on pauses.
““When I was a little girl, I used to run around in the fields all day, trying unsuccessfully to catch ladybugs. Finally I would get tired and lay down for a nap. When I awoke, I’d find ladybugs walking all over me.””
Looking back, my childhood seems almost too picture perfect, like I was the sequel to The Truman Show. I have deep memories of chasing lightning bugs on sticky southern nights while my parents sat in rocking chairs with the neighbors on the front porch drinking nothing other than sweet, sweet southern tea. Those nights filled my little soul and left me exhausted as I fell on my pillow only to wake the following day and do it all over again.
You see, lightning bug catching is serious business, there’s a trick to catching them. They come out when the cicadas start their evening chorus. You have to let your eyes rest, stare softly at the sky in front of you, wait for the first light flicker, then the pause will come, after that, stick out your hand and as soon as the light flicks again, you got it. Flicker, pause, flicker, catch. Flicker, pause, flicker, catch. It was the rhythm to our childhood.
As I grew older, I noticed the lightning bugs slowly began to disappear. It was gradual, just as those shared summer nights grew slimmer. Until one day I distinctly remember realizing that I hadn’t seen a lightning bug in a few years. I was puzzled as I wondered why they all just disappeared.
As sure as a lightning bug’s flicker is change to a child’s hood. My parents have since sold the house and left the rocking chairs for the new family. Some of the neighbors have passed, most have moved, and all of those sticky faced kids have jobs, homes, and families of their own.
And I haven’t really thought about the peculiarity of disappearing bugs until I was walking through a park outside my new home the other night. No doubt preoccupied with wedding plans or strategies for work, I almost missed it. But then rhythm was unmistakable. Flicker, pause, flicker…catch. As my eyes softened, I caught it for the first time it years. The sky was full of these tiny flashing bugs. My feet planted themselves on the pavement. Minutes passed and I swore I could hear the cicadas singing in the trees. And there, in the middle of a new park, in a new city, I finally felt like I was home once again.
And it made me wonder, did the lightning bugs really ever leave or was it me?