It’s just after dusk and I can’t concentrate on the blog entry I have planned. The window beside my desk, wide open to let a cool breeze, frames the most amazing nightly distraction. I like to call it firefly disco.
Two 60 plus year-old Japanese Maple trees overhang the particular slice of space between our neighbor’s chain link fence and our house we call the side yard. The maples’ dense, dark red leaves create an artificial dusk that starts between 30 and 40 minutes before actual dusk and this space has from my childhood been prime hunting ground for lightning bugs. Right now the hovering males flash their calls to the females lurking in the grass an average of 12 every second. Harnessed together and synchronized they’d make the planet’s biggest natural strobe light.
Combine the ubiquitous camera phone and the less prevalent actual camera with the modern impulse brought on by any involvement with social media to share even the most mundane things and it shouldn’t be surprising that after the first time I saw the beauty of this nightly event I thought about how I might photograph it, about how I might preserve it and share it. And then I realized something that I think our ever connected world causes us all to forget:
Not every event, regardless of how joyful or amazing, can or should be shared.
Yes, “firefly disco” is just a side effect of the unique physical circumstances of that space and how we keep it which make it particularly attractive to lightning bugs on the make, but it’s something that can only happen in the right circumstances and maybe part of the experience is actually being present for the event.
Learn more about lightning bugs at the Museum of Science in Boston’s Firefly Watch site.
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