Summer began officially on June 21st, but the days are already getting shorter. And that fact makes me sad.

I am an extreme morning bird. Yes, there really are people like me who wake up repeatedly during the night, grab the clock, and hope it’s time to get up. Sleep, to us, seems boring at best, and a waste of time at worst (although we know better).

Better put, I crave the light of day. The faint tendrils of sunrise that weave through the darkness bring the promise of a new day, a new chance, a blank page upon which to write the story. At least that’s how it has always seemed to me.

Last week, working with a group in Berlin, we were far enough north for sunrise to come at 4:30 a.m. Sufficient light lingered until 9:30 p.m. to allow us to walk around the Gendarmenmarkt and marvel at the symmetry of two nearly identical Baroque churches flanking Schinkel’s 1830 neoclassical theater. The only negative was the fact that the iconic Gendarmenmarkt curry-wurst stand had closed for the night.

Back home, I decided it was time to start summer. That meant everything I wanted to do was a month off the curve. At the local nursery, the fellow gave me a puzzled look when I asked for vegetable sets. “Ma’am, we’ve been out of those for weeks. We’re waiting on our fall sets to come in. But you might find something left at Home Depot.”

Fortunately, I did. Plus tomato cages, garden soil, and a wickedly good hoe. So off I went to turn a rocky patch in our new North Carolina back yard into a garden plot. Don’t laugh. And don’t expect me to post a picture of the results. The adjectives “puny” and “unimpressive” come to mind, but if those peppers and tomatoes come in, I’ll be crowing.

We did not put in a garden the whole time I lived in Texas. Those SMU years were too busy, plus our yard was not right (someone before us had taken a perfectly good yard and turned it into a swimming pool surrounded mostly by concrete). Furthermore, our Lab-mix “Buddy” would have dug up anything we planted.

After that, we were out in the country on a ranch. The perfect setting, right? Except that anything desirable (read every herb, flower, or vegetable you’d want to plant) generated an automatic spotlight for the nightly parade of deer, rabbits, and armadillo. A serious fence would have been necessary. Any fencing we paid for involved keeping goats in, not protecting green beans.

Now we’re in the verdant paradise of North Carolina. A nice chain-link fence surrounds the long stretch of yard sloping from our house. For sure, unfurling leaves of garden vegetables have a better chance of surviving here.

The other amazing “summer” thing to enjoy in our new North Carolina home involves fireflies (or lightning bugs). My best childhood memories come from evenings in Roanoke, Virginia when we neighborhood kids ran after fireflies in our pajamas. Still, as a child, I never cared to read about them. Just trap ‘em in jars. Or, if we were chided, catch them and watch them glow in our palms.

This time, though, I am fascinated by their strange life cycle—their period as a kind of grub, followed by endless months in a chrysalis stage, with just a few weeks to fly around and blink their mating signals to each other. I had no idea how many species of firefly exist (c. 2000) or that they can cannibalize each another if a different species. Hmm. Better to chase one than be one.

Now, watching the grandkids ecstatically pursue them has tossed me back to those days. The cascade of  chirps and peeps also evokes one of my favorite kinds of music: “night music”—a musical style where instruments convey the twinkly sounds of nighttime creatures. You can judge for yourself how successfully the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók created night music in the third movement of his Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste (1936), one of the most famous examples.

Bartok’s love of nature is apparent in many of his works. You feel that love, too, when visiting the Béla Bartók Memorial House, a once secluded, now-suburban property he chose for his residence during what ended up being his last eight years in Budapest. The leafy walk up to his villa, the lines of hedges, the garden, and the towering trees peering into large windows created a paradise—one he never suspected he would lose forever when he fled the horrors of Hitler’s Europe in 1940.

Here we go again: everything intertwines. I meant to write about early sunrises, gardens, and fireflies. And I’ve ended up with a piece of music—a glorious one at that! If you enjoy this movement, then consider adding Bartók’s Out of Doors Suite, another piece where Bartók revealed his genius for capturing the sounds of a summer night.

If you still have fireflies circulating in your yard, go frolic with them. Their time is short. The days are growing briefer. Winter darkness is sneaking in, minute by minute. In fact, let me borrow the voice of a beloved author: 

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

All the more reason to start your summer—a garden, a summer reading program, swim lessons, whatever it be. Do not worry if you are behind the curve! You have more company than you think.