Summer is slipping away, and with it, the false optimism that accompanies sunny days, fresh squeezed lemonade, and picnics at the water’s edge. I remember when summer was MY season. It served as a laid back reprieve from all the adolescent insecurities that go along with trying and failing to fit in with your peers. The need for a rescue season hasn’t diminished upon becoming an adult, but the notion of a seasonal reprieve from reality no longer exists. There is nothing seasonal about it.

It’s reduced to a moment here and there.

It isn’t important it occur at once, but it requires patience seeking out Easter eggs during the drudgery of everyday ordinary. Most of life seems to be quite ordinary and tedious, and that is if you are the fortunate ones. Perhaps beneath our largest organ, all of us are destined to be advertising executives presenting our lives to others in a more interesting light than things actually occur. Are we selling to others, or are we selling to ourselves? I suspect a little of both.

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Last of the fireflies

I briefly considered catching a few of these over the summer to keep in a jar in my bedroom for a few days, until a experienced a votive candle moment and remembered the last time I acted on a similar brainfart.

I caught a few dragon flies, to dry for drawing references. I know, not exactly insect friendly. I sealed them in a plastic peanut butter bar waiting for, uh nature to take its course. I put the jar on the fireplace mantel with the intent of checking it for signs of life later. Dragonflies don’t go quietly. They have fits of violent movement that attract the attention of sedate housecats.

The cat knocked the jar from the mantel, and chased around the house like a hamster in a ball. But the dragonflies didn’t fair well, not very durable dragonflies in a jar. No drawing specimens for me, but the cat, he might have shed a pound or two.