Dancing embers

I sat peacefully in front of my fire the other night as I let its warmth and crackling sound wash away the last of the busy day. It was my first weekend off in about five or six weeks. It has been a busy time at work.

Fire is a stress reliever, specifically on a cool fall night as one wraps themselves in front of a camp fire or in my case, my fire pit. The clouds in the sky above looked like puffed marshmallows, some burnt and dark all across their faces, while others were singed just perfectly as they swallowed up the moon's light behind them. Here and there the puffy marshmallow clouds separated just enough to let a sliver of light pass through.

Now, I'm not much of a fire starter. I poke and prod and finally get the spark to take. My wood is usually too wet, or I don't have enough kindling or a proper starter. However I always get it going somehow. As I sat back with a glass of wine in hand ignoring the prime rule of 'no glass by the pool', I was captivated by the orange, glowing sprites flickering above the blaze. The wood was popping and the sparks were dancing merrily.

It reminded me of a time long ago when my daughter brought home a nice young man who was from Colorado. To my surprise, he had never seen lightning bugs. Apparently they are not common west of the Mississippi. Odd, I thought how something I had always thought so common was a rarity to others. I remember leaving my Uncle Tubby's (yet that was his name) many years ago as a child. He lived in the country and when you turned out of his driveway you would come to the end of a road that looked out over a farm field. At night in the summer it was filled with lightning bugs, millions of them flashing in the otherwise utter blackness. That is something I will never forget.

Then, as I watched the sparklers dancing above the crackling fire, a word I never use was revealed in my solitude. Wow, fireflies!