Bravery Before the Boom

One of the more useful, and occasionally hilarious, principles of physics is that light travels faster than sound. This is important when you are a kid at a fireworks show because it provides a perfect little window in which to be brave before the evidence arrives. The rocket goes up. The sky opens. Every adult around you has spent the last two hours calling this the event of the summer. There are blankets on the grass, glow sticks in small hands, folding chairs arranged with territorial precision. Everyone is looking up. This is it.

Then the first streak climbs into the dark and turns the child's face into a tiny billboard for wonder. For one clean second, there is only light: red, white, blue, gold, whatever color the people who sell fireworks have decided will best honor the municipal budget. The kid is radiant. Mouth open. Eyes huge. Entire nervous system volunteering for joy. You can practically hear the thought: I was right to come. This is what summer is. I am built for this.

And then the sound shows up like it does not need a warrant and is kicking the door down.

It is a split second, but it is priceless. You get to watch the whole emotional cascade happen in real time. The first flash says, Amazing. The boom says, Absolutely not. The child who was standing on the blanket with the confidence of a small emperor is suddenly folded into a parent's leg, hands over ears, looking betrayed by the entire concept of celebration. There is no graceful transition. One moment they are illuminated by the glory of the ramparts. The next they are evaluating whether the family vehicle is still unlocked and whether its cup holders could provide refuge.

Adults laugh because it is funny. We should be allowed to laugh, gently, because the speed of the reversal is objectively incredibly hilarious. But it is also a remarkably fair response. The kid was not wrong during the flash. The information available at the time was excellent. It looked beautiful. It looked safe from a distance. It had color and drama and a crowd full of people clapping like they had personally arranged the sky. What the kid had not yet received was the rest of the data.

That is the part worth keeping. Bravery before the boom is not fake bravery. It is provisional bravery. It is the kind you have when the future is still mostly light: a new job offer, an invitation to speak, a conversation you have rehearsed in your head, a project that sounds exciting right up until somebody says, 'Great, when can you start?' We love the flash. The flash is possibility. The flash is the part where a thing is still only a story about who we might get to be.

Then the sound catches up. The actual workload. The room full of people. The responsibility. The paperwork. The part where the new thing has a price tag, a deadline, and a consequence. Suddenly, what looked like a beautiful streak in the sky has a body-level impact. It rattles the folding chair. It changes the shape of the evening.

A lot of people confuse that moment with failure. They think the fear that arrives after the first real consequence means the earlier excitement was naive. Sometimes it was naive. That is not a crime. Most worthwhile things require a little optimism before the full report comes in. Nobody starts a family, a business, a career change, a creative project, or a home improvement job by first reading every available account of the thing going sideways. If we did, nobody would ever buy a ladder.

The better question is what you do after the boom. Some kids decide they are done with fireworks forever, which is an understandable position and frankly one that deserves a small amount of respect. Some need to watch from farther back. Some want noise-reduction headphones but still insist on seeing every burst. Some climb into a lap and remain deeply suspicious while also refusing to miss the finale. Those are all versions of learning. The child is not being asked to become a different child. They are being asked to gather better information and choose a position from which they can stay in the experience.

That is a useful adult skill too. When the sound arrives, we do not always have to prove that we are unaffected. We can move back five feet. We can put on the metaphorical ear protection. We can ask for help, reduce the scope, sit beside somebody steadier, or watch the big thing from the car for a minute until our body catches up with the fact that nobody is actually under attack. There is no medal for staying exposed to every boom at full volume.

The best part of a fireworks show is watching a kid make that adjustment. After the first blast, there is usually a period of negotiation. They watch the next rocket with one ear covered. They look at the parent instead of the sky. They announce that they are brave, which is both true and a request for confirmation. Then, maybe around the third or fourth burst, they start to understand the sequence. Light first. Sound after. Surprise, yes. Danger, no. The sky is loud on purpose.

That knowledge does not make the fireworks quiet. It does not make the boom less of a boom. But it gives the child a way to place the sound inside a pattern. And once something has a pattern, it becomes easier to live with. You can still hate it. But you are no longer standing in the dark waiting for the universe to reveal whether it intends to hurt you.

Maybe that is the life lesson hiding inside the municipal fireworks budget. The first flash is not the whole truth, but neither is the boom. Excitement without information can get you into trouble. Fear without context can send you running from something you might have loved with a little distance, a little preparation, and somebody's arm around your shoulders. The work is learning to let both signals count.

So when the next thing lights up your face, enjoy the flash. Let yourself be briefly, gloriously ready. And when the sound arrives, do not shame yourself for flinching.

Cover your ears, find your people, take one step back if you need it. Then look up again because the sky may still have something beautiful to show you.