Take me back to my youth.

By Silver Blue

On a hot evening in June, 2008, I was standing at the kitchen window of the Shenandoah Forester when, for a moment, I was returned to the days of my youth. Fireflies (or as we used to call them, “lightning bugs”) scattered all over the landscape, their lanterns flashing on and off in a random melody. I was six years old again, on the mountainside of my Grandma and Grandpa Barker, with a glass mason jar (fitted with a lid punched for air holes) running, catching, and trying not release those that I had already caught, knowing at the end of the evening, before I had to go to bed, I’d be releasing them so they wouldn’t die. I had allowed myself to become that firefly in a mason jar. I had to find my way out, or I knew I would die.

Four years later, at the beginning of June, 2012 also on a hot evening we were under a tornado warning. Silver Blue, the idiot, was on his porch with a camera. Feeling I could hear the tornado approach and make it the 15 feet to my cellar in time, I stood there, snapping shots of the sky. The birds ceased their chirping. Even the crickets quieted their song. All was calm and deathly still. Like the eye of a hurricane.

I ventured out. It was 8:15 at night. We had 15 minutes left of the tornado warning. Little did I know that less than a mile from me, the waterspout had made landfall and would go on for about 3.5 miles doing 4.3 million in damage, but fortunately with no severe injury or loss of life, and only one company (Amory Seafood) being destroyed.

Standing in the street, in the still, strange quiet time, with the sky having that strange green hue that tornadoes bring, I noticed something. A flicker. First to the left. Then to the right. Could I capture this with my camera?

See that yellow dot towards the center of the photo? Yes. My fireflies had returned. Something told me the worst had passed. The crickets started back up. Then, slowly, birds started to chirp. About 15 minutes later, another severe rain band passed over our area; but there were to be no more tornadoes that night.

Silver Blue, who remembers that even in the worst of situations, there’s always hope.

Published by Silver Blue in Canon, Rebel T3i