Big time 1997. Among hundreds and thousands pushing shoulder to shoulder we inched our way to the car-free highway. Magnificent neon lights reflected on dark water murky brilliant Victoria Harbour. We waited for the thundering discharge of flaming flowers from six or seven barges. Big roars synced with pyro-music one after another, and another. The night canvas splattered bright with gigantic chrysanthemum…willow…crossette…horsetail and legs of thousand spiders. A hesitant child running back to his mother. There's always reasons for fireworks celebration isn't it? For a returned land or a bad runaway year. Long live the country, whichever it is, auld lang syne as old times sung, and remembered.
However, the best firework I recall was the awe-inspiring Sky Ladder. On June 15 two thousand fifteen 4:45 a.m. a fiery ladder rising, burnt in a dawn sky 1650 feet high two minutes and thirty seconds. Firework wizard Cai Guo-Qiang dedicated the spectacular display to his beloved grandmother, who could only watch from the cell phone on her sick bed. The hundred-year-old woman would ascend to heaven to a life of immortality just one month after.
Memories are infinite mirrors of fireworks. For a decade, every first day of July we watch fireworks from a long narrow window out of the third floor of a centennial old house we now call home. Humble explosives shot up a few stories high from our neighboring houses. Still creates wonder, still arouses our cat Suki lounging on my lap with wild glowing eyes. I try to tell him it's Canada Day. History, big or small, he knows nothing nor care for any. Just bewildered.
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| Photo: Iris Lee. From Wish You Were Here series: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at AGO, 2018 |
