While my dear Marie was waking half a world away to the sounds of birds chirping in a beautiful garden finally re-adopted by Cape Dwarf Chameleons, I made a split second decision to finish the year the popular way and ran out the door with my camera to go see the Prospect Park New Year’s fireworks.

Having found a spot away from the crowds on the eastern flank of the Great Lawn, I setup the tripod and aimed my wide angle lens nearly upward, as the shooting gallery had been set on the grass only a couple of hundred feet away.

I waited along with a cheering crowd, counting down and pondering this strange human need that makes us set markers in time, around which we slalom like skiers on a double black diamond slope, ever so out of control, comforted by the tough ones left behind but already worrying about the tougher ones to come.

Then the fireworks started and I looked up. I had expected the usual palm tree-shaped displays carved by distance and gravity. Instead I got perfect flowers, opening right above my head. I wondered how high they were and like the chameleon himself, wished I could climb up and seek refuge far off the ground for the night to come.

(To give an idea of the angle, the zenith is about two thirds from the bottom of the pictures.)

Happy New Year, hence, to all of mankind, this day being a small step towards a leap.