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!

Duck!

Well, I've been wondering which 14 states are going to be affected by The Great Bug Awakening . No signs yet, but it appears that I have something to look forward to. For some reason, this part is highly amusing:

According to Kritsky, the best time to eat a cicada is just after they break open their youthful skin. "When you eat them when they're soft and mushy, when they come out of their skin, they taste like cold, canned asparagus," he said.

Shall We Agree That Just This Once

Although the skies are heavy and dark today, the air is only lightness and warmth. I am barefoot in a floaty spring skirt (yes, on 'casual Friday'), impatient, ever impatient for summer. So close I can almost taste, teasing, lingering, on my tongue, just for today. Summer: the only time of year that really matters to me. I said last night (as I do again, and again, and again), that I still dream of a place that is filled with endless summer. I love the metaphorical possibilities of this time of year, the hopeful promise and possibility for changing what one once was into something else entirely. Longing for the perennial shedding of myself, both literal and emotional, the casting aside of everything that binds, contains, and no longer belongs in and of my world. The boundless, faithful leap into the comforting unknown. In my mind, that unknown is always a day like the summer Solstice, a day of perfect balance and light. A memory: some useless French lit class, Bloomington, Ballantine Hall, Spring, 1991. In a sudden fit and without warning, winter disappears almost instantly. I make the mistake of making my seat by the open window, can see people playing Frisbee with dogs many floors below in the grassy area where Brother Jed sometimes proselytizes when the weather is nice. I wonder where he is today. The air is truly intoxicating and I feel too dizzy and lightheaded to decipher the Passe Simple. I pass Mark E. a note, telling him that I am going to forcibly make him skip our fiction writing workshop to keep me company on the thick, green grass of Dunn Meadow. Today though, memory dissipates into the air, begins the only negative part of this process. For the next two months, I will find myself feeling constantly like I'm falling, dizzy again, unable to concentrate until I can say with certainty that I am ready to begin. I could almost swear the magnolia tree's buds grow larger every day now.

Gutter and Downspout, Rock & Ripped Leaf

The only thing that gets me through the winters here in this part of the country is knowing that summer will arrive. Almost June now, and for weeks, weeks, weeks the temperature has rarely approached even 70 degrees and there is simply rain, rain, and more rain. The ten-day extended forecast remains uninspiring. I keep waiting for a sign, a hint, an omen, anything that promises warmth and sunshine and summer. My toes long for liberation, Gore-Tex makes me feel uncomfortably claustrophobic and I'm tired of contemplating the mysteries of my umbrella. My seasonal affective disorder lingers and I grow impatient. Ever, ever impatient.

Something Like Summer

Eighth floor, big window overlooking the clutter of too much traffic, human and not. Construction on a building in the distance, and the ground in front is covered in filmy, almost transparent plastic. I spend whole days up here thinking of leaving, not leaving, wanting to leave, looking out the window instead, rarely talking to anyone else. Each time I see the building out there, see that pale glint of almost white on the ground, my heart pauses, falters. Every time I am tricked into thinking sometime in the day, while I've been trapped in this cubicle, snow has fallen. I know it's not far off now, those long, long nights and bitter days. I have always dreamed of finding an eternal summer, a place where there is little darkness and much light and life. A place defined only by the warmth of the landscape and of the people who live there. Three times today I was tricked. Three times (and more) that I'm dreaming of a place where there is no snow. Not here. Not yet.