Some things come around every June. Fireflies are one of them. And popcicles, and the summer solstice. Running through the sprinkler. Watermelon. Fresh corn is a few weeks away, but the gardens have other blessings tucked beneath the foliage. Yesterday I found a fistful of beans, and three kinds of lettuce. I shared them with the twins. 

When my siblings and I were small we would stealth around in the half light trying to catch the flickering bugs. Holding one gently in your palm was magical, as you watched it blink. Is it fun to have the ability to illuminate the night? Are they talking to each other? Where do they go the rest of the year? Is this their superpower? 

This morning as I sat in the cool air of my living room, something in my peripheral vision kept nabbing my attention. But when I turned my head to look it was gone. Nothing, I told myself. But then it niggled again. 

Finally I sustained my gaze for a bit longer, and realized a lone firefly was under the couch. Wondering where everybody went. Normally lightning bugs give their blinkers a rest in the daylight, but this one felt dusky enough in the shadows near the floor to keep her beacon on. Maybe all night long. I wonder if she was tired. 

This week I had the good fortune to spend time with young mothers.  Some are the daughters of my friends, and they are in the thick of raising wiggly children. Who popped in and out of their laps to nurse as we talked. All of us have honed the skill of navigating frequent interruptions. They are facing the heartaches of mothering, as they wrestle with the gap between how their children behave and what they had dreamed parenting would be like. Some of them cried. I listened. And held them tenderly. 

One might suppose that a woman such as myself who has lived that season for awhile might have something to say. Answers. Clarity. Yet all I did was blink away the tears, and hold the light of my love out to them. I noticed that some things come around with stalwart regularity. Brothers who tease. Jobs that yank you from one home and plop you into another house. Where in the transition it feels as if your shoes are on the wrong feet but you have to keep walking. 

Tonight some of these same women will gather for supper. I will bring a salad with fresh picked lettuce, and string beans. Perhaps I can offer to hold a baby while her mother enjoys a chance to eat with both hands. Because for some of them a full night's sleep is still a few years away. 

As the summer slips on I will think of them. Picture them. Say the names of their precious children. And I will imagine each of them still blinking, alone in the shadows of their houses not yet homes.