The Fourth of July has always smelled like something.
When I was little, it smelled like desert dust and hot pavement. It smelled like sunscreen, smoke and whatever kind of trouble children could find when they were handed sparklers, firecrackers and far too much freedom.
Growing up in Grants, New Mexico, the Fourth did not always look like big neighborhood cookouts or crowded city parks. Sometimes it looked like piling into a vehicle and heading out into the desert, where there was enough open space to do the kind of things that probably made perfect sense to adults at the time and would make most of us nervous now.
We fired off model rockets in the sand and watched them shoot into the sky like we were conducting some highly scientific NASA operation. Really, we were just kids in the desert, squinting into the sun, waiting to see if the rocket would come back down in one piece or disappear somewhere into the scrub brush.
There is something about a New Mexico sky that makes everything feel bigger. The fireworks looked bigger. The stars looked closer. The whole world felt wide open.
Then I moved to Oklahoma, and the Fourth changed.
It became less desert and more backyard. Less wide-open silence and more people laughing over each other. It became burgers on the grill, chairs scattered across the yard, children running through grass, someone yelling for more ice, and a pool so packed there were times I’m not sure there was more water than people.
We had Fourth of July parties big enough that the house felt like it had expanded just to make room for everyone. The kitchen was always full. The porch was always full. The yard was always full. The pool was full of cousins and friends and kids jumping in too close to people who were very much not ready to be splashed.
And then, of course, there was volleyball.
Not casual volleyball. Not friendly backyard volleyball. Serious, emotionally charged, familypride- on-the-line volleyball. The first fight was always over who got Popou.
Everybody wanted Popou on their team.
It did not matter how the teams were split or who else was playing. If you got Popou, you felt like you had a chance. If the other team got Popou, you immediately began building your case for why the teams were unfair and needed to be picked again.
He was the kind of person who made everything feel more fun just by being there. He could turn a simple backyard game into something worth remembering years later. It was never just about whether he could still hit the ball. It was about wanting him on your side.
That is the funny thing about memories. At the time, you think you are fighting over a volleyball team. Later, you realize you were fighting over time with someone you loved.
The Fourth also meant fireworks. A ridiculous amount of fireworks.
We did not light a few and call it good. We lit enough fireworks that the front yard smelled like phosphorus for weeks. The morning after looked like a tiny war had taken place in the driveway. There were paper scraps, empty boxes, burnt fuses and little cardboard tubes everywhere.
Somewhere, someone was always holding punk sticks. Someone was always warning the kids to back up. Someone was always saying, “That one didn’t go off,” followed immediately by every mother within earshot yelling, “Do not touch it.”
And then someone touched it.
That smell — the burnt, smoky, chemical smell of a yard after a long night of fireworks — is one of those things that takes me right back. It is not exactly pleasant, but it is familiar. It smells like childhood and summer and staying up late. It smells like a holiday where everyone was sweaty, tired, sticky and happy.
Not every Fourth has been easy, though.
One year, we went to Las Cruces to visit my brother. When we came home, my favorite dog I have ever had was gone.
His name was Koda. He was a Newfoundland and Great Dane mix, which meant he was enormous and gentle and perfect in the way only the best dogs are. He had the kind of presence that filled up a house. Losing him — not knowing exactly what happened, just coming home and realizing he had disappeared — left a hole I still remember.
That is part of the Fourth, too. Holidays have a way of marking joy, but they also mark loss. We remember who was there. We remember who is not. We remember the dog that should have been sprawled somewhere in the shade, the grandfather who should have been picked first for volleyball, the versions of our lives that existed before everything changed.
Last year, the Fourth was different again.
It was my first day home from the hospital after having Jamison.
There were no big parties for me that day. No volleyball. No running around. No staying up late just because the sky was full of sparks.
There was a baby.
There was that strange, tender quiet that comes after bringing a newborn home, when the whole world feels both too loud and too far away. I was tired in a way I did not know a person could be tired. Everything hurt. Everything felt new. The house felt different because he was in it.
Outside, the world was still celebrating. Fireworks were still popping. People were still gathering. The Fourth went on, as it always does.
But inside, I was holding a brand-new life and realizing that the holiday had changed again.
That is what the Fourth of July has become for me through the years. It is not one single thing. It is model rockets in the desert. It is Oklahoma pool parties. It is fighting over Popou. It is a yard covered in firework trash. It is Koda. It is coming home from the hospital with Jamison and understanding, in a completely new way, that time does not slow down just because you want it to.
Every year, the Fourth comes back. But we are never exactly the same when it gets here.
The children get bigger. The dogs get older. The grandparents become memories. The babies become toddlers. The people who once hosted the parties become the people we tell stories about at the parties.
And still, we gather.
We cook too much food. We pack lawn chairs. We watch the sky. We tell kids to back up from the fireworks. We laugh about the old days and try not to cry too hard when the old days feel close enough to touch.
The Fourth is supposed to be about independence, and it is. But for me, it has also become a measure of home. It is a yearly reminder of where I have been, who I have loved and how many versions of myself have stood under the same summer sky.
The desert kid with the model rockets.
The Oklahoma girl at the crowded pool.
The granddaughter trying to get Popou on her volleyball team.
The dog owner missing Koda.
The brand-new mother holding Jamison on his first Fourth of July.
All of them are still there, somewhere, watching the sparks rise.
So this year, I hope you celebrate loudly if you can. I hope you eat the hot dog, jump in the pool, light the sparkler, hug the people around you and take the picture even if everyone is sweaty and someone’s eyes are closed.
Because someday, this Fourth will be one of the old ones.
And you will remember how it smelled.
Be kind to your neighbors, Be kind to your pets, Have a happy and safe 4th of July