Waiting for people behind me to finish boarding the plane for my 9:40 p.m. flight out of San Jose airport, I stared out the window and caught a magnificent fireworks show. It must’ve gone on for half an hour. I was impressed by the firework that goes up in one unit, then sprays red sparks out such that they line up and make a huge heart in the sky. I don’t know how they control the direction of and and distance traveled by the sparks for such a formation. There were 3 of those.

The view below was beautiful after take-off. The brightly lit grid beneath me was punctuated here and there by small circlets of color exploding and glittering as people on the ground celebrated our nation’s birthday. I don’t know why I thought fireworks reached as high as planes fly. From the sky, the fireworks seemed to be tiny mushroom caps right at the city surface. From the ground, the fireworks are gargantuan umbrellas of color, fire and smoke reaching across the heavens. I was relieved to discover this difference, and kicked myself for having my camera packed away in the overhead storage bin so that I couldn’t document my enlightenment.