There was a wind advisory in effect until 9:00 p.m. for PIne Mountain, Georgia on Friday, May 6th as storms made their way east from Alabama. All day, the weather had been threatening our weekend plans, but we decided to hold out hope that the sun would punch holes of light through the clouds and the weatherman would be wrong again.
We arrived at our campsite, leveled the camper, set up our chairs, built a fire, and lit the grill to cook our steaks. I’d left the A-1 at home just to keep the peace with my beef bully, and was delighted to discover that these tasted good enough without sauce. We sat on opposite sides of the picnic table as we enjoyed our meal together.
About halfway through dinner, something green and glimmery caught my eye in a tree on a neighboring campsite.
I decided to keep it to myself, wondering whether I was seeing things. I didn’t want to tip my hand to any hallucinations just yet, but I suddenly began to understand after all these years how Gladys Kravitz on Bewitched felt every time she hollered out to Abner to come see if he saw what she was seeing.
But it happened again.
And again.
The little flickers of light looked like tiny green fairies dancing on the tops of the leaves. I kept watching, thinking maybe it had rained and the water was sparkling at a reflective angle on some ultra-green leaves as Mother Nature was putting on a show.
Maybe the steaks had come in contact with some kind of hallucinogenic mushrooms or something. Surely not.
Fireflies! They had to be fireflies. Mystery solved.
But why were they swarming that one tree and nowhere else?
My husband caught my expression of wonder and asked what was happening behind him.
“Turn around,” I urged him, wiping my eyes, “and see if you notice anything in that tree right behind you.”
He looked. “I see little green lights. Hmmmm…….looks like some sort of a laser show…..wait, now they’re turning red.”
Fireflies and ladybugs? Red and green laser lights? What was happening?
As it grew darker, the lights danced faster and more brilliantly. Dog walkers and cyclists stopped to admire the tree of lights.
“It’s a laser projector” the campers next door explained to a passerby. “They’re really for Christmas, but we like them all year.”
My husband and I sat for hours, mesmerized by these lights. They were fascinating. Thrilling, really, like a troupe of magical fairies dancing, skipping across all the leaves, clinging to some before hopping to others.
“Think I can find it on an Amazon search?” I asked my husband.
“Ha! Is that even a question? What have you never found on an Amazon search?”
In less than two minutes I had the laser projector in my cart. “Happy Mother’s Day to me,” I announced with delighted anticipation. “It’ll be home before we will.”
Years ago, I told my children to save their money and not to buy anything for me. It gives me the freedom to pick something I’d like to have and order it for myself, taking the pressure off of them to try to figure out something they think I would like. I usually call them and thank them for something very practical, so this year they will be surprised to discover that I bought a box full of magical emerald green dancing fairies to unleash on the breeze of the nighttime trees.
Genesis 1:14
And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years….
Common Threads 