My husband and I went to Salem MA to visit our son and his fiance' this past weekend. We spent four wonderful days with them. The temps were warming up and we did a lot of walking around Salem and also went on up to Maine. It was refreshing to feel and smell the sea air and hear the seagulls and waves on the shore. We have a lot of water in MN too but it smells like lake water and it just is not the same as sea water smell. Good, but different.
When I was a girl I went out east with my parents but we went to West Virginia to visit my grandparents. I have fond memories of those visits. My most treasured memories are of night time. My grandparents had an empty lot next to their house and on warm summer evenings after it finally got dark I asked my grandmother for an empty jar and headed outside. This is when the magic started. Armed with my jar, lid off, I stood very quietly waiting. Waiting for the tiny illuminations that blinked through the air around me. It never took very long and I was surrounded with fireflies. The air would become so thick with them at times I felt like I was floating in the air amongst them. For me this was heaven. The quiet night and these soft glowing beacons. What a gift. It was my hope to be able to catch at least a few of these little beauties and keep them in my jar. The first time I collected my little jar full I put small holes in the top of the lid and placed them beside my bed. It was the most glorious night light I had ever seen. You can imagine my distress when I woke up in the morning, all ready to greet my little wards and found them lifeless on the bottom of the jar. I was heart broken. I was a murderer. From then on when I needed to catch fireflies I brought them in and watched them in the darkness of my room for an hour or so. Then I took them back outside and let them go free out into the night. It was at least a magical pleasure for a short time. Well worth it. I loved those nights.
copyright 2009
9 comments:
This is a childhood memory I have been able to experience with my own children, Grace.
Thank you for your visit and your kind comment.
I see you mentioned the need for a new computer. There is a temporary fix - a portable hard drive can be used to store your largest folders, etc. It's a LOT cheaper than buying a new PC or laptop.
Reached here from Authorblog. Congratulations on being picked up as one of the Posts of the Day. Well deserved.
Grace, you are taking me back to my own childhood in the South. There we called fireflies "lightning bugs."
Thank you for this lovingly written reflection. I wandered over from David's.
How lovely and a beautiful memory.
CJ xx
I grew up hearing stories of Weaver birds catching these insects to light up their nests at night. It was so fairy tale like. :)
Congrats!
Beautiful Memories! Thanks for sharing! And congrats on your POTD mention! So glad as it led me here, and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit!
Your story was well told and brings back my own memories of catching fireflies. I appreciated your visit to my blog.
Your story brought back memories of the first time I ever saw fireflies. I came from Authorblog too!
very sweet memory...congrats on POTD!
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