if and only

The wedding was beautiful and the luscious bits of Song of Solomon quoted. I'm sure most of the climbing the palm tree and taking hold of fruit and making love in fields of flowers among the mandrake went over the heads of the younger ones, but any sense of stress dissolved as I'm less intimidated by the prospect of dressing up (thanks life of peonage!) and there were so many people I haven't seen and missed incredibly that were there from out of town and such, thankfully having no pressure to dance, and got to hear good stories and laugh before ducking out during the revelry to drive home through gorgeous lightning storms.

To have no expectations means that every thrill is precious and unexpected... the walk with a new neighbor down to the water as the sun set, encountering tricked out cars and mafiosi, telling stories of pasts full of unpredictability, ending up as wise older cousin attempting to give future life advice about academia and avoiding the military at all costs. "I love you and don't want you to get blown up somewhere, ok?"

I love summer for nights like these when the blue is so deep I could never replicate the color and the way the heat lightning strobes through the clouds and slices across the horizon over the trees. I drove from west to east and back with Throwing Muses on the radio and the smell of afterburn in my nostrils as the lightning bugs glinted in the grapevines and shadowy figures moved through the smoke, a ghostly spectre in glitter and white booty shorts ran towards my car at the corner of Broadway and 93rd, the fireworks were everywhere.

4th of July is less "whee patriotism" for most people in the almost-hood, though my downstairs neighbor hung up a giant American flag on the front porch, but seeing everyone out and the element of chaos that comes from warm weather and setting things on fire that sparkle and swirl and pop never gets old. I was regretting the lack of travel last year, and now things are unspooling faster than I can see, the movement is welcome.