Fireflies in Red Solo Cups

I pulled onto my street around midnight on Sunday, after a graduation barbeque at a friends house. The street was silent and empty--it was pretty late, even for it being Memorial Day weekend and all my neighbors seemed to be tucked away in their nice air conditioned houses. The day was a complete scorcher with temperatures topping in the 90's for the majority of the day-- it was actually too hot for a barbeque, if that's at all possible. I actually felt bad for my friend's mom. She could have easily passed out from heat exhaustion.

But the heat had finally broken as the sun set and it felt nice to drive home with my windows open.

I turned off my headlights, my music, then the ignition and opened my car door to jump out. As I turned to my side to grab my purse, I happened to look out the passenger side window and saw them. Tiny, little blips of light hovering over my lawn. Blinking on and off every few seconds, never in unison but singing their very own song. Ten or so, they moved with the wind but always stayed close to the trees. They only hovered in the same place for a few seconds, then on they went.

Wondering if it was only my lawn, I looked across the street to my neighbor's and waited a few seconds. And there they were again--little, blinking stars fallen from heaven.

I instantly smiled.

Fireflies had arrived. Or lightning bugs as we call them in my neighborhood.

They ushers of summer. The one true symbol that heat and freedom had finally arrived--dispelling the memories of bitter cold and winter. Their presence lit dusk like shimmering diamonds on the horizon, and beckoned all children to run and play.

Well, to me anyway.

When I was little, the streets of my neighborhood were always buzzing with kids. Every single house in my development had at least two kids under the age of 10. Most of which congregated on my street. Especially during the summer, where everyone was looking for something fun and new to do.

I won't lie, I was basically the ring-leader of fun--basically because I was one of the eldest on my block and had the biggest mouth. Everyday, I had a new game invented--whether it was Steal-the-Bacon on bikes, relay races up on big wheels,  or scavenger hunts. Summer was my specialty because games could last longer and we had free ride of the neighborhood.

But, I also had certain rules about the summer. And having the biggest mouth, all tended to follow suit.

One of these rules happened to be about lightening bugs.

"But school's almost over! It has to be summer," they'd say.
"Nope! It's not officially summer until the lightning bugs come out. You can't call it summer until we see them," I'd answer without a second thought.

Lightening bugs were important to me. I don't know why but they were. Their little black bodies, red heads, and translucent tails that gave them their name meant summer and endless possibilities.

And because I was the oldest, no one disagreed.

Or dared call it summer until we saw lightning bugs.

So every night, we'd sit on my lawn and wait. And wait. Wait until we saw any pops of light. But there was also a system to it. We'd  each pick a piece of the lawn, so everywhere was covered and we'd stare. Stare into nothing for hours on end, hoping to be the first one to see them and scream, "IT'S SUMMER!" There was never just one, they'd always appear in clumps. And the second we saw them, we'd go running like mad cats into the house, grabbing cups and anything we could find to hold them.

Then the game really began.

We'd have a certain amount of time to catch as many as we could--basically until our parents called us in, which was usually between 8 and 9 o'clock.--and then let them go in a big flurry of light. Well not so much light but it was definitely cool to watch them all take off.

Naturally it wasn't easy to catch them. You had to sneak up, palms open and still. At the exact moment that they blinked, you needed to snap your hand out and close your fingers around them. One swift motion, with no breath in between. And then slowly, you had to open your fingers and drop them into your waiting cup because even if you caught one, they could just as easily escape.

A tried and sure method--trust me, I was really good at it.

You also never wanted to keep them so long that they'd die. That was never the point of the game and if you killed any, they didn't count. It was also best to have a see-through cup so you could see all your captives flying around inside (usually, we ended up using red solo cups, which is pretty funny when I think about it now).

When the game ended, we declared the winner and we let all the lightening bugs go,. They'd go flying off to their beds as we did to ours.  And the next night, it would start all over again. We'd have two and half months to catch and release as many lightning bugs as we could. Two and a half months of freedom.

That was the first thing I thought of when I got home on Sunday. About how much I wanted to run inside, wake up my sisters and start up the game all over again. Then I remembered my sisters were in Wildwood and most likely drunk at a bar.

Summer is never the same after you turn 10.

Instead, I decided to sit on my lawn and just watch them fly around me, like little fairies dancing on the wind.

"It's Summer!"