Gratefully, Is What Is Best

We arrived home last night, just at dusk, tired, emotional, anxious after a journey that took hours longer than it should have - the usual snaking snarl of D.C. Beltway traffic - stopped at a light along Tyler Avenue, when J. noticed a firefly land on the windshield. We've been eagerly anticipating their seasonal arrival, impatiently, The Girls peering into each evening, hoping and waiting. And so far, we have been left still waiting. Like the hummingbirds, they have been much, much later than in previous years, so much so that I've gotten worried. Last night it was too late for Z & V, so I promised them we'd sit outside tonight. What I didn't tell them was that I looked, while bringing in carloads of stuff, stood outside the house peering into the evening. And I saw a single blink. I did some research today, which revealed that all 2000 species worldwide are declining; some biologists have even whispered the word: endangered.

For good measure, and because I know a kindergartener who will love it, I have signed us up to monitor fireflies in our neighborhood, with the Boston Museum of Science's annual Firefly Watch. Maybe the winter was not quite right and they really are just delayed this year. At least, I hope so. I cannot imagine a world, a childhood, without the magic of fireflies.

Illuminations

Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

—Robert Frost

This morning Z sat eating a bowl of cereal and I attempted to sweep the dining room around her - V The Toddler has discovered how fun it is to throw food, made worse by the fact that we have spent this summer waging The Battle of the Ants - and in my sweeping, came upon a dead firefly. I said to Z, "How sad," and she insisted on getting out of her chair to look at it, as she likes to do with most creatures, alive or not. I finished my job and grabbed the dustpan to sweep up all the little piles, when she told me, "It's not dead. It's alive." I knelt down to have a closer look and sure enough, she was right. Alive, but barely. Probably too far gone by this point. Z has truly discovered the wonder that is a yard full of flickering fireflies this summer, has in fact gone to bed far to late most nights because she stands in bed watching them out the window, and she was visibly distressed at the plight of this lone firefly. "We HAVE to take it outside," she said, "it needs to go out there." Carefully I collected it in a tissue and placed it into the Invasive Species Jungle that is the backyard. "There," she said. "Now it will be okay because it will find all its firefly friends. Now it won't be lonely anymore because it can fly away and be with them."

I of course didn't have the heart to tell her that I didn't think so, that it was dying (not that she really *gets* death at 3 1/2 anyway). Better to let her believe. Better for me to learn how to believe from her. Better for us all.

Suspended Between Light and Dark

Fireflies in the Garden

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

—Robert Frost

Car-less for a while last night, so I walked to the grocery store for some stuff for this evening's small holiday festivities. There is one experience each year that always makes me smile, always makes me infinitely happy: seeing the very first fireflies of the season.

Everyone, it seems, has a firefly story that also makes me smile, particularly stories of those who are seeing them for the very first time. They're so common where I'm from, that I always take for granted their existence, forgetting that they don't even exist on the other side of this US landscape.

My welsh friend B., upon seeing fireflies, thought for certain she was hallucinating, for there are no fireflies across The Pond (nor skunks, interestingly). She believed she, and only she, was seeing fairies. No one with her at the time made any mention or seemed to notice at all the flickering flashes of light surrounding them. Both intrigued and terrified by the phenomena, B. told me she was unable to confess to anyone what she'd seen until many weeks later.

E., who is from eastern Washington state, discovered his first fireflies during a family vacation back east. He decided that the western US needed a firefly population, so he captured many many of them inside a glass jar with holes poked in the lid. He and his parents were traveling by train. Not a single poor firefly made it even as far as Glacier National Park. E. was devastated.

I feel sad for people who have not seen them, who don't get to see them annually. they are truly one of the only things i've really missed during the times I've lived out west.

Happy Happy Midsummer!

A Breeze Tentatively Comes from Somewhere

Reflecting on this seasonal ending, so close that I hold it carefully in the crook of my arm, tending it, willing it to remain, constant and steadfast. My friend E., who is from eastern Washington state, told me that when he was a little boy, he took the train, alone, to the East Coast to visit relatives. It was summer, and his strongest memory of the trip was that he saw fireflies for the very first time (fireflies are perhaps the one thing in the natural world I miss most when I live out west). He was so enchanted that he, like most children do, collected as many as he could in an empty jelly jar, holes poked carefully in the lid. He planned to release them in his own natural environment, so that each summer he would have fireflies all through the summertime. But the natural world is good about knowing what belongs and what doesn't. And the fireflies did not survive the several-day journey. I believe he still hasn't fully recovered from that loss. Nor will I, from the loss of this season of warmth. However temporary.

Reflecting on metaphorical endings. I was reminded recently that in many belief systems, September is considered a beginning, a new year to replace the old. A time when we are asked to reconsider our lives and Selves, to consider what belongs and what no longer fits. In January, the more familiar and traditional beginning, both our spirits and the world are exhausted, spent, filled with darkness and cold. How much more lovely and practical then, to make changes and revisions when there is still some lingering strength, some hint of Light.

Today, a murmured prayer to the Goddess of That Which Is No Longer Useful. to make the right choices.