*(Imagine the strains of four decades-worth of rock hits -- Pat Benatar power ballads and Bob Seger bumping elbows with the Eagles and Melissa Etheridge -- thrumming in the background. Hear the mosquitoes diving in for a snack but halting at the door of my OFF! family-safe formula, spritzed as it is on every square inch of my body. Take note of the sullen postures of two bored teens, the sweet fruit of my womb, as they await the hope of heading homeward. See yours truly, new hair color hiding the mistake of last night and whisking me away from my erroneous 'Irish roots,' perched on the edge of a cushioned folding chair in my new clearance-at-Kohl's black party dress, moved so completely by the natural beauty all along the outskirts of this domestic scene that I am compelled to dig out the pink pen and mini-notebook for a few necessary scribbles. I am going for a ride and taking you with me.)
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My eyes keep searching out the stand of oaks rising from the field just beyond the row of fenced-in suburban yards, including the one I now sit in. They are autonomous. Maybe planted in the wind or washed there by rain, perhaps, or dropped off by a bird. No landscaper's hand or architect's pen drew them into place; selected them from a congregation of 5-gallon black plastic buckets; or stuck them in at right angles to a 4,000 square foot house.
An unfinished home stands behind them, framed, roofed, papered. One of those aforementioned yards has a bright table umbrella, beach ball colors of primary red, blue, green, and yellow, open and rimmed in white lights. Further up, one of those ubiquitous neutral patio sets with tile-topped table and matchy-matchy chairs is an island unto itself. Even closer to my perch sits a wooden playground with mini-climbing wall, multiple varied swings, put together by somebody's daddy not too long ago, judging by the sheen of the timbers and the condition of the plastic pieces.
My immediate view encompasses an array of scattered tables covered in disposable tablecloths, flickering candles set dead center, folding chairs, Tiki torches, lawn tents with string stakes. A five-piece rock cover band comprised of forty-somethings, my husband included, set-up in the back with the sleek black DW drum set, performs their first public show. It's a "working out the kinks" debut: playing as they are, a mixture of polish and rough, for the surprise 40th birthday party of the female lead singer, who's gravelly soulful vocals hit almost all the right notes. Not a bad bit of entertainment.
But I've spotted a display infinitely more staggering than any fireworks bursting in my memory. "Hotel California" can't compete with this. An overgrown meadow, the length of two football fields, the width of one, is hosting a benefit of a thousand points of light, to borrow a coined phrase. Fireflies. En masse. Timing in . . . and out . . . and in-n . . . A blinking twinkling herald to the setting of this day's sun. They are a spectacular counterpoint to the copse of junior oaks.
I imagine everything else fading into the background. A scene rises in my mind. Five heads, side by side, chins cupped in tripod-folded hands. An entire family lying on their bellies in the haven of my suburban back yard, held spellbound by these living hovering lights flickering in the night air. They are barefoot, I recall, and merge effortlessly into my landscape, as if the spot of grass before my arbor purposed this moment.
This is a precious memory of the final trip my good friend and her husband took with their three young children as a married couple. They had planned it this way, coming here before their divorce. One more family trip together for the kids. They knew it then, her with resounding surety, him with reluctance and a touch of denial, but held the ending at bay for these few days at our family home, a world away from the arid New Mexico town of their residence. A place devoid of fireflies. I watched them, just as mesmerized as them by the sight they presented, a suspended interlude of solidarity held in abeyance up to the glow of Tennessee fireflies.
It is not often that one witnesses such a collision of ending and beginning within the space of a phosphorescent blink of an eye. "Hit me with your best shot! Fire away-y-y . . . " sings the intrepid birthday girl, bringing me back to the manicured fescue of this lovely but nondescript suburban oasis of a back yard.
I focus on the fireflies.
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