They were everywhere that night, little fiery embers that sparked my reflection in fairy light. I had a cold bottle of beer, the beauty of youth, and a dark sky filled with fireflies floating through my Smith Avenue yard. They were uncountable. So many I was almost afraid to step into them, as though there wouldn’t be enough room for me out there too. So much of life feels that way—not enough room for me and my wishes and my fears and my thoughts and my differentness. Sharing stories makes you realize that every human feels this way: different. And in sharing, we learn how much we are the same.
I don’t see fireflies like that anymore. Maybe one or two. Not an entire yard filled with them. It’s a part of my past experience that is gone now, except in memory. There it will stay unless and until I lose that too. Maybe the fireflies have gone on ahead to wherever we might all go next. I like to imagine that, that there is a different place we’ve yet to adventure through. A place where all the things we like exist minus anything that is too terrible to endure. There’s enough of that here on Earth. Maybe this place is the challenging one, the difficult one. Then we rest somehow where fireflies can be seen in the day. It almost sounds fun, especially compared to what we’re living through now.
But the past is filled with fantastical memories that manage to shade out the painful parts that lived there too. The rotten partner I had that night on the dark porch. The beer bottles where my hope distilled. The three jobs that kept me just afloat in a crappy little apartment. The me that never got to come out until old age greeted me. I can’t have the good without the bad. But if only I could get the hair back. I did not appreciate what good hair I had then.
Indulging the past
I know in meditation we’re taught to pull away from the temptation of our past. But I don’t always want to. The whole of my spectacular life to date is back there. Just the fact that I call it spectacular tells you something about how beautiful an ordinary life is because most people would not see my past life as anything particularly special. But it was to me. Yours probably is to you too. Nights like that where we see our ghostly reflection mirroring our human form while we’re just peeking out into the dark are humbling reminders that we are not entirely grounded on earth. Just watch a dead person and you will see what I mean. You can tell when they’re gone without checking for a pulse. The life disappears from their eyes along with their last breath. But sometimes we are reminded of the briefness of our human form as an opportunity to appreciate this temporary experience before we return to the minutia of daily life. If you’re lucky, you get these reminders repeatedly. It’s like your brain becomes a drone flying over you allowing you to observe yourself rather than only be yourself. I’d like to spend more time in that place and less in the state of achieving and doing. It feels more like I’m experiencing the whole of living rather than just the tasks in the process.
Looking back over your life is the long-form version of observing, so I indulge now and then. I’ve already started doing it about my old house. Walking through it room by room in my mind, starting at the front and going all the way through. I’m not just looking at the rooms, but my past life that happened there. The animals who used to live with us. The plans we made. The simplicity of experiencing a day there. And now I know I lived an entire decade in that house with a man I love who did not die there. Yes, I have a lot of morbid thoughts but past loss keeps you in a forward version of looking over your shoulder.
Remembering the past leads you into the future too where you have to guess at what will transpire. I’ve noticed that with imagining comes a lot more temptation to foresee pain. Maybe this is the place tragedy will land. I’m sure I did it at the last house too where nothing bad happened and that brings me comfort. I am just looking ahead trying to ward off trouble that may not be coming. But meanwhile, there is life to live and I’m finding it sweeter now that my time is being squeezed toward the end. My past has gotten longer while my future is pinched shorter. I plan to spend more time looking for firefly moments. Just like the craziness of the world and all we cannot control right now, it somehow becomes a reminder of how beautiful our past was. Even the parts we didn’t know were so spectacular. They are still there in moments throughout your day. I hope you find them.
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so many more lights from developments and pesticides being sprayed in our perfectly manicured lawns most likely contribute to the lack of our childhood "lightening bugs" I still see a few here, but not many.
Thank you, Trevy. It is so lovely to remember the fireflies-filled spaces of childhood. That experience repeated for me when my Grandchildren were young. Now, I'm thinking I should find a mild night to sit outside and watch for fireflies. What a perfect anecdote to the times we are experiencing.