Catching Fireflies
“Remember how I said we
must have played in heaven? I feel like this is one of those times when I want
you to go out and catch fireflies with me, but you say you’re too old for kid
stuff and all you want to do is stay in your room and lay on your bed and toss
your football in the air. The point? You are never too old to catch fireflies.
To my best friend, I
pray that you may never outgrow catching fireflies
~One~
Matthew 6:34 “Do not be anxious about
tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.”
I really
don’t know when I started catching fireflies. I know it was early. I grew up in
a rural area and in the summer twilight, the grass would light up with flickers
of light. My mom saved mayonnaise jars and lids for us to catch bugs in. If not,
she always had canning jars and lids for us. There were two rules to catching
bugs. First, you had to have holes in the top lid and second, you had to let anything
caught go.
My brother
who is eleven months older than I am, probably caught the first bug. I am
skittish around bugs. Always will be. As a gardener, I realize they are
important but can also be harmful. As a natural person, I realize I must coexist
with them. Yet my first memory of catching fireflies is that of running
behind my brother as he would catch the elusive fly. I would not venture to
touch them. However, I would spend plenty of time watching them through the
glass jar.
Watching bugs through glass is safe. You can
study them. Fireflies are not very pretty bugs. I hated it when their light stopped shining. Then to me, they were just a bug. Their light made them magical, and
the magic of summer came with them. That magic wasn’t about being out of school or not being responsible. It was more about coexisting, just being.
It was not
like there weren’t worries, pain anxieties, or any emotion, feeling, or even
work. It was just that somehow the magic of summer and catching fireflies was a
way of just being. Letting oneself be sad or happy. Letting oneself work. In
doing so I found so many revelations in the simple act of pulling weeds! The magic of summer lets the warmth soothe
muscles. Something in the magic helps one to just live in the humanness that we
are.
Part of that
humanness is knowing that humans were created in relationships, for
relationships, and are all about relationships. I have never caught fireflies
alone. Instead, it was always a group effort. I think many summer activities
are. I think even the silent ones are. Laying on the grass watching the stars
seems complete when there is a silent person next to you.
Remember the
rules for catching bugs? Rule one: holes in the jar lids. I went from catching
bugs in jars to catching them in my hands. I think the holes in the jar lids,
remind us that we need to breathe. When we try to put our emotions, feelings, and day’s events in a glass jar and look at them, we need to remember they need to
breathe. Let them live, or better yet, let them coexist. Catch them, examine them,
but let them breathe. They do after all become part of our breath. Learning from
the light they all carry, is an important step. (I will discuss this in the
next chapter.) The goal is to coexist, to become part of the thrill, the magic.
At some point hopefully one can move from catching in jars to embracing
fireflies in our hands.
Rule two:
Let them go. I am not sure catch and release is about letting them go.
Physically yes, but I think there is always residual residue that stays. In the
same way, emotions, feelings, thoughts, events, etc. are never let go. I still
remember catching fireflies, and will someday teach my grandbabies the magic, but
as the physical fireflies come and go, the residual residue, (the lessons,
emotions, feelings) persists. They are a part of me. I sit with them and realize they are there,
no compartments (glass jars) just flying free, part of me. Parts of me that I
bring to relationships. My hands don’t contain them because the light no longer
needs to be caught.
The magic of
summer starts by watching for fireflies in the twilight grass, grabbing a jar
(with holes in the lid), and racing around trying to catch the light. If you are
good, you will forget the jar and use your hands to catch the light and
really look at it before you let it go.
Somehow over
the years, we get to an age where we no longer think catching fireflies is a
productive use of our time. Some think they are just too old, too worn out,
letting the very young enjoy the awe and wonder of it all. There seems a point
in everyone’s life where we dismiss childish adventures, and we lose the awe and
wonder of life. Our passions become what we think everyone else wants for us. We
start selling ourselves short, and we start believing what society tells us.
Fireflies are childish. Chasing them is like all the frivolous pursuits we are
told. As we become older the magic of summer we are told is found in more
“adult” pursuits. Yet I think the awe and wonder of discovering the light is
where the magic still begins.
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