Fireflies

"Make of yourself a light.

Rely upon yourself;

do not depend upon anyone else."

-- Buddha's final words

Firefly with its light on 7-1-14

"Long after the firefly had disappeared, the trail of its light remained inside me,

its pale, faint glow hovering on and on in the thick darkness behind my eyelids like a lost soul."

-- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Firefly with its light off 7-1-14

"We'll leave the light on for you."

-- Tom Bodett

It's that time of year in Ohio when evening fireflies usher in the night with their tiny flashlights.

I thought they flashed their glow-lights -- or bioluminesced -- to communicate complicated messages and instructions to one another through the darkness, you know, messages about food and navigation and danger up ahead.

That's partly true.

Yes, they are communicating. But mostly they're lighting up their glowy little abdomens to attract mates during the mating season.

It turns out that a flashing firefly is a horny firefly.

Last night I captured a couple who were blinking madly, lookin' for love, and put them in a jar (just for a few minutes) to take some pictures of their light-up undersides.

I felt a little voyeuristic, like I was shooting some kind of firefly porn, or seriously invading their privacy, or objectifying them somehow.

So I tried to make it quick.

In. Out. Done.

Then I released them back into the night so they could, as Pepe LePew would say, "commence vis ze wooing."

All that sex stuff aside, though, I had never seen the intricacies of firefly anatomy like I did in these closeups. Usually I just see them flashing in the distance, and if I happen to catch one, I get a fleeting glimpse of their red and black wings before they take flight back into the night. So I was amazed by their frog-like legs and segmented antennae, and especially by their little 3-toed feet with the suction cuppy one in the middle. I love the way they look like they're wearing giant sunglasses, and how their mouths look smeared with lipstick, or Kool-Aid, or blood. Also, I didn't know their light-up parts were so big -- proportionally speaking.

I'll never look at fireflies the same way again, now that I've seen them up close and personal.

OK, maybe a little too personal.

Anyway, from now on, now that I know what they're up to, I'll stop sticking fireflies in jars.

I mean, unless they're into that kind of thing.

A Campfire

"Walls for the wind,

And a roof for the rain,

And drinks beside the fire --

Laughter to cheer you

And those you love near you,

And all that your heart may desire."

-- Irish Blessing

Campfire flames 5-31-14

I'm a total sucker for a campfire.

We've had campfires in the evenings out back on our patio for the past couple of nights.

Two nights ago we plugged in our shitty little garage radio and listened to the Indians game as night pulled down the shades all around us, accompanied by the crackle of flames and firelight, sipping wine and looking up into the clear, starry sky. We roasted marshmallows and made s'mores. I stretched out on my reclining lawn chair for a better view of the stars. I was warming myself by a fire with the people I love most in the whole world.

It was bliss.

Yesterday was an afternoon game, so last night's fire was a quieter affair -- no baseball, just pops and crackles. Leo roasted some hot dogs. My husband sipped whiskey. I took pictures of the flames. The sky was even starrier than the night before with a whisper of a sliver of a moon. Smoke got in my eyes. Sometimes we talked. Sometimes we didn't. I was warming myself by a fire with the people I love most in the whole world.

More bliss.

Fire is mesmerizing. Hypnotic. I can't not watch it. It just draws me in and holds me there, captivated and still, which has a very comforting, calming effect on my mind. In my soul.

A campfire, for me, always conjures good feelings. I don't have any negative campfire memories or associations or experiences. A campfire doesn't trigger anything sad, or bad, or unpleasant for me. In my memories, every time I've drawn up my chair and warmed myself beside a fire outside in the open air, it's been nothing but good.

How can anybody be mean, or petty, or selfish, or hostile or angry here? Here, inside the glowing ring of light around a campfire. Here, held by the fire's captivating spell, comforted by its warmth.

A campfire is kind of a holy, sacred space isn't it? It's a place where we kick off our boots and spurs, hang up our guns and somebody pulls out a harmonica and we tell stories and share our beans and pass around the hooch and listen to the crickets and breathe the same air under the same sky under the same whoever-it-is-up-there.

It should be, anyway.

The boys all shower after a campfire because they don't like the smell clinging to them.

Not me. I love going to bed with ashes in my hair, still smelling the sharp, mingled, lingering aromas of wood and smoke and night air coming off me. I guess it's my way of trying to make it last a little longer, of taking the good feeling with me into my sleep and my dreams.

It'll fade by morning. But that's OK. We'll make more.

There'll be plenty more bliss to go around.

The Moon Last Night

"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly."

-- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Waxing "gibbous" moon 4-12-14

"And the sun and moon

Sometimes argue over

Who will tuck me in at night."

-- Hafez, "I Hold the Lion's Paw"

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Welcome to the "One Good Thing Lunar Minute."

If you looked up at the sky and away from your iPhone last night, you couldn't miss this beautiful, luminous, waxing gibbous moon hanging out over everything. 

Why, you may wonder, is it called a "waxing gibbous" moon?

Well, I'm no Siri, but Imma 'bout to tell ya.

Gibbous comes from the Latin word gibbus, which means humped, or hunched, as well as the Italian word gobba, for humpback. And the term "waxing" comes from an Olde English word that means "becoming" or "growing."

While I can sort of see where the early astronomers were coming from, I think whoever called it gibbous must have been a dude. Because to me, the moon at this point is all woman and looks less like a humpback than it does a big, round, distended, pregnant belly. 

 And in case you didn't know, the female reproductive cycles respond very closely to the lunar cycle. More babies are born during the full moon than during any other moon phase. Plus, pregnant bellies are nice and round. Hunchbacks are all lumpy.

See where I'm coming from?

The Latin word for pregnant is "gravid." So with that in mind, I'd like to start a campaign to re-name this lunar phase the "waxing gravid moon."

 Anybody with me? 

Come on, guys. We can do it. Didn't anybody read Frindle for fuck's sake?

Well, by any name, this moon was absolutely lovely. I'd say she had a certain glow about her.

You know who else glows? Pregnant women.

Ever heard anybody describe a hunchback as "glowing?" Victor Hugo didn't call Quasimodo "glowing." He called his deformed bell-ringer "hideous" and a "creation of the devil."

I think I've made my case.