Uh...?

I’ve never seen a firefly. When I was little, someone read a story to me about collecting fireflies in a Mason jar and using it for a lantern. I looked high and low, near and far, day and night; but I never did see one. Of course, living where there are no fireflies might have had something to do with my vain search.

Instead of collecting fireflies, I turned to collecting local insects and other creepercrawlersfliers. It was common for me and my friends to purloin canning jars and lids from our mothers’ precious stashes, punch holes in the lids, and set out to snare the unwary bumble or honey bee. If a uncautious butterfly happened to be snatched into a jar, all the better. Of course, we planned for the comfort of our prisoners–we lined the bottom of each jar with sweet green grass and a toothsome leaf or two–knowing from past history that, no matter how cushy the cell, our prisoners were doomed to their death fate quickly. Who knew that not all critters depend on the same green diet?

Now, at times I shared my twin-bedded room with my grandmother, who shuttled back and forth between my family and my cousin’s depending on which group she was more annoyed with. My grandmother, while not the most squeamish of homekeepers (my mother once caught her cleaning off the stovetop with the same rag she had just used on the toilet seat), was not fond of the lower forms of life, including my cat, which she frequently managed to kick "accidentally" if she thought no one was looking. Because of her critter aversion, I had to keep my wide ranging collection out of her sight. She would not have been too overwhelmingly pleased to know that it resided in the very far corner under her bed. Deceased butterflies (including one dismal chrysalis, destined to burst open to a world of imprisoning glass walls), ants, bees, beetles, snails, slugs, (but no puppy dog tails). No, she would have not been pleased at all, atall.

Some years later, after my father’s death, we moved to a new house in a new town to be closer to my cousin’s family. The new house was situated on a hill and had a tiny backyard. It felt cramped and unwelcoming–until I discovered a treasure. One corner was triangularly bounded on two sides by a neighbor’s fence, and on the base by a row of rocks interspersed by abalone shells! I have no idea how the former owners had acquired the shells. I don’t think I even knew the names or number of the former owners. All I know is that when, out of early teenage curiosity I moved some of the rocks and shells, out skittered a salamander, headed for a better, unmoveable shelter. Now, looking back from a position of ecological awareness and humane kindness, I’d like to be able to say I was amazed, pleased, and respectful of that creature’s life. I wish I could. I can’t. I hatched a plot, and as everyone knows, hatching a plot can be very painful–particularly for the plotted upon. Every so often I would turn over those rocks and shells, Mason jar in hand, and try to trap one of those poor little lizards. Eventually, I succeed. Trapped, imprisoned for life, it lived on a shelf on the laundry room. And when it eventually succumbed to the lack of food, water, and adequate breathing supplies, I filled the jar with alcohol (since I lacked a formaldehyde connection). And that unfortunate salamander would probably still be there on the laundry room shelf, if I hadn’t moved out, and if my mother hadn’t had a house burglary, and if she hadn’t move out herself and decided that she had no use for a preserved salamander.

What reminded me of all this was taking a bath yesterday morning and realizing that the abalone shell holding my razor was one of those that had once sheltered that selfsame salamander.

And thus are memories recollected.

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Listening to:

Small Faces: The Anthology, 1965-1967, disc 2
Queen: A Kind of Magic
Leonard Cohen: Ten New Songs
Chage & Aska: No Doubt
Chumbawamba: Tubthumper
Norah Jones: Feels Like Home