Firefly season

As I was walking home tonight with some friends, trying to avoid cicadas flying into my hair and the return of the mosquitoes, I was blessed with the gentle flash of fireflies. I had been waiting to see them again, as they don't really have them in San Francisco or anywhere else I have ever lived. Or perhaps I just never saw them... I love the gentle pulse of light that comes out of nowhere and brings a smile to my face. The Georgians, (republic of, that is) have the most perfect word for them, tsitsinatela, or plural tsitsinatelebi. It is such an onamonapeatic language, with the pulses of soft green light almost humming tsi! tsi! I always wondered where they went during winter. Do they hibernate, or does the green light only come out in summer?


tsitsinatela, or firefly in Georgian script