What I'd Like to Put in a Mason Jar

We ended our 4th of July in my parents' backyard, snuggled together on beach towels and blankets, shooing away mosquitoes and watching the fireworks overhead. It was like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, right down to Buddy's container of fireflies twinkling beside us.

I wish it was possible to capture a moment in a mason jar.

We live in the area where I grew up. We go to mass in the Church where my high school graduation was held. I run into people I've known since I was six in the grocery store. Its nice having those connections to the past; reminders of who I was before I was a wife and a mother, before I realized crimping my hair was not remotely cool.

No day makes me appreciate this more than the 4th of July, when my parents' closest friends and their children join us to celebrate. We all see each other randomly throughout the year, at weddings or baby showers, but 4th of July is the one night that we are all together, laughing around the dinner table and reminiscing about vacations & other summer nights spent together. No doubt helped along by 2 glasses of my mom's party girl punch, I found myself feeling lightheaded w/nostalgia, yet at the same time anchored by a clear understanding of who I am, with the sense of security that comes from being surrounded by a group of people to whom I've belonged my whole life.

I can't help but hope that one day the boys will have a similar experience, that years from now we'll still watch fireworks with these same people, our children now grown and helping children of their own catch fireflies in a jar. But I realize this probably will not be the case. I realize that the boys' lives will probably take them to other places, that they may celebrate the 4th of July in Texas or Tallahassee or on the other side of an ocean.

That's why I wish I could bottle up this 4th of July. So that where ever the boys find themselves celebrating in the future, they could remember this moment. They could open their jars and breathe in the smell of suntan lotion and citronella candles, remembering what it was like to be young, snuggled on beach blankets as fireworks lit up the sky, in the company of people who loved them.