100 Fireflies

*Most names have been changed to protect the innocent*



I laced up my running shoes and stepped out of my old front door, leaving the house I had grown up in as a child. “This will be a long one,” I told my Mom on my way out. “Don’t worry if I’m gone an hour or so.”

The humidity was overwhelming. Sweat dripped down my brow and I wished I had worn a tank top and shorts instead of a t-shirt and leggings. I had no music. Just myself and the road and my thoughts. And around every bend, I found myself lost in a myriad of imagery and memories.

My feet hit the pavement and I ran along the creek down the street where I had spent many beautiful minutes throwing bread to ducks with my sister and brother and my Mom and Dad. I kept along Rock Creek, reminded of my childhood friend, Sally, who had once lived in the same subdivision. I jogged down the street, and as I passed her house, I saw her Dad outside talking to a neighbor. He looked the same as I remembered, though I hadn’t remembered what he looked like until I saw him standing there. I thought of how Sally was now married and living in Florida and how when we were in high school I had gone to senior prom in the same group as her, thoroughly overwhelmed to be in the ‘popular’ prom group. How long ago all of that seemed. Another world ago.

Every corner held a different memory. I passed Eldridge Lane and I remembered my childhood friend, Jane. She and I had been the best of friends from 3rd grade until about 6th grade. We’d had sleepovers when we were kids and I remembered her having a waterbed that was swooshy and her buying me the Paula Abdul tape cassette, Vibeology, as a birthday present back in the day. She'd had a Slip and Slide in her backyard and I recalled eating drumstick ice cream cones on her porch in the heat of summer. And then one day, all of a sudden, she decided not to sit with me in the middle school cafeteria at lunch. I marveled at the unexplained rejection and I held a grudge until we graduated high school. How silly, I thought to myself, as I passed her old house, that we allow ourselves to be so affected by childhood friends and foes. If only I was 11 again I just would have asked Jane why she didn’t want to sit with me at lunch anymore and we would have had a calm, unheated discussion about it. I have no idea where she lives now. But I know she is married. Her younger sister is married too, and somehow she is a mutual friend of an actor I just did a show with in Chicago. Our worlds are so small. I passed her house and silently wished Jane and her sister well, wherever they were.

Onwards, and I remembered Thalia and Mariah and Jackie and running around on the playground in elementary school. A memory of hand-clapping games and jump rope and making Barbie dolls kiss Ken dolls flashed through my mind. I passed another house and the vintage green car out front made me think of the boy to whom it belonged, a guy I’d once been friend’s with in high school. He and his brother had both been counselors with me at Super Summer Day Camp. I was the official Rocketry counselor, as well as the Lego counselor. My memories drifted to this gorgeous group-leader at Super Summer named Norm. I was 16 and awkward and had braces but I remember having the biggest crush on Norm. Then came that fateful day when the braces came off, and Norman, seeing my huge metal-free smile for the first time, asked me out. I was gleeful until I freaked myself out that Norman was actually a junior in college and a police officer already, and I felt so young and unsure, I ended up turning him down a few days later.

I kept running and I thought of how sometimes I would see this football linebacker, Damon, driving through the neighborhood in high school. I’d had a monster crush on him and I somehow got up the nerve to ask him to a Sadie Hawkins Dance my junior year. And he had said yes! We would talk on the phone in the weeks leading up to the dance, and I was always pleased to talk to him, except he always seemed to call me on Wednesdays when “Felicity” was being aired on the (now defunct) WB. This was the only show I ever watched, and though I was irritated I had to miss Felicity in order to talk to him, I still dieted for days in order to get into a tiny little black dress with slits up both sides. In the end, the football player had only wanted to be friends. I was disappointed but at least I had gone to the dance with a gorgeous linebacker who'd made me laugh.

I kept passing houses of people I’d once known and all of the memories hit me…. ice cream after class with Lindsey, and movies with a now fellow Chicago actress, Cate. I passed Julie’s house who had played Audrey with me in Little Shop of Horrors in high school, and I remembered Nikka and how I should call her up because I hadn’t seen her since her wedding a few years ago. I thought about beautiful Lia and being thoroughly sad I had missed her California wedding just a few weeks ago.

I thought, my goodness, SO many people are getting married.

I remembered the Cranbrook Swim Club and splashing water around with my sister. I remembered falling off my bike and cutting my lip during a block party when my brother and I had been racing our bikes very irresponsibly. I passed my friend Adam’s house, remembering playing basketball with him one random day when I’d bumped into him on a run much like this one and how he’d always made me smile, even when he was making fun of me. I passed Alicia’s house that used to have the “Beware of the Dog” sign on the lawn, and I passed Serina’s house, reminded of talking to her broadcaster Aunt intensely one day because I was convinced I wanted to be a broadcaster.

And then came the fireflies.

I was about 30 minutes into the run, inundated by imagery and heat, my mind swirling, unsure if I could run much longer.

And then I saw a firefly. Out of the corner of my eye.

I was ready for the memories to stop, but a new string of firefly memories hit me in the face. I joyfully recalled my British friend, Riley, being over the moon that she had seen her first firefly EVER. She had never seen one in Britain before. We were 19 and summer camp counselors in Cheboygan, MI, making a midnight trek to the campsite a mile away where the counselors would go to drink and have bonfires and make out in the woods. Her face had lit up like magic and I'd felt honored to be there for her first firefly. That made me think of Ben, who I’d also met at camp. He was British and beautiful and I was crazy surprised he was beguiled by ME. He broke my heart years later. My mind kept spinning and I remembered meeting a cousin for the first time in Youngstown, OH and being petrified that this little girl would catch fireflies in a jar and then violently tear off the glowing torsos of their bodies.

So many thoughts, too many thoughts, all unbridled and restless, all of them coming to me quickly and suddenly, some of them welcome, some unwelcome. The fireflies kept lighting up.

And it wasn’t just one firefly, but an infinite amount of fireflies.

I thought to myself, I’ll count up to 15 for fun and then I’ll head home, but the fireflies kept lighting up all around me. I made it to 31 just for kicks because I was born on the 31st, and then up to 50 and then 75 all within a matter of 10 minutes or so. The fireflies wouldn’t stop. But they did slow down. Sometimes the light storm would cease and I would think the game was over, but then, no WAIT, there they would go again!

I decided to keep going. Why not keep going until I had counted ONE HUNDRED FIREFLIES.

I would see these brilliant flashes of light in front of me and to the sides, my peripheral vision going off like firecrackers, my whole mind and breath acutely aware of my surroundings. For these few moments I felt as though I had never been this aware of my environment in all my life. My vision and my heart and my mind and all of my senses pushing towards this one trivial, albeit magical goal. And in this quest, as my feet hit the pavement, I somehow found a type of much needed peace and well-being.


98…

I saw a bunny hop across someone’s front lawn. My stomach knotted up in amazing anticipation, as I knew I was about to hit 100 fireflies.

A minute or two passed. The fireflies seemed to stop, the night sky barren of glowing light… And then, much like popcorn kernels reaching their threshold as they heat up during their last seconds on a stovetop, popping in a glorious finish…

99…

100!

On the 100th firefly, I saw a man walking a dog across the street and I decided to wave at him. A friendly moment commemorating 100. He did not know who I was. I did not know who he was. He waved back anyway.

I had lost all track of time and location. And when I finally stopped counting around 108, I realized I had no idea where I was, somehow lost in the maze of roads and twists in my old subdivision, unable to navigate which way was north or south or east or west, just using landmarks to get myself back home.

The web of memories had all stopped while I counted the fireflies, my mind had quieted, and I felt a sense of calm as I walked back to my childhood house.

I opened my front door and found my father watching TV in the den.

“We were beginning to worry,” he told me.

“I know, I got lost,” I replied, sitting down besides him on the couch.

“But I’m home now,” I breathed. “I’m home now.”