There are fireflies here.

While looking for another file on my computer, I stumbled across a short text that I wrote in July 2017. As I've done for every summer (except this last one), I was visiting my family in Missouri when I wrote it.

There are fireflies here. Where I grew up there were no fireflies; they existed only in books. I remember thinking places where fireflies exist must be magical. It seemed unreal that something living could produce a brilliant yellow glow of light. There were so many things I discovered in books, that I used to wonder if one day I would see them for myself. Although Missouri might seem like the edge of nowhere, even Missouri has magical things. Even here I’m given the chance to discover something new, to have something that once existed only in my imagination become visible to my physical eye.  That’s a thought I want hold on to: that even in the most mundane places, even just beyond our porch, we always have a chance discover something new. The adventure only stops when we stop discovering the wonder in everything.

My sister, who’s been living here for several years now, showed me how to make a “living lantern” (as she calls it) by sticking fireflies in a glass jar. I was a little skeptical that it would work, but it does. According to my sister, you have to have both boy and girl fireflies in the mix for the fireflies to light up the jar. Though she might be making that up. Even now my sister still seems to by trying to teach me about the birds and bees.  I suspect that her motive has always been to make me blush. It used to be enormously successful.