Fireflies

I stand in the yard, rain beginning to fall softly around me. It is dusk, and a storm is coming. The sunset makes even the air look pink. Both eerie and beautiful, and I can’t look away. Fireflies glitter here and there, in our yard and far beyond, in the pasture up the hill. This is summer, I think, reaching my memory back to so many barefoot evenings catching lightning bugs with the neighbors, giggling and exclaiming as we trapped them in jars. My dad had used the ice pick with the red handle to puncture holes in the jar tops so we could enjoy that momentary light. One of nature’s strange gifts.

My mind wanders to the book I’ve been reading: black twins growing up in the rural South. A black transgender boy growing up in Arkansas. Black families working for white families who abused and demeaned them. I think about the black siblings, the black trans boys, the black families in this town watching sunsets and fireflies tonight. How have we arrived here, this place that is not so different from decades ago? With black lives still not mattering? With riots and protests and cries for change? How are we still so cold, the doors of our souls so locked tight, just to keep out our own family? 

The murdered black boys. The abused black girls. The outwardly demeaned black families. Their lives are spotlights, shining into our eyes so we can’t look away. Showing us the bright beauty of humanity, telling us with the flash and drama of glittering insects: WE ARE HERE. WE MATTER. And what do we do? We grasp at the light, too blinding for us. Suffocate its glow in prisons and redlined districts and our own contrived narratives.

The sun sinks lower below the pasture. I imagine the horses there, swatting their tails back and forth, silhouetted against a postcard sky. An owl hoots somewhere in the woods. It sounds like a mourning cry, like the collective wail of a nation awakened in the dead of night, finally able to see the darkness in our own hearts.

A Spring Morning, Eleven Years from Now

I pour coffee into my favorite mug - the pottery one with the blue swoosh that looks like an angel wing. Coffee is truly a gift from heaven, I think, as the coconut milk swirls in mesmerizing patterns. I am hypnotized for a moment, sleepy eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. I wear glasses more now, in my 40s. Dry eyes, designing on screens, and finally finding a pair that feels nearly weightless on my face. 

The house is quiet, just how I like it at dawn. I have converted to Morning Person, but my brain still needs to get its bearings before talking to anyone or heeding requests for breakfast. They are teenagers, but they still like it best when I make breakfast. I shuffle downstairs and fluff the laundry, then haul the load up to fold. This is the final load - the last call for undies and socks and favorite jeans - before we head to the airport. 

When I get back upstairs, Ken is there, pouring honey into his favorite mug - the brown one from Holy Island, engraved with an image of St. Aidan. I smile and peer into the dimly lit kitchen, watching him stir. A lump rises in my throat thinking about being there again. I feel it immediately - the cool sea breeze that smells like salt and fish. I hear the soft echoes inside the old church and taste the vinegary crunch of beer batter in the garden. In my mind, I lift a pint glass to my lips, cold lager like an ancient balm. Even 20 years on, these memories are crisp and fresh. I am there in an instant.

We will be there, all four of us, in just three days. We will be walking that shore, climbing the steps to that castle, standing in silence among the ruins of the abbey built by our son’s namesake: Aidan of Lindisfarne. When our legs are tired and our stomachs rumble, we will walk to The Crown and Anchor by the harbor and find a table in the beer garden. The sun will dip in and out of cloud cover, and we will alternate between wearing our sunglasses and wrapping scarves around our necks. I will take it all in: the priory, the sea, the boy. Full circle, I’ll think. We planted dreams in this garden, and one of them was to bring him back here.

I’ll dab my eyes and smile as Ken returns from the bar with three brimming glasses of beer. Aidan will look nervous, ever the rule-follower. Are you sure I’m old enough?, he’ll ask. Eighteen. Eighteen years after his first time on Lindisfarne, when I posed beside the ruins, cupping my enormous belly and glowing in the late afternoon sun. He’ll have his first pint here, we said. And here we are, our Aidan’s petite hand around 20 ounces of English lager, waiting for one of us to say something important. Coleman looks a little envious of all the attention, but he sips his Coke and giggles. Rolling with the punches, as little brothers do.

On that sacred day, we will - say something important - though I’m not sure what. We will toast to the past and the future. To the seeds planted on this island in 2010, to the baby born two years later in Edinburgh, to this moment, and everything that has come between. To the legacy of love that St. Aidan left here, and the one that our Aidan carries. On and on and on.

Being Seven

They walk ahead of me - she on long, agile legs and he on short, bony ones. He struggles to keep up, yelling after her. Alice’s legs seem to grow an inch a week, but looking at her father it’s no surprise. She stops, waiting for him, and every time she turns, the light glances her profile and she looks like a photograph. Click, I say in my mind. 

She is a photogenic child, with intense eyes and a style all her own. She always looks like she is posing for a catalog, showing off the newest fashion trend - the one that everyone thinks is weird at first but picks up eventually. Every morning, Alice emerges from her room dressed in odd combinations, which she pulls off with the confidence and innocence of a kid. Her mother prays every day she will keep it, at least the confidence. Maybe she’ll have enough fortitude to withstand the inevitable pre-teen pressure.

Aidan’s knees are bruised, and he doesn’t remember how they got that way. What happened?, I ask. He shrugs. Being a seven-year-old every day. That’s what happened, of course. I remember the bruises, the scrapes, the dozens of mosquito bites every summer. We used to count them to see who had the most. Summer in the Delta did a number on our bodies, and I still have clusters of freckles on my shoulders and a scar on my left knee to show for it. Every time I tell the boys to be careful, to watch out, don’t fall - I close my eyes and picture that skinned-up, sunburned softball player, careening down the hill on a bike with her hands in the air. I turned out fine, and so will they. 

The two of them bound over logs and crunch through leaves, wielding their walking sticks like serious adventurers. The afternoon sun is like medicine in January, warming my face and my outlook. It will all be okay, I think, every time I walk in the woods. My shoulders loosen as I watch Aidan and Alice, knowing this little path beside our little creek feels big and important to them. The distance we’ve walked feels far, though I can still see our house through the bare trees. The ordinary gray rock she holds is a treasure worth keeping. I know it because I remember it: sneaking up through the neighbor’s property to the cemetery, packing a picnic lunch to end our journey. Tiptoeing through the brush, pretending we were on a secret mission. Building hideouts and clubhouses. Collecting rocks, buckeyes, treasures of all sorts. To seven-year-old me, it was the grandest adventure. 

These are the things I remember, because they mattered. The essential stuff of childhood. I watch Aidan and Alice climb down into the dry creek bed and across to the other side. Will they remember this walk? I hope so. I hope they come back to this little path someday, together. I hope they stand by the creek and chuckle, wondering how it ever felt so grand.