Fireflies.

Out behind my house there is a small wooded area. I don't often go there. I peer at it from my bedroom window on rainy days and give it a passing glance when I take out the trash. But, it stays largely ignored by me.

Now it is summertime and that means the air is always sticky sweet and the nights are the only time I can bear to be outside for very long. I have always loved summer nights, despite my general distaste for summer days and always coming back itching and sweating. There is something about a summer night which seems pregnant with magic.

When it gets to be dark, I stand under the car port I am supposed to park in, but never do and watch the fireflies dance. I don't think about spiders or scorpions or itching or sweating. I just watch the hundreds of fireflies dance in the field and in the trees. There is a simple magic to it.

If I were able to make a pill out of fireflies in open fields on summer nights, it would remedy panic attacks, existential crises and broken hearts.

A little weird.

I sit at work all day long, all week long, answering questions, calming people down, lifting people up, making sure my manner in phone, e-mail, and person are all professional.

And sometimes I just want to burst out.

Whether in song, movie/tv quote, sound, or what not. It's hard to be not weird for 40 hours a week. (Or less weird, I don't hide it well).

I feel like I haven't written in ages. My fingers are starting rust and my heart is getting lethargic. How can I go so long? And will the times between get longer and longer and...

No.

I just can't think that way. I'm re-learning walking and talking and singing. A few weeks ago, no, more than that, I saw a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. And she used to laugh sometimes at me, when I was younger, and I'd ask why and she'd say, "Because you're wobbling." She meant it metaphorically, of course. I was 18/19 and she was 21/22. I was wobbling. And when I saw her again she said, "You're still the same, only you wobble a little less."

And maybe I do. At least, I hope I've learned a thing or two in these past few years. Grown a little. Stretched my legs, built some muscle. I don't know. But, now I'm a real adult. And I'm wobbling again.

Well, at least no one accuses me of waddling.