August 3, 2017.
Summer night. Cool for Chicago. Not humid. Dry and warm. At our friend’s fortieth birthday party. Their new apartment in a three flat in Lincoln Square. The rooms inside have become to hot. Too close. With people and trapped air.
Outside. On the back porch of the building. Wooden steps and landings. The air is much cooler. Open. Night is not yet total. A faint glow in the sky but dark here in the back yard beneath trees. The alley. Our son chases after distant lightning bugs. Here. Then there. Existing for a second in one place. Reappearing somewhere else.
An artist. A friend of our now forty year old friend. Is patient. Walks with our son in the grass. Pointing out the lightning bugs. How they move. Moving from the alley towards the grass along the fence then into the clump of trees inside the yard. They walk from spot to spot. Our son runs. Still a whirl of energy.
We linger by the stairs. In the light of the porch.
Three hippies smoke herbs on the landing above us. An assortment of floral herbs grown in their yards and planters.
It is nine pm.