The Most Real Moments

Fourth of July. I think it’s the holiday of the most real moments.

The people show up.

The sheer amount of vehicles,

Bicycles and scooters and wagons.

The astounding variety of hats,

Baseball hats and cowboy hats,

Striped and star-spangled.

Flipflops and sneakers, and best of all, little bare feet.

Little boys driving their trucks through the dirt on the baseball field.

Little girls twirling in their sundresses.

Messy little faces caked with popsicle.

Boys walking around with their posse, acting like they’re walking-stalks of kindling.

Girls holding each other’s snow cones so they can do cartwheels.

Women wearing their sleeveless tops, not a single ounce of space in their carefree brains to give self-consciousness to their crepe-y arms.

Grandmas dancing with babies, in that back-and-forth sway with a little bounce in the knees.

The red, white, and blue comes in a thousand shades, and we’re all dressed in the same palette,

In the tops and the bottoms, the socks and the overalls, the bicycle streamers and the hair ribbons.

The earring game is strong. Seriously, keep an eye out for the earrings.

What I love most about the Fourth of July is all the human beings.

The people show up.