I heard my first summer cicada the other day. The
other-worldly whirring like a didgeridoo has always captivated me – a harbinger
of even hotter days to come as summer peaks. It signals, too, the drawing to a
close of firefly nights, the magical evenings when ephemeral Lampyridae,
the firefly or lightning bug (depending on your geographical linguistics),
recently emerged from its larval stage, flits through the night air looking for
a good time. On firefly nights my husband and I sit out back on our deck; a
comfortable silence fills the space between us as we watch. This rainy summer
has been great for the fireflies, lovers of humidity. They sparkle across the
breadth of the field behind our house, intermittently light up the large white
pines, our green privacy wall, like summer’s own Christmas trees. The cats, my
husband, and I watch, equally mesmerized, as they buzz over our heads, just out
of reach, tantalizing blinks. I resist the urge to get a jar and punch holes in
the lid.
I loved catching fireflies as a child, growing up in
Virginia Beach. The night air was thick with them in my back yard then, just as
now. On the first summer firefly night, as the sun set, Dad would get a hammer
and nail; Mom would find him two repurposed mayonnaise jars. He would place the
lid upside down on the work bench, position the nail on the metal surface and rap
it smartly once or twice. The lid hopped as the nail penetrated. Each lid only
needed a few holes, then my sister and I would each take a jar and add a small
branch, perhaps some leaves, and sweet-smelling white flowers from the Waxleaf Ligustrum hedge that the bugs seemed to love.
We had different techniques for catching fireflies, each
providing varying degrees of success. I preferred to catch them in mid air,
scooping them into the jar from behind and slamming the lid before they could
fly back out. My sister, older and braver, was not afraid to catch them with
her bare hands, cupping them gently until she could unscrew the lid and coerce
the insect to go in rather than take flight. Both methods worked well with the
first bug. Subsequent bugs required that the lid be removed from the jar, which
afforded the first bug a chance to escape. We were up to the challenge, and
when the call of, “Bedtime, girls!” finally came, we took a moment to count our
catch before we ran inside. Then, sleepy after a warm bath, tucked in, and back
tickled, I would fall asleep watching the flicker of my stars in a jar.
Mornings transformed my celestial beings back into bugs. If
they still lived, I usually returned them outside to the Waxleaf Ligustrum so
they could enjoy the flower nectar. Often, the short-lived beetles would be
curled up on the bottom of the jar, dead. Then clueless about the life span of
an adult firefly (which I now know may be as long as three months, but
typically only lasts two or three days) I blamed myself for their demise. I
vowed to do better, picked fresher branches, and punched more air holes.
Eventually I quit keeping them in jars altogether, allowing myself to be
satisfied merely to catch them bare-handed (finally brave enough), cup them
between my hands, and peer through my fingers at the light show. It tickled
when they crawled across my palms, causing me to release them so I could
scratch.
The fireflies started slowly this year, in June, as usual,
but at first, the flickers were few and far between. They have gained momentum
in the passing weeks. I have no way to count the now numerous flashes per
minute. It’s spectacular, and made all the more so by the knowledge that it
won’t last much longer. I’ve been listening for the sound of crickets to
join the usual night noises, and they did a few evenings ago, so the summer’s
getting on. The blinking seems more frantic lately, perhaps the result of
insect mid-life crises.
As adults, fireflies focus on one thing and one thing only:
procreation. They don’t waste time and energy on housing. Unlike other insects,
they don’t build a nest or spin a web. Many of them don’t bother to eat, so no
need to hunt or gather food. Their luminescence sends two messages, one for
fellow fireflies and the other for would-be predators. To the fireflies, the
message is: I’m here, baby. Let’s get it on. But the same light signals to
predators: I taste like crap and I might poison you if you eat me. Neither
message is subtle; nuance escapes the firefly entirely. Given only an average
of 48 to 72 hours to enjoy adulthood, fireflies have sorted out what really
matters to them, and I envy their surety. Heaven knows the adulthood of Homo sapiens is vastly more complex.
But then we humans spend far more time in our adult stage
(assuming we caved in to societal pressures and grew up at all). With the
realities of our fragility kept firmly at bay by one delusion or another, we
convince ourselves we have time to make choices about housing and hunting and gathering, those
necessities of life, and how we attain them. Time to contemplate the wisdom or
folly of procreation and choose according to a sensibility not driven by
instinct and impulse. Time even to move beyond the crass requirements of
survival and create something, follow a flash of inspiration which takes
flight, allowing us to generate more than copies of ourselves: poetry, music,
art, even blogs.
Under a waning Thunder Moon, on a firefly night, a memory from many moons ago of
stars in a jar and the sweetness of summer wakens a muse, and a promise is made,
later. Conversation gives way to a
chorus of crickets and contemplation. Glimmers punctuate each moment, each
humid breath.
