I Think the Fireworks Lied to Me: Examining What Dazzles and What Devours
(or why we should always talk about Bruno)
BOOM.
The sky fills with red, a burst of light so bright it stains the clouds.
Crackle.
A whip of sound tears through the air. Someone gasps. A dog whines.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Children cheer. Grown-ups murmur “wow.”
I tilt my head back and stare, the fireworks unraveling above me like some divine ribbon—red, white, and blue, choreographed to nostalgia and national pride.
BA-BOOM.
The kind of sound that rolls through your chest like a bomba drum—calling your ancestors to dance, or to run.
The spectacle slaps you awake like your abuela’s chancleta flying across the room to teach a lesson: swift, unexpected, and oddly full of love.
And I think: This is enchantment.
Not the fairy tale kind, but the kind that grabs your senses and won’t let go.
The kind that wraps itself around your mind before you can name it.
Dazzling.
Disastrous.
Dammit.
My mind wanders ahead to ruin the moment.
I ask:
What does the sky look like over Iran tonight?
Do they feel this same thunder?
Do they flinch instead of cheer?
Are they enchanted, too?
If so, what kind of enchantment is that?
We are,
I think,
Wired for wonder.
Built to be stunned by the scent of ripe mango peeling open in your hand.
The warmth of good socks fresh from the dryer.
The awkward way your dad laughs too loud at the joke in the theater.
A child’s giggle.
Bluey and his oddly profound life lessons.
The small, holy crackle in space and time when your partner finds the right nickname for you - but it’s only when she says it. No one else.
A beam of light through a dusty window.
The smell of your abuela’s arroz con gandules cooking a little too long in the pot.
Or whatever dish brings you that home-cooked feeling.
That moment when everyone at the table laughs
at the same time
and you aren’t even done telling the story.
Your heart leaps.
Your chest pounds.
And everything in you says:
Yes.
This.
More.
Psychologists call this awe—a moment of vastness that shifts your sense of self and makes you feel connected to something bigger.
And research tells us it’s good for us.
It calms inflammation.
Enhances generosity.
Lowers narcissism.
Turns out, beauty isn’t a luxury.
It’s an immune response.
But here’s the trouble:
If we are wired for wonder, we are also easily enchanted.
And enchantment, like any good spell, doesn’t always come with consent.
We’re vulnerable to spectacle. To illusion.
As my mom often said—“Y todo que brilla no es oro.”
Not everything that glitters is gold.
Because we ache to belong.
Because we need to believe
To believe that the world is ordered.
That it’s safe.
That someone, somewhere, knows what they’re doing.
Because we long for magic
but too often settle for the sleight of hand.
For a trick. An illusion.
And so:
We fall for nationalism dressed up as pride.
Propaganda that sounds like certainty.
Spiritual bypassing packaged as peace.
We get enchanted by power.
By control.
By systems that promise safety and ask only for our silence in return.
Sometimes, enchantment is the spell that heals.
It conjures wonder, awe, even transcendence.
Other times, it’s the one that numbs us just long enough to forget we’re being devoured.
This is why, honestly,
we should always talk about Bruno.
(If you haven’t seen Disney’s Encanto, you really should.
It’s a movie about family, about gifts, pressure, and the silence that simmers underneath. Plus, the name Encanto can be translated as enchantment, so that makes it a perfect movie to watch after reading this essay.)
In Disney’s Encanto, Bruno is the exiled uncle, the one they refuse to talk about because he’s too strange, too honest, too uncomfortable. He sees the future and not everyone loves what he sees. They build a whole family belief around pretending he doesn’t exist and swear to never talk about him—then sing an entire song about him. Loudly. Repeatedly.
(Which—let’s be honest—is an extremely Latino thing to do.)
They’re enchanted by the image of a perfect, resilient family even as it’s pulling them apart.
That’s false enchantment.
The kind that demands harmony, no matter the cost.
The kind that silences what doesn't fit the story.
Bruno is what happens when we don’t talk about the thud in our chest.
The uncomfortable knowing.
The quiet voice that says:
Something isn’t right.
This enchantment I’m under?
It might not be holy.
We live in a time of false enchantments.
Loud, shiny, choreographed distractions.
From politics. From grief. From each other.
But every now and then
if we’re paying attention
the spell flickers.
The illusion wears thin.
And for a brief moment, we’re able to ask:
Am I being enchanted?
By what?
And what can I do about it?
Because enchantment is music, too.
It has rhythm. It sways.
Sometimes it heals.
Sometimes it lulls us into forgetting.
Maybe the invitation is to listen more closely.
To ask who’s composing the soundtrack.
To notice when the melody moves you—
and when it manipulates.
Not to chase awe for its own sake,
but to let it sharpen our sight.
To notice what dazzles…
and what devours.
Because if enchantment is real,
so is awakening.
And the question isn’t whether you’re under a spell.
The question is:
who wrote the music?
—
*If this sparked anything, a memory, a feeling, a question, let me know. Or just tap the ❤️ so I know you’re out there, too.