End of the Year in Hawaii
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. My wife and I will spend the night at a nearby resort to keep away from all the smoke of the "traditional" Hawaii New Year's Eve celebrations. Two of our children will stay home to keep the dog from losing her mind during the three to four hours of firecrackers, fireworks & sky rockets (which are illegal but, who pays any attention to that!) that begin around 9:00 pm and build to a deafening crescendo at around 11:45 pm. One local tradition is setting off what is called a string of "10,000 firecracker." Actually, these long bundles have only around 7500 firecrackers each but they pack a wallop when they go off. They are strung up in the air on improvised mini-booms and lit from the bottom. Like a long popping, exploding fuse the crackers burn to the top where a small bundle of concentrated gunpowder goes off with a flash and a roar. I have seen the more serious celebrators tie two or more of these together with duct tape to enhance the thrill.
Although this photo was taken in China, you get the idea...
Walking through our neighborhood is like walking through a war zone (minus the lethality, of course). Smoke fills the streets in some places so thickly that cars can no longer see past their front bumper. Personally, I think it's kind of fun, in an antinomian, anarchistic sort of way! Although my three daughters are more of less ambivalent over the fireworks they at least enjoy the evening. My wife, however, finds that the smoke and noise causes her asthma to flare up. So, most years, we find a local resort and spend the night breathing some clean air in a calmer atmosphere.
I guess I'm sentimental but I like the idea of dividing time up into relatively short, yearly increments. In a sort of formal ritual, the past 12 months are relegated to history and the coming year enters with a clean slate, full of empty space and time to be filled with new tragedies and triumphs which will draw out both the best and worst that is within us.
The current crises of Iraq (with the upcoming elections) and the continuing tragedy of the South Asian tsunami will link past and future together in a way that will make the end of this year seem less final than usual. December 31 will slide seamlessly into January 1 and there will be sort of a blurry overlap between 2004/5.
If the past is any predictor of the future, my wife will fall asleep around 10 pm tomorrow night. I will stay up, quietly watching Dick Clark's evil twin, Regis Philbin, provide the necessary incantations to begin the sacred ritual of the "dropping of the ball" in New York's Times Square. Most years I have already seen this five hours earlier due to our mid-Pacific time zone. Instead, at midnight, I will probably be walking around the resort, listening to whatever distant sound of firecrackers are carried on the evening Trade Winds. I will then offer a short prayer of peace and thanksgiving to God, remembering our troops overseas, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the millions of people suffering loss, uncertainty and instability in the wake of the tsunami.
In the morning I will awake, pack up, return home and watch football for the rest of the day, waiting eagerly and expectantly for the University of Oklahoma football team to celebrate their own ritual of the "dropping of the ball." Go USC!
Although this photo was taken in China, you get the idea...
Walking through our neighborhood is like walking through a war zone (minus the lethality, of course). Smoke fills the streets in some places so thickly that cars can no longer see past their front bumper. Personally, I think it's kind of fun, in an antinomian, anarchistic sort of way! Although my three daughters are more of less ambivalent over the fireworks they at least enjoy the evening. My wife, however, finds that the smoke and noise causes her asthma to flare up. So, most years, we find a local resort and spend the night breathing some clean air in a calmer atmosphere.
I guess I'm sentimental but I like the idea of dividing time up into relatively short, yearly increments. In a sort of formal ritual, the past 12 months are relegated to history and the coming year enters with a clean slate, full of empty space and time to be filled with new tragedies and triumphs which will draw out both the best and worst that is within us.
The current crises of Iraq (with the upcoming elections) and the continuing tragedy of the South Asian tsunami will link past and future together in a way that will make the end of this year seem less final than usual. December 31 will slide seamlessly into January 1 and there will be sort of a blurry overlap between 2004/5.
If the past is any predictor of the future, my wife will fall asleep around 10 pm tomorrow night. I will stay up, quietly watching Dick Clark's evil twin, Regis Philbin, provide the necessary incantations to begin the sacred ritual of the "dropping of the ball" in New York's Times Square. Most years I have already seen this five hours earlier due to our mid-Pacific time zone. Instead, at midnight, I will probably be walking around the resort, listening to whatever distant sound of firecrackers are carried on the evening Trade Winds. I will then offer a short prayer of peace and thanksgiving to God, remembering our troops overseas, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the millions of people suffering loss, uncertainty and instability in the wake of the tsunami.
In the morning I will awake, pack up, return home and watch football for the rest of the day, waiting eagerly and expectantly for the University of Oklahoma football team to celebrate their own ritual of the "dropping of the ball." Go USC!
posted by Bird of Paradise at 5:25 PM
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