That Magical Twinkle

My husband and I visited CityWalk at Universal just a couple weeks ago.

I took this picture from our evening.

Seeing all those twinkling white lights took me back. Those lights and the evening breeze reminded me of a simpler time growing up on a lake as a kid in small-town northern Michigan. I remembered that fleeting time each summer when the fireflies lit up the roadside each night. They created a twinkling path of dancing white lights alongside the road that led us home during dark summer nights. Those weeks made it a magical time to be a kid in northern Michigan.

I always knew summer would end when those beautiful glowing lights went away each year. However, that didn't keep us kids from enjoying them to the fullest. One year my dad made an inviting home for the fireflies. While mowing the lawn, he cut out a circular path from the tall grass and weeds. Us kids would run out onto that path with our little nets in hand. Attempting to capture those twinkling lights was never easy. Those fireflies danced and wound their way through the cattails and tall grass like ballerinas on a stage. Right before you could scoop one up, they always turned out their light. The moment they sensed that danger was gone, the magical twinkling light would shine again. Lighting up the night like a dancing strand of lights. Each firefly floating up and down, twinkling its way through the dark summer night.