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The sun just set. A slow fog is falling from the sky, meeting the treetops. I’m smoking Blue Dream on the black rocking chair on my porch, looking out onto the land—long grass and wildflowers gently swaying to the left, the breeze carrying the scent of the river and black walnuts.

I’m mesmerized by the sea of lightning bugs, or is it fireflies? In Spanish we call them luciérnagas. A small rabbit comes out of her home, and I say, Isn’t it too late for you to be out? Like I’m her auntie. Get back home. Too many predators out at this time.

She ignores me.

It’s Lily. She was born this spring and absolutely loves strawberries. My little strawberry patch is practically empty, even the two pots I have growing on the back deck. But how can I complain when she’s so freakin’ cute?

She begins happily hopping toward the luciérnagas, and the most peculiar thing happens. Wherever she hops, the lights around her go dark. I watch for a few more hops before I realize it’s definitely a pattern. She moves through the fireflies swirling between the wildflowers, and they dim the moment she passes. It looks like she’s painting a long brushstroke with her shadow among the magical blinking lights.

“Want some tea?”

At some point my husband slipped away without me noticing and was now back with my favorite mug—bone-colored, with the words Future Ghost. The handle is nice and wide for my big hands, stained with soil and tomato guts.

I had a bit of a scruff with a red squirrel today who needs to learn a lesson in sharing. His cheeks were full of cherry tomatoes, and then he had the audacity to spit one at me when I kindly asked, Sir, can you not eat all the tomatoes?

I’ve always loved fireflies. I mean, what’s not to love? Technically they’re beetles, and some species shimmer like polished metal or gold. But these little ones hold a special place in my heart and my memories, like they do for so many Jersey girls. They arrive in late spring and stay until late August, casting a glow over our dark nights and deep thoughts.

I remember reading that they’re disappearing. There are more than 175 species of fireflies in the United States, with several at risk of extinction. My heart sinks into an all-too-familiar place. I’ve created a crater in myself where all the bad feelings go, where reality’s hardest truths linger. Like a tired old ghost waiting for my soul to arrive.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” he asks.

I nod and take a pull. As the smoke parts my lips, I feel the tangle around my tongue, weary of speaking the truth in this moment. I don’t want to ruin this enchanting display of our relatives in relationship with one another.

Yet I’m seconds away from my eyes becoming rivers, wanting to wail. It’s been my truth for months now. I don’t know. It’s… everything, I guess. Palestinians are still waiting for someone—anyone—to stop the genocide. Iran. Lebanon. Cuba, my homeland. So many people suffering. So much suffering. I can’t help but think of my own communities’ cries right here in the States—our missing relatives, our murdered relatives, the way we’re talked about in the media like we’re the monsters.

And then I remind myself that there is always good. There are people who care. Resistance. Unlearning. Love. It’s just that no matter how much joy my body can hold in a moment, there is also the constant occupation of what colonizers and oppressors are doing in real time to people, to children, to communities, to sacred lands.

Both can exist at once, I remind myself.

It’s a constant affirmation my brain has yet to fully understand because I haven’t figured out how to regulate my nervous system out of this crater inside me. Not with the endless jolts of what the fuck? rushing in, one after another.

Breaking news.

I breathe in the scent of roses rising from my mug and look at my husband. I smile. He knows when my heart is heavy, and rose tea has a way of working her hands around my heart and gently releasing the weight. My shoulders drop. The air is damp. My leg bends beneath my skirt, giving the breeze room to cool my thighs as it dries the sweat down my calves. I wipe my forehead and turn up the volume on our porch record player, a small hunter-green box with black scuffs I found at the thrift store for fifteen dollars. Steal!

Sixth Sense by Imelda May begins to play, her voice vibrating through the wooden planks as they creak beneath the sudden rise in humidity.

Life is good, I think.

And life is also not good.

I am grateful.

But I am also full of rage.

I feel joy in this moment.

And I also feel sad.

Very sad.

That’s what it feels like for me. Even with all the beauty and magic, sadness walks beside me like a wise abuelita, slowly teaching me about life through a lens that burns and hurts. It’s blurry right now, and maybe it will be for a long while. But it will inevitably change.

Life changes.

Everything changes.

Everyone changes.

I can see both the light and the darkness that looms over us. I guess it’s a good thing we can see it, feel it, know where it lives. Better that than it be hidden. Keep your eyes wide open.

My goal this summer is simply to let myself feel and be. I don’t have to pretend I’m having the best summer ever. It can all be true at once. The beauty. The grief. The joy. The rage. I choose to feel it all. To honor it all, even when the world feels impossibly dystopian.

luciérnagas don’t fear the night sky, they instead choose to illuminate it.

Love,

Juliet.

Summertime Sadness With A Side Of Luciérnagas

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