.
The plane banked over to the right and I nearly fell out of my seat and my backpack slid across the plane, and I had to scramble to get it ... and I caught a glimpse out the window.
It was right then that I was totally convinced that there had to be a God. Somewhere. Something as beautiful as the Himalayas had to be created by something - a row of white, stunning peaks, stretching off into the distance. I can't even describe it. But there's something more than just ice and snow and rock. Those mountains have a soul.
And that? That's glorious. Better than fireworks any day.
But yeah, I was talking about the fourth of July.
Every year we'd have food - buckets of food, macaroni salad, fried chicken, burnt things on the barbecue. Uncle Dan, of course, being chief grillmaster, because it was his grill. Of course, my aunts had to do all of the rest of the work, and he got all the glory - my mother spent her time as far away from uncle Dan as possible. I remember once she ended up driving halfway to Helena just to calm down.
I think that was the time he wanted to know when she was going to quit her job and 'do what women were supposed to do'. Whatever that was. I think he meant stay at home and raise kids ... but I also remember being about thirteen at the time, so it didn't really make sense.
Of course, neither did uncle Dan.
But I was talking about the Fourth of July.
After dinner and my Aunt Marian's flag cake and the usual three or four beers, there was always fireworks - sparklers for the little kids, and a big show for the rest of us.
The time that sticks out most in my head I was about fourteen. My littlest cousin - Kaylie - was about three. She was a late walker, I think, so she'd only fairly recently learned to toddle around. Yeah, three.
Someone - I'm not sure who - gave her a sparkler. She just sat there, staring, terrified of the thing ... I remember her eyes, huge and blue and round, and she started to cry. I mean, you're holding fire in your hand.
Poor kid. She had to go inside ... I don't remember what happened after that, but uncle Dan was seriously pissed off, and Kaylie went to bed early for some reason.
I don't want to think about this.
Did I tell you about the day I flew into Tibet?
It was a little three-seater plane ... held together with duct tape and spit, the pilot spoke about eight words of English, and the turboprops were so damn noisy that I could barely hear myself think, and I was trying to remember if I'd written up my will. Which I hadn't ... so I was fumbling around in my backpack looking for paper and a pencil and hoping that we didn't go down in a ball of fire, because then writing this out would be basically pointless.
The plane banked over to the right and I nearly fell out of my seat and my backpack slid across the plane, and I had to scramble to get it ... and I caught a glimpse out the window.
It was right then that I was totally convinced that there had to be a God. Somewhere. Something as beautiful as the Himalayas had to be created by something - a row of white, stunning peaks, stretching off into the distance. I can't even describe it. But there's something more than just ice and snow and rock. Those mountains have a soul.
And that? That's glorious. Better than fireworks any day.