Do you have fireflies?
Fireflies were a huge part of my childhood back East. We used to stay up on long summer evenings and chase them around the garden and catch some in a jar (with holes in the lid) and try to catch enough to give us enough light to read a book by. Then when we got called in for the absolutely last time, come NOW, we would let them all go and go to bed and watch them in the bushes outside our windows.
There are no fireflies out here. Don't live in Washington, at least not in Western Washington. We took the kids back East a few years ago and one of the highlights was waiting for a fireworks display to start on a field next to a wooded area and seeing thousands, it seemed, of fireflies -- the first they had ever seen. It was magical, and far better, they thought, than the man-made fireworks.
I don't miss a lot about the East -- the heat, the humidity, the snow, the packed humanity -- but I do miss the fireflies. |
