I have officially declared this the first day of Summer in central Alabama. I just looked out the back window and saw them moving around, low to the ground, hovering above the tall grass in the gathering dusk like fairies in a bedtime story.
Lightning bugs. At least that's what we called them where I come from. Maybe you called them fireflies.
For some reason I've been waiting on them this year. Impatient and wondering when they would appear. Longing for them. Maybe it's just a part of getting old, a nostalgia for days of less trouble, when I can't remember having worries or cares of any kind. Hard play and sweet sleep. Skinned knees and endless Summer vacation. The next school year as distant as heat lightning way off to the South, and about as important in the grand scheme of things. The natural rhythm of a boy's life.
I spent a lot of happy hours in Summers of long ago, running through mill village yards around my Granny's house with barefoot cousins, chasing lightning bugs. The best hunts always as a team, a pack, with one person holding the empty pickle jar. Maybe sometimes it was a Mason jar from last year's canning, holes poked in the brass-colored lid with Granny's ice pick. Laughing and sprinting, sometimes as contestants to see who could catch the most, but most times just filling up the jar with flickering light. Trying not to squash 'em, because they made that musky smell on my fingers when I did.
There's a line in a song I like that says "You glorify the past when the future dries up."
Maybe there's some truth to that.
But if it's all the same to you, tonight I'm going to find me a jar and hunt some lightning bugs.
Sounds like fun. Wish I could join you.
ReplyDeleteBut I doubt your future is dried up.
The future isn't drying up, silly. It's getting more fountain-y every day. You'll probably become famous or something, then you can't say anything. And in Heaven, which is eternal, the future never dries up, so just get used to the idea that the future isn't turning into a prune, kay? <3 - Ivey
ReplyDeleteThe French also have a saying regarding how our mindsets change as we age. Roughly translated, it suggests when we are no longer physically capable of vice we suddenly become enamored of virtue.
ReplyDeleteSome people just naturally have a thing for nostalgia. And Mason jars with holes in the lids will always be a part of that in the rural South.