{"id":1056,"date":"2013-07-04T14:57:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T21:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2013-07-04T14:57:52","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T21:57:52","slug":"a-faraway-fourth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/?p=1056","title":{"rendered":"A Faraway Fourth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Evening brings a neighborhood phone tree of yipping dogs, one fierce bark setting off another at intervals. The barks ring out in synchrony with the children\u2019s yells that puncture the air. It\u2019s 10pm, and the sun just set. The sky is a soft steely blue. The cicadas hum in the tall junipers, then stop, until just one is left in the wisteria arbor across the pool. A breeze as gentle as grass blades whispers at the curtains.<\/p>\n

Independence Day is a funny holiday to be across the Atlantic. Like Thanksgiving, its ours and ours alone. No fireworks, no BBQs here in Spain. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner like any other day. The heat pulsed like a July Fourth in Northern California, but the sweetish smell of sparkler smoke did not fill our lungs tonight. When Basil is older, maybe we will do something special for the Fourths we spend here.<\/p>\n

Today, we swam instead. In and out of the pool before lunch, then again before dinner. Basil was uncertain about the water. His small body clung to me at first. We hadn\u2019t been in a pool since last summer. But then he warmed up to it. His abuelo grinned at him, and swam to the end of the pool and back, blowing bubbles and making him giggle. In a moment of excitement, Basil lunged from my arms towards his abuelo, dipped his face in the water, and came up crying in surprise.<\/p>\n

This is why we\u2019re here. For afternoons like this. So Basil can feel his abuela\u2019s love as he gets wrapped in a bright green towel by the pool. So Basil can feel the happiness he causes when he decides to come back in the pool again, lets his abuelo hold him.<\/p>\n

The shadows deepen now, the street lights click on, and the last cicada falls silent. I can hear only silence now, a hum of soft crickets in the distance. The children have gone inside, for their late Spanish dinners, then bed. Just one child across the scrubby meadow calls out now, setting off the dogs again. I lean back and feel my dress get soaked from a wet pool towel hung to dry on the chair behind me. The air still hangs heavy with the day’s heat, so it will dry soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evening brings a neighborhood phone tree of yipping dogs, one fierce bark setting off another at intervals. The barks ring out in synchrony with the children\u2019s yells that puncture the air. It\u2019s 10pm, and the sun just set. The sky is a soft steely blue. The cicadas hum in the tall junipers, then stop, until […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,33,86,21],"tags":[88,121,89],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1060,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions\/1060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfieldnotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}