Challenge; Write a few paragraphs on a simple pleasure
My daughter was a stay-awake baby. Sometimes, to shorten the process, we would load her in the car and drive out into the lyrical Pennsylvania countryside, watching the colors of night gather in the sky, the green trees enrich their hues as night fell.
One night, my stepdaughter was visiting. Jessica was a sarcastic, defensive, dreadlocked artist- and she was pregnant, at the time, by a man who wasn’t holding up his share of the burden in any way, something she was just coming to understand. It could be difficult to talk to her, or with her, and a lot of our time together was spent in silence. Which was, really, all right. She was painting, she was productive. But she was so buttoned down, holing herself in, unwilling to express any simple emotions.
This particular evening, though, we went deep into the country, a direction we hadn’t gone before. AS the dusk turned into blackest night, we noticed the unusual numbers of fireflies, and as we turned a corner, we had to pull the car over and step out.
The little valley that we had driven into, was inundated, flooded, overwhelmed by fireflies. It looked- silly. Like Disney gone bad, like no one would have the bad taste to draw that many twinkling lights in one spot. Every tree, every grass stalk, the little farm house, the hills around us- sheeted, limned, defined by the magical glimmer. There were no stars in the sky- we were blinded by earthly fireflies.
The sight became blurred, by the tears in my eyes, and it was hard to swallow. My husband, too, was blinking. The baby was peacefully asleep in her carrier.
My stepdaughter sat on the hood of the car. Tears were pouring over her face.
Fireflys Akimbo!!
It’s sherrrry again…I should just register with LiveJournal….
ANyhow, I have experienced this flooding of fireflies! This past summer in our very long driveway about 10PM. It WAS like Disney gone bad!!!! It was also so beautiful that I stopped the car, turned off the headlights and stared at the wonder before me. After my private moment or two, I drove up to the house, car still running and got my dh and son into the car to witness this beauty! I think my dh got in the car just to appease me but when he saw the light, for the amount of fireflies was immense and generated enough light that I didn’t need the headlights!, He looked amazed – like “My wife isn’t crazy after all!” !!! And I felt so magical and electric and sane and happy.
Just wanted to share that. I don’t know if I will ever see that again even though the fireflies do come around every summer for a few weeks. That was once-in-a-lifetime stuff!
Fireflys Akimbo!!
It’s sherrrry again…I should just register with LiveJournal….
ANyhow, I have experienced this flooding of fireflies! This past summer in our very long driveway about 10PM. It WAS like Disney gone bad!!!! It was also so beautiful that I stopped the car, turned off the headlights and stared at the wonder before me. After my private moment or two, I drove up to the house, car still running and got my dh and son into the car to witness this beauty! I think my dh got in the car just to appease me but when he saw the light, for the amount of fireflies was immense and generated enough light that I didn’t need the headlights!, He looked amazed – like “My wife isn’t crazy after all!” !!! And I felt so magical and electric and sane and happy.
Just wanted to share that. I don’t know if I will ever see that again even though the fireflies do come around every summer for a few weeks. That was once-in-a-lifetime stuff!