Fireflies - Savor

Well, here we are. The final official week of summer.

This time of year always feels a little bittersweet to me. Even where I live in Southern California, the end of summer makes me feel something. The sunlight is still longer than the dark, but not for long. School is back in session for most of us. We might feel ready for fall. We might wish summer would last forever. Either way, there is something about this time of year that makes me want to hold a little more closely to what I cherish most.

For me, fireflies are a sweet reminder of the simplest pleasures. Sitting outside on a summer evening. Watching tiny fairy lights blink on and off. When I was a kid, I’d sit on the porch steps while the grown-ups talked about everything and nothing. “Putting the world to rights,” my grandmother would say.

In our modern era, I feel like we’re increasingly missing these simple pleasures. Back in my hometown, my mom still sits on her porch, almost always in the company of friends and neighbors, putting the world to rights. There is something deeply comforting to me about knowing that porch is still there, that somewhere the conversations and laughter and ordinary rituals of summer evenings are still going on.

And I think we all have our own version of that porch. A place, a person, a memory, a ritual that makes us feel held by the world. Some of those places and people are still here for us to return to. Some live in our memories now. Either way, they become part of us.

I can’t take myself back in time to being a child catching lightning bugs to put in a jar, listening to the grown-ups and not being expected to hold up my end of the conversation. And I’m all the way in California now.

But I can call my mom on a summer evening and we can have a glass of wine together, her on her porch and me on mine. I can take a walk downtown with my daughter, who is home after graduating college while she looks for a “grown-up job.” We don’t even have fireflies where we live, but these days with her feel like the equivalent.

Every day, and in every area of our lives, we are gifted with such simple, and sometimes extraordinary, pleasures. Not a day goes by that I don’t marvel at the fact that I can dream up absolutely anything I want to eat on the planet and probably figure out a way to have it. I want a dairy-free peanut butter ice cream sandwich. I want a dragonfruit from Hawaii. I want grass-fed beef from Oregon. I want a lemon-blueberry cheesecake. Even if I can’t find one down the street, I can definitely get the ingredients.

Anyway, I’m getting off track!

But maybe I’m not.

Maybe that’s exactly what I mean.

The way the light is changing. The sound of my friend’s voice. Sitting on the porch having coffee. Walking downtown with my daughter. The songs of cicadas and crickets as the sun goes down. Something delicious. Something beautiful. Something completely ordinary that, when we really pay attention, turns out not to be ordinary at all.

There is so much here to savor.

Everything in life is fleeting, yes. Summer reminds us of that every year. But I don’t think that has to make us sad. I think it can make us more alive.

We don’t have to hold on so tightly that we miss what is happening while it is happening. We can let ourselves enjoy it. We can laugh louder. Eat the cheesecake. Call the person. Sit outside a little longer. Watch the light change. Let ourselves be completely delighted by this strange, beautiful experience of being alive on Earth.

Maybe that is what the fireflies have been saying all along.

Here I am.

Here you are.

Look how beautiful this is.

Let the fireflies inspire you to cherish the small things that are right in front of you today, the things that are yours to cherish now. See the people around you in this particular light. Listen closely. Taste what is delicious. Let yourself love this life while you are living it.

Summer is ending.

But look at how much light there still is.