Getting Bugged in Iowa City

All week my blog sisters have been writing about bugs. Now it’s my turn.

The first summer I went to Iowa City for a workshop at the U of Iowa summer writing program, I discovered lightening bugs or fireflies, well, rediscovered them. I had known all about them when I was a kid, but since there don’t seem to be any in Southern California, I’d forgotten all about them.

The week long classes always began with a meeting on Sunday evening. To get back from the classroom to where I was staying I had to walk through an open field. Picture an expanse of grass, a darkening sky and everywhere tiny flashes of light going off and on.

For the rest of the week, every evening I would find a bench by the river and watch it get dark and be enchanted by the dance of the fireflies.

I don’t care that they are really beetles or that they might be cannibals, to me they are magic.