Launching

The fireworks show went well tonight. I think it may have been our best ever. The large crowd seemed to enjoy it, and I know the firing team did.

Afterward, I obviously looked as exhausted as I felt. Someone asked if doing the show was tiring, and to keep the answer simple, I said, yes.

That wasn't the whole truth.

The work is tiring, but not particularly so. What really takes it out of me is not even the adrenaline rush, though that certainly doesn't help.

What leaves me spent is the sheer emotional and sensory intensity of the show.

When the fireworks are shooting upward, when the sky fills with light, when the thunder of the shots vibrates you to your core, and you're standing right there underneath it all, your senses and your body communicate in a way that bypasses your conscious thought processes. Something more primal happens. Some of us, myself included, scream from time to time. You know at a very deep level that you're in the presence of forces that you may seem to control but that could at any moment turn on you. It's primal, rich, exhilirating, terrifying, exciting, all-enveloping, and ultimately overloading.

I love it.

And, boy, am I tired.