May 18

Were we to experience this life for only one day, today is as close to perfect that I can imagine. The frenzied pace of spring growth is just starting to slacken and will settle soon into the productive maturity of what will be summer. For now, the sunshine is as clear as can be, seen through a brilliant blue sky that has yet to take on the sultry humidity of June and especially July. Everything around, seen in the radiance of its light, appears juvenile and full of promise. I am thinking particularly of this after seeing my first mayfly flutter by, pausing briefly to land on my shoulder before continuing onward in a struggle against the gentle spring breeze.

Mayflies remind me of my youth in Michigan, where we would see them erupt by the thousands to spend their singular adult day as a winged insect, searching hurriedly en masse for a mate, flying about over the dock and water before coming to rest and then death on the shore.

Mayflies are frightening to a child, as they look particularly menacing with such long bodies, large wings and split hair tails. They are, in fact, rather harmless, if not a nuisance as they fly indiscriminately about. Mayflies troubled me for another reason, on account of their brief time as an adult.

We learned how the adults emerged from their nymph form and spent a singular day out of the water. It is for this reason that the scientific name of mayflies belongs to the ephemera. Some would emerge on perfect spring days, and we would see them fluttering about in the warm breeze and resting in the warm sunshine. Others would arrive in the cold and rain of a spring storm, destined to know only of their single day as struggle.

I recall being overwhelmed to think of knowing only a single day as life and the cruelty or beauty that such a day might bring. There is profoundness in this, even for a child and maybe particularly so for me, as I know now how filled my summers were with sunshine and carefree days. I know now how fleeting this life can be and that fairness isn’t a necessary part of its design.

Notes:

Buttercups appearing near garden backyard.