New England Wedding Fireworks – Travel Writing

September 5^th

I meet other friends, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, the next day. The reunion is joyous, festive. None of us can really believe our friend whom we’ve all known for at least fifteen years, is getting married. Time does pass by. We’re getting old, in a way, at our own pace.

We’re still young though.

In the next days there’s a bachelor’s party. A bunch of guys on the Staten Island ferry, downing a case of booze, poppin’. The party continues into the night, on a sailboat in the marina. We part in good spirits. The night continues, with its strange twists and turns.

It ends at noon, around the first precinct, with an interrogation by intelligence services. Sounds like a movie. Plays like real life. I may say no more.

September 10^th

The wedding is near the Cape, in Massachussets. We drive Fanta for its last journey (or is it?). We pass through Providence, where I once lived.

The wedding is, for un-lack of a better word, idyllic. The date chosen is one of imperturbable continuity: 9-10-11. The couple is married in front of a humbly beautiful white arch, laced with vines.

After the buffet and traditional dance, the couple boards a boat and rows out to the horizon, in a merrily fairy-tell-like tableau of happiness.

At night all the young folks gather on the Rock, beachside, overlooking the sea. Cases of beer, magnums of wine, pizza, cheers, laughter, hoots, some people brought fireworks; we all get to enjoy the uncommon and luscious spectacle of the luminous explosives thundering right above our heads, sprawled on our backs, the fireworks’ flickering tails spiral downwards, evaporate before they reach us.

The air is thick with the taste of salt and burned powder; fourth of July powder, not that of war.

The next day we are again blessed with irreproachable weather. In the afternoon, along with a few friends, we borrow a row boat, bask on one of the amiable sailboats anchored in the bay.

The night ends with the sending off of Chinese lanterns, which sail up, up and far away, till they become a bright light in the night, a shiny star, a glimmering speck, till they disappear behind the crease of the world.