Down South

The thing they don't tell you when you fall in love with a man in some far off place and move away to start a family with him in the concrete jungle, is that one day...one day, you will take your children home at the ripe old ages of almost-three and four-and-one-half, and you will drive out to the lake on an evening when the air hangs about you like a wrung-out sponge, as the sky slips from pink to grey, and you will tell them to look at all the lightning bugs.

And they will have no idea what you're talking about.

But after the shock of their ignorance--which will give yet another jolting example of how different their childhood is from yours, these children who know the Smithsonian exhibits by heart and talk in Metro stops and city blocks--will come the joy of pointing out to them the blinking lights floating above their heads.  And the satisfaction in their faces when they spot them on their own.  And the thrill of trying to catch one.

We only made it for the tail end of the lightning bug show yesterday, but tonight, we'll start earlier.