I've never been there.

[tinyjo]

Fireworks always make me feel oddly melancholy and nervous but I don't understand why. On one level I know it's because the sounds remind me or make me think of the sounds of a city of war. Sitting at home on November the 5th I think of Sarajevo, of the destruction of streets, of the TV footage of war reporters in the hills watching the city being destroyed. This is what war would sound like, I think.

What I don't understand is *why* it has such a strong effect on me. I wasn't young enough to be hugely impressionable at the time of Bosnia, 10 or so by then if I remember correctly. Or is that still an age at which fears are formed? Or was there another conflict in my earlier childhood? One that I was too young to remember the name of, but remember the sound of perfectly? Help me out, you older people.

Comments

fear the skies

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Are you too young to remember the Falklands War? In 1982 it dominated the BBC, war coverage like there had never been war coverage before, and everyone appalled but glued to their TVs, unable to look, unable to look away, I'm sure I remember crying about that -- the ship that sank, and all those people and animals dying. Then there's the bomb scares -- we've seen a fair amount of Ireland and London blown up, one way and another, and all of that has over the years got tangled with our grandparents' memories of the blanket bombing campaigns at the end of WW2, and our/our parents years of waiting for the nukes to fall and start WW3.

But perhaps whatever's scaring you happened in a nightmare, which is why (I think) fireworks don't scare me, but the sound of something large striking does. It's not like the airborne bangs of fireworks, it's a ground-bourne, flesh-felt sound you feel low in your body, through your feet. I've only heard it once, and that wasn't especially scary (a car crashing into the building I was in) but my reaction to the noise was out of all proportion. So I suppose that once I dreamt of being bombed, and that was the noise that I heard.

Re: fear the skies

[sparkymark.livejournal.com]

The Falklands reporting wasn't very visceral: Thatch banned front-line reporting as that is what turned the tide of support during the Vietnam conflict. Jo was very tiny then anyway. The second gulf war (the American one rather then the Iran/Iraq war, which was referred to as the gulf war at them time as can be heard on the radio in "Edge of Darkness") had more televised fireworks over Israel, in 1990.

I got humiliated at a fireworks party Novmber the 5th 1987, which took me several Novemeber the 5ths to get over, but I'm OK now.

Re: fear the skies

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

God, Thatcher was scary, wasn't she? Fireworks have *nothing* on her gargoyle face. You're right about it not being visceral, but that didn't stop it getting to me. My father (and some of my teachers) were very enthusiastic conservatives so it was a bit of an education about nasty grown-ups, too ...

Re: fear the skies

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

God, Thatcher was scary, wasn't she?

Yes, yes and yes again. In fact, she's still scary now when they manage to wheel her out. When ever I see her these days I think of a wicked witch in a fairy tale.