The enchantment of fireflies

When we were very young, the witching hour came every evening in early summer, right around 8:30. We would finish dinner, have time enough for a game or two of SPUD, and then just as the sun was turning in, slipping under the covers of night, the enchanting, alluring, crepuscular, irresistible little beasties appeared. Fireflies. Only we called them lightning bugs back then.

They began the evening's graceful frivolities low to the ground, just a few of them at first. One here; another there. But slowly their numbers grew, and as they did, they rose higher, first shoulder height, then just above our heads, flashing their lights all the while.

It seemed all too perfect. We little ones, who were always too short to see the decadent delicacies over the bakery countertops; too short to reach the cashier's window-well at the movie theater; too short, it seemed, to reach all the good stuff the world was doling out, were just the right height to chase fireflies.

We were, on the whole, benign hunters; the catch-and-release sort. Except when we wanted to see if we could read by the light of a jarful of the creatures. Still, even these unwilling subjects were, after what must have seemed to them a torturous captivity, returned to the wild, apparently no worse for the wear.

This recurring, dusk-bound magical kingdom of cool, dancing lights was short-lived. So it had to be savored fast and furiously. By nine o'clock, the sky turned dark, and we were spent. It was time for bed.

Little did I know back then what I know now: that the show was just beginning.

I now live two houses away from my childhood home. That fact never ceases to amaze me, since the road from there to here covered many thousands of miles. Yet, here I am, decades later, trodding the same soil as those forefather fireflies I chased so many generations ago.

What I love most about the bugs who now share my spot of land is not their early emergence from the ground every evening. Rather, it is their later, lofty flights into the thick boughs of our towering trees. This happens after 9:00 pm, after the first stars are visible, after the children have gone to bed.

At this hour, the fireflies fly way past the outstretched arms of even the tallest adult, flitting amid the branches of our 120 foot beech and poplars.

Our front yard is a small meadow of grass ringed by bowery sentinels. Last night, my husband and I stood in the midst of this modest cathedral, watching the hundreds of fireflies put on their show, lighting up those leafy turrets, silently blinking on and off.

It is this stark combination of visual vibrancy amid absolute silence (save for the urgent calls of the frogs in our neighbor's pond) that is so captivating. It is odd for anything these days, especially anything so dynamic, to be so silent.

But they are, and so were we. We just stood there, as motionless as could be, holding our breath so as not to disturb the graceful drama unfolding before us.

It was enchantment. We were returned once more to that fleeting space of middle childhood we had left so many years ago, the place where the world sparkles and awes. But this time we came with adult appreciation.

After many minutes, filled with the vision of this once-upon-a-time place, we turned reluctantly, oh so reluctantly, and went inside.

(photo source unknown)