fireworks

I don't know anybody who isn't worried about stuff right now

AUGUST 2025: NINE OF SWORDS

This Fourth of July was quieter than usual in my neighborhood. Usually, for a couple weeks leading up to it, and for a couple weeks afterward, the pop-pop of fireworks starts sometime in the afternoon and ends sometime around midnight or 1 a.m. On the actual event, fireworks start at nine in the morning and last until three or four a.m. (Is this legal, you ask? Ha.)

But this year, there were only a few isolated pops, only a few days before and after. I can only assume this has something to do with the current administration’s racist immigration policies; I live in a neighborhood with many Latinos, and I think everybody’s probably trying to keep a low profile.

But on the day of, my neighborhood outdid itself. The second the sun sank, the pops got more intense, more constant. These aren’t the measly fireworks my family bought at the local fireworks stand growing up, either. These are professional-grade poppers I’m pretty sure regular civilians can’t get in the U.S.

We went out back, and watched the fireworks to the west and the northwest. We went out front, and watched fireworks down the street and up the street and a street over in every direction. Our next door neighbors brought out their lawn chairs and beers. You didn’t need to worry about cars, because only fools try to drive through my neighborhood on the Fourth. There’s too many people in the streets, too many live fireworks. Cars can’t get through. It’s like a grand, unpermitted street party, on every block. The government, for that one day, has to give over to its citizens: this is our country, the citizens call.

This is our country, whistled the one that exploded into white shooting stars, twinkling down like a giant willow tree.

This is our country, boomed the green one, extending into endless tails, endless tinier booms.

This is our country, flashed the red, white, and blue one.

All around. In every direction.

Look, you go to the rich neighborhoods for Christmas lights. You come to our neighborhood for the Fourth.

My partner Dani and I stood out on the pavement, arms around each other, watching. We waved to our neighbors, outlines silhouetted against the flashing lights. Teenagers in shorts, bending down, a spark, flip-flopped feet running away fast. BOOM!

A white woman I’d never seen before came out from a house across the road, a few doors down. She stood on her porch and hollered down the street. “STOP!” She yelled. Her voice was hoarse. It was apparent she had tried this earlier, maybe all night. “STAAAAAAAAAAHP!”

Nobody but Dani and me could hear her. The fireworks were too loud. They went without ceasing, BOOM BOOM BOOM. Every color in light overhead, THIS IS OUR COUNTRY.

The lady slammed her door on her way back inside.

Dani and I looked at each other. “Everybody knows to go camping on the Fourth if you don’t like the fireworks,” Dani said. This is true. Most people we know do this, especially the ones with dogs. It’s pretty easy to get a secondhand tent and pitch it on a quiet mountainside somewhere.

“She must be new here,” I said.

I thought about it, all that night, when we lay in bed, flashes of green and red and white and blue coming through the windows, booms louder than thunder. How that woman was raging against something way bigger than her. How she was exhausting herself, screaming at people who couldn’t hear. People who were too busy living, celebrating, taking up the space they so often have to relegate to people like that woman. We fucking love this country and it is ours, the fireworks boomed. Not only yours. Not only his.

Ours.

I mean, I understand feeling annoyed or anxious. The fireworks are loud, and theoretically illegal, and I guess we should all get to go home to someplace that feels safe for us, and often that means someplace quiet.

But there’s a choice here.

I’ve been really worried lately, which is nothing new to anybody who read my last letter. My worries do this: they take the present moment, and grow the worst things into everything, and figure it will be like this or even worse in the future. My worries are the opposite of curiosity, and the opposite of compassion (for myself or anybody else), and the opposite of grounded. They are spiky and unproductive. My worries are hollering down a street at joyful people who can’t hear.

I’m not trying to say we have nothing to worry about, or that this isn’t a stressful time. We all need sleep, and money, and opportunity, and to live in a country where the government actually serves the people. And many of us don’t have those things, and it’s easy to spiral that we never will.

I’m just saying I pulled the nine of swords, which is calling us out a little bit. The nine of swords says, you’re worrying about stuff, but your worries aren’t fact. And this isn’t the end. You don’t know the end, or even all of the present. It could be okay. It could be really good.

What can you control? What can you do? You’ve probably already figured that out, and you’re probably already doing it.

But when you’ve done all you can, stop freaking out. Take a breath. Get out your lawn chair and a beer, and watch the beauty that arises in all the things you can’t control. You might get out of the tiny room your worry puts your mind in, and into a place you can breathe.

BOOKS I LOVED THIS MONTH

Kala by Colin Walsh – I didn’t expect to love this book this much, but it is GORGEOUS and hypnotic.

American Primitive by Mary Oliver – how had I never read a full-length Mary Oliver collection? This is the one that won her the Pulitzer.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue – also, for some reason, didn’t expect to love this as much as I did, but I guess I’m on an Irish authors kick (also once I heard Caroline O’Donoghue talk about how everybody says Irish authors are so prevalent and good because of their history of oppression or something, but really, she pointed out, it’s because Ireland has some of the best governmental financial supports for the arts in the world. USA, take note, please). This is EXCELLENT, and I laughed out loud a LOT.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach – again! Did not expect to love this as much as I did! But I LOVED it, it’s SO good, the hype is warranted!!!!!

North Woods by Daniel Mason – This is very much my jam, I don’t know why I’m two years late to it. (Thanks, Hannah, for passing it to me!) I absolutely love weird non-novel novels where the protagonist is a place and it’s told from a bunch of POVs, including non-human ones (and ghosts!!!!). But I do have a slight grumpy critical note to hit. This reminds me very much of other books I’ve loved, including When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà and Thin Place by Kathryn Davis…and yet this is the one that the NYT put in its top ten and that a bunch of people read and have heard of who are not in MFA programs. It is deserved!! I love this book!!! I only wish the women were getting as much publisher investment, critical attention, and reader interest as the (also very talented and brilliant!) man who did it after them. (If anybody read all three of these or others like this and thinks I’m missing something, please please tell me, I want to know.)

RECENT JOYS

Fireworks on my street

Camping in the mountains by the river with Dani and the dogs

Brunch with my friend Lauren, who is funny and warm and smart and always lifts me up

Burro Days in Fairplay, Colorado, an event in which people race many miles tethered to donkeys of various sizes

Doing what my friend Jen calls a Colorado Day: first a hike, then a paddleboard, then a brewery. With Jen!

Lifting heavy weights, and feeling strong

How I can get any book I ever want to read for free from the library, no matter who I am or what my employment status is, all the time!!!! I can read anything any time!

Coffee with my friend Maddie, when we said we would write together but really we gabbed and gabbed

How I have a great relationship with my family, and whenever I call them they listen to me go on and on about whatever pops into my head. How kind they are. How lucky I am

The comments & texts from you for mountain witch’s return. You kept me going for a week on that alone. Thank you thank you thank you, I’m so grateful for you reading!

xx

Erin