8 Cool Things About Having a Visitor

Sharing your life, your favorites, the world through your eyes with a guest has its challenges as well as its rewards.  I’ve had a lot of company these last weeks, and as Rachel (Rae) from Scotland and I share our last full day, I’m already thinking back.

Here, then, a list of things cool about sharing with a guest to your life:

1. The fun of sharing regional favorites, like Five Guys, sweet tea and fried chicken from the gas station.

2. Heading to those places you love but seldom get to – Cooper’s Rock, Valley Falls, and  Natural Bridge, to name a few.

3. Luring her in to your own obsession with all things Star Trek, ending up with both of you humming together the Star Trek Voyager theme music at dinner.

4. Laughter.

5. Finding your amazement at the things she doesn’t like that you just love – who wouldn’t love fresh tomatoes with mozzarella, basil and a little balsamic?  Why, it’s positively unAmerican.  Oh.

6. Seeing your world through her eyes, realizing (again) just how loud we Americans of the U. S. variety can be (are); noticing our craven love for salt (who knew there even could be too much salt on movie pop corn?); having to warn that our hot water is not an inexhaustible supply (why will we not adopt the U. K. way on this?); rediscovering that a coffee maker is mysterious if you’ve never used one before; explaining that you’re safe in a car from a Mama Bear; remembering how much you love fire works; having to explain who the people of your people’s history are – what each tribe holds so dear of its past is but so much unknown data to those of another tribe.

7. Showing her the magic of the nighttime in summer and watching her see lightening bugs for the first time – pure magic.

8. Rediscovering how very much we are all alike and how very much we are all so different – all at the same time.

Better Fireflies

Rowen and I won’t tell Wes, but we are agreed: he has the better fireflies (lightening bugs to us).  Last night we drove over at dark to Wes’ place on invitation to come and see the best fireflies.  Wes is right – it is an amazing sight.

Stand in front of the house and stare at the fields all around and it’s like the tall grass is filled with dancing light.  Turn around and see the treed hill with more of the same.

And another thing – the fireflies at Wes’ place are way faster than here in “town” (what folks living out call McDowell, a village of maybe 30 people).  Whatever we did, we just couldn’t catch them – they were just too fast.  So another, unexpected difference develops: country fireflies are faster fliers than their town cousins.  Who knew?

It was a magical night, or as Rowen said, it was more magical.

Running through the grass to starlight, dancing and turning in circles with a soon-to-be 6-year-old, I watch as this beloved of my heart jumps and shrieks his enthusiasm which his little body just cannot contain.

And all is well.

Heading back home, we get the tent out and our night of joy is complete, for this is the first night Rowen will manage to sleep the night in the tent with me.

And the stars smiled.

The only bugs I ever liked

A spark of knowledge in a world of ignorance or darkness.  --The Aztecs

I saw my first lightening bug last night.  Crossing the road in the dark of the night, there she was, right in front of me.  I reached out my hand and we brushed past each other, she and I, each going our own way.

I looked back, but she did not – not being mating material, she had no interest in the likes of me.

Lightening bugs and summer – an inseparable pairing in my mind and heart.

Now I confess – I hate bugs – all kinds of bugs.

They engender an irrational fear in me that is entirely disproportionate to their size.

All bugs, that is, except lightening bugs.  You may know them as fireflies.  Family: Lampyridae   

They don’t have lightening bugs in Scotland.  I don’t know why.  But I have loved the charm that passes the faces of my Scottish friends when they meet these magic creatures of the night.

Check out firefly.org for tips on how to
increase the fireflies in your own backyard

My own love affair started, as I’m guessing it did for you who have them where you live, when I was a kid and we chased them, caught them, put them in jars and wore them as bracelets (notice that I did not say that lightening bugs have any reason to love me back).

Last summer grandson Rowen had his own chance to explore the dark of a country night chasing lightening bugs.  But the times have changed – instead of a glass mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the lid, Rowen had his own hand-crafted by his own hands at the Library plastic mesh bug house with accompanying pipe cleaner handle.  Sadly for Rowen, but good news for the fireflies, he caught only one that night and her only briefly.  He was so excited as his Dad put her on his hand that he danced.  She, of course, flew away.  He cried his disappointment and then chased the other lights flashing in the night.

I can’t wait til Rowen comes back and we do it again, when I am now the grownup cautioning kindness for the living thing of beauty so desired.

Pure magic.