The Fireflies Are Here

Nostalgia is my favorite drug.

I watched my niece dash through the sprinklers in my sister’s backyard last weekend, fearlessness in her little honey-butter eyes. Poppy squealed as she narrowly missed getting drenched and came running over for the towel to wipe her eyes. I stole a cold, wet kiss before she darted back towards the delicious danger, eyes squeezed shut as she leapt to safety on the other side. I recognized something in her maniacal laughter, her devilish grin, her dance with the dazzling downpour on a hot day in May. I saw fever—the burning in a tiny soul when summertime arrives and nothing matters but the sunshine.

We had crab apple trees that grew next to our house in East Tennessee when I was a kid. I remember thinking that was a terrible name for an apple. I loved gathering up the ones that had fallen to the ground and bringing them into the house like a trophy for my mother. I never wanted to eat them, partly because I was afraid there might be actual crabs under the brownish green skins, partly because I’d seen a worm wriggle out of one once. Sometime in May or June the trees would start to bloom, little green fruit forming on the branches. I knew that when I saw those tiny buds appear—life was about to get good.

Summer meant beach vacation, riding bikes with the neighborhood girls until a skinned knee sent me limping home, slip-n-slide madness in the front yard, gymnastics “competitions” in Meredith Mitchell’s pool, honeysuckle juice, banana popsicles and family barbecues at the state park.

Summer meant my birthday was coming soon. I always thought the Fourth of July fireworks were just for me or maybe Mom told me they were once and I wanted to believe her.

Around dusk, when the air had cooled and it wasn’t quite supper time, my sister and I would sit quietly on the front porch, sticky with sugar and sweat, and wait. A perfect summer day couldn’t end until I heard my little sister’s raspy, tired voice proclaim, “The fireflies are here!!!”

The porch would erupt with squeals and the sound of our muddy sneakers hitting the concrete. We would run after those flickering lights, hands out, afraid to actually catch one but thrilled by the chase. The delight of a hundred twinkling glimmer-bugs wrapping around us as we ran like wild animals through overgrown grass was the cherry on top of a midsummer dream.

I arrived in my hometown this evening, a little nowhere-place nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. My sister, niece, and I came to visit Mamaw Jeane who’s fighting cancer for the third time and just about fed up with all of us. I sat with her in the living room while I ate my roast and cornbread and she watched an old Judge Judy episode. I asked her if she remembered the crab apple trees out on Blue Haven Drive. “Those crab apples are awful sour,” she replied, never turning her eyes from the television. I told her I wouldn’t know.

I stepped out onto the porch and a familiar cool breeze took me with it across town. I wondered who lived in our old house now and if they ever ate the crab apples. I wondered if Meredith ever got her back handspring and if the kids in the neighborhood were still allowed to slurp the honeysuckles. I wondered if my mom, who’s been gone for three years, would see my birthday fireworks this July. I wondered if she knew that now I pretend they’re for her.

Poppy was fiddling with her sidewalk chalk, her fingers sticky from the caramel she’d been dipping her apple slices into. With the curls born out of the wet evening air framing her angelic little face, she looked just like my sister. Before I could sit down on the cracked concrete steps she called to me, “Keekees!! The fireflies are here!!!”

So, off we went to catch the light.

I am so grateful for every single one of you who read my words. If you’d like to support my work you can upgrade to a paid subscription anytime but right now is a particularly good time!

I’m offering 20% off of annual subscriptions through June 1st. Paid subscribers get access to The Creative Sobriety Method which is a four-part series that may help you reframe your relationship with alcohol and tap into a richer creative life. I absolutely would not be writing or loving or living well had I not gotten sober….Onward we go.

-K