Last night, after 7 years, I finally made it to KFOG KaBoom! on Pier 30/32 in San Francisco. For those who don't live in the area, KFOG is a local radio station, and a pretty good one at that. Every summer in late May they put on this free event called KaBoom that features musicians playing for free (this year's headliner was Train) and it always ends with a big fireworks display. People all around the bay watch it from their homes, from points near the water, from Treasure Island (in the bay), even from *on* the water (the bay is rumored to be a parking lot full of boats KaBoom night). It's really the best fireworks show in Northern California -- much better than the wimpy, uncoordinated 4th of July version from the same spot.
They had a bunch of fireworks that were new to me: white ones with colored tips that seem like they're coming out of the sky straight for you, bright pink ones that seemed to bounce along the horizon low to the water, and white/yellow ones that shot out of the barges like the carefully coordinated water sprays of the Bellagio fountains while trailing light "dust" behind them. There was one moment choreographed to a Sarah Maclachlan song (all KaBoom fireworks are choreographed to music they play on their station at the same time) when the whole sky from way up high was filled with gold sparks and bursts and streams like weeping willows twisting in the wind. I didn't know fireworks could go so high or that the sky could be saturated with light like that. Sounds hokey, but it was really breathtaking, at least for me. Then all the colors and sounds and lights of the finale -- amazing!
Fireworks have a certain significance for me. I met one of my exes at a birthday party back in '97 at the Berkeley Marina. That's probably the first time I saw KaBoom fireworks, standing on the grass, cold, across the bay.
Before that, though, was another cold moment on Berkeley's marina under the whistles and bangs of fireworks. The summer after my freshman year in college, I went to see the Independence Day festivies with my first love and his friends. We were dating, but he didn't want anyone to know, so I was acting platonically towards him. (That was a huge clue right there to get the hell out of the relationship, but I was young and stupid!) Looking up at the sparks, I was reminded of Edith Wharton's _Summer_, which I read in high school.
In that novella, the female protagonist, a sheltered small-town native, travels to the city with her love interest, a cosmopolitan man living in her town only for the summer. While in the city, he takes her to see the fireworks and they kiss for the first time. Afterwards, in the hustle and bustle of getting through the crowd, she realizes they will never truly be together, they're just too different. He is urban, she too rural; she understands nothing of his world and is ill-prepared to deal with the stresses and politics of urban high society. In her home town, she was the best thing around, but she lacks the fortitude and sophistication to stand against the more worldly women outside her town's borders. At least that's how I remember it.
That July 4th evening, I thought about how I was never going to be what he wanted. He came from an LA neighborhood of millionaires (literally) with ocean view estates. I hailed from a small, unremarkable East Coast town where they still have town hall meetings and my family's house is found on a little stick of a dead-end road off a dead-end road. There were only 3 houses on my street when I was growing up.
It was a really sad moment for me. Yes, he totally broke my heart.
Nowadays when I watch fireworks, I don't wallow in those old insecurities, but I do think about how different my life is. I'm glad I'm not quite so stupid anymore. Above all, I try to remember what it was like to be young even if it did make you more vulnerable to being hurt.
So I think this year's is going to be my last visit to the KaBoom festivities. The main drawbacks are the crowds, the lack of anything to do other than watch whichever performer is playing at the moment or buy overpriced festival food, and the crowds. Did I mention there are an insane number of people who squeeze onto the pier?
I still want to watch the fireworks, but next year I'd like to be on a boat on the water, sipping champagne with raspberries after a culinary feast, watching the lights in the sky above the bay while getting a shoulder massage... One can always dream...
---------------------------------
P.S. You can watch a video of the fireworks from: http://www.kfog.com
The music is better in the video than it was live (technical problems at the beginning of the show made the music go silent a few times, and there were other various sound problems), but the full visual impact just can't be conveyed through digital media. You've got to experience the whole sky light up right in front of you out of the night to know why this was the best fireworks show I've ever seen.
P.P.S. What ever happened with my first love and me? We're friends and have been for several years (that was over a decade ago) even though he was a total jerk for a couple years after we broke up. He gave me a really cute Totoro stuffed toy as a belated birthday present a couple weeks back and when you pull its string out all the way and let go, it vibrates while looking at you with it's lidless big-white-circle eyes -- so cute! If you pull the cord out just a little instead of all the way, he does a short "wiggle & jiggle" dance instead. It's intolerably cute!! Sometimes before I go to bed, I make him dance a bit so I get a good laugh before I fall asleep. :)
