Need a break from daily grind? Sit in your backyard tonight and savor the firefly dance

They twinkle and twirl as they flit among the trees and shrubs and flowers in my backyard, graceful little streaks in the twilight inviting anyone present to stop for a moment to enjoy the show.

Unlike the man-made fireworks that shriek and pop as they soar to the sky, their quiet flashes hint at destinations unseen and undesigned and uncomplicated.

A whole community of fireflies were tacit guests last weekend during a small midsummer gathering of neighbors, providing boundless entertainment for the two youngest. The fireflies swooped and circled and flickered, with dozens rising from the ground in cycles.

I watched the children chasing them across the lawn — between roasting marshmallows — and remembered chasing fireflies myself on dusky summer evenings on my grandfather's farm.

There were no streetlights in the country; the only competition they had was a single bulb from a porch light and the warm glow from the windows as my grandmother switched on the lamps inside the house.

Though I envy the children's innocence (and maybe their energy), those nostalgic thoughts weren't really about wanting to be a child again. They were more about yearning for a break from all the things adults make more complicated than they really ought to be.

Elsewhere in the world people were trying to figure out what really happened during an attempted coup in the midst of a controversial war, which oceanic disaster deserved more attention and how to get Taylor Swift tickets. And arguing about all of them. Plus politics, both foreign and domestic.

But for that moment, all was happy and tranquil among the flowers and trees and fireflies. How many summer evenings had I busied myself with other things — or worse, plopped in front of the TV — and missed the subtle light show in my own backyard?

I've lived in several metropolitan areas over the years, including five years just blocks from Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I used to joke that I had to drive to Wisconsin to see a tree.

It wasn't quite that bad — there were several trees and birds in my North Side neighborhood, the evidence of which I was constantly washing from my black car in the summer.

But I remember going to retreat in Wisconsin after spending a month or two in the city and being startled by the inky night sky and the number of stars that were visible outside the glare of the city lights.

That my urban surroundings had caused something so ordinary to become so foreign was sobering.

Likewise, the time I spent in the Washington suburbs made me wistful for so much more that I'd often taken for granted.

My office was in one of those "live/work" developments that seem to spread like weeds across the landscape as the developers contrive to mimic small communities — like those that have grown naturally here in Washington County.

In fact, my co-workers and I called the development — with its carefully planned retail areas, office space and condominiums — "the movie set" because it all seemed so artificial.

I'm sure there were fireflies there somewhere, and I'm sure I must have seen them, but I don't remember them.

But one evening I took a meandering drive from Leesburg, Va., with its air of past gentility; to the tiny village of Waterford, intentionally stuck in its 18th- to 19th-century time warp; then over to spellbinding Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown, W.Va., up through Sharpsburg, Keedysville, Boonsboro and Funkstown to Hagerstown.

All these little towns with all their individual characteristics, like a patchwork quilt where each piece fits into the whole but is special in its own way.

There was something alluring about each of them that the best-laid development plan couldn't capture. Maybe it was the genuinely antique architecture. Or maybe it was the lack of frenzied congestion those other places never quite seem to exorcise.

And I remembered why, whenever I was far away, I ached to come back to this little corner of the planet.

Where you can sit on the patio with a glass of something cold in your hand on a summer evening and swap stories with your neighbors.

And feel the heat dissipate as the sun fades and the moon ascends.

And savor the firefly dance.

Tamela Baker is a Herald-Mail feature writer.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: A quiet evening in the backyard can do wonders for your mood