Deep, blue light filters through the front window. The cats, which were only silhouettes ten minutes ago, are now solidly three dimensional. I can see their ears flicking back and forth as they watch the day come on. The neighborhood dogs are beginning to woof at one another; I can distinguish Amber, Simba, Cyber, and Ashes easily, and the beagle down the road, and the one two streets away. It's only five a.m., but the cool of the night is slipping away as the light swells. Summer in the south again.
It's offically summer when three things happen: you have to run the a/c, the cockroaches start congregating on the sidewalks at night, and the fireflies arrive. We turned on the a/c earlier this week. I crunched a cockroach as I walked Dixie yesterday, and noticed the rest scurrying for the sewer cover. So I know it's almost time for the fireflies. Besides, it's May 24th. They'll be here within a week. They always seem to arrive by June 1st.
It's miraculous, how they aren't there one night, and the next night you see dozens of them. I'm very fond of them, considering they're bugs. I guess I like shiny, blinky things, although I've never worked up any admiration for a stoplight or anything. If one must have a hot, humid, dank, putrid, vile, sweaty, airless season, then at least fireflies make up a tiny bit for it. I love to sit on the chair by the front window and watch them dance on the lawn. They glimmer and twinkle, rising high in the air on some unknown mission, then settle back down to mate on the damp grasses.
One year, Denise Rehse came to visit me and we drove down Highway 100 and out into the country. We took cameras and tried to photograph the bobbling fairy lights. The huge meadow we found was full of them, hundreds of white-green points of light flaring and fading until we hardly knew where to look to see the most at once. It was a wonderful night, and not one of our photos came out but we didn't care.
Full daylight now. The cats are begging to be let into the backyard, ready to stalk any unwary cardinals and nuthatches that dare to invade their territory. Fortunately, they only seem to want to hunt in the daytime. They don't go after the night critters. Like me, they just sit and watch the little lights. I can't wait until the fireflies come back.