I know it’s summer – and not because some dumb calendar told me so. I know it’s summer because Wisconsin has passed through the rain of spring, softly enduring its time of blooming, emerging on the other side all lush and green.

We’ve got lush for days up in here. Green fields and trees branches heavy with their velvety leaves.

And I know it’s summer because here we are at the tail end of June, when Wisconsin gathers up all her beauty and all her lush-powered goodness and focuses all that sunshiny wholesomeness into her one, true purpose.

This purpose? To make me sweat like a grizzly bear wearing leather pants who just ate a large spaghetti dinner while slumped in a tin roofed shed built in the middle of shopping mall parking lot at high noon.

The bear is hot, is what I’m saying. The bear is hairy. And the bear sweats.

But summer opens up to me like a gentle flower in other ways, as well.

I hate sun block, and summer knows it. That’s why summer tries to burn my beautiful, pale skin every damn day, sunup to sundown. I can’t just leap out my front door and frolic down the bright sidewalk. No, no. First I must apply the Dread Lotion.

Listen, I wouldn’t trade my rickety hulking man arms for anything, but smearing sun block all over my forearms is not fun. It’s like smearing sunblock all over a really handsome dog. It takes many, many minutes of scrubbing just to penetrate the outer coat of fur. And when I’ve finally finished, my hands are slathered in greasy goo, so when I try to grab the bottle of sun block it shoots from my grip like a slimy missile and lands behind the toilet every single time.

Thanks, summer. Keep up the good work.

I also know it’s summer because my wife asks me to go for walks with much greater frequency. Now, I know that I’ll enjoy these walks. I always do. My wife has a 100 percent success rate in suggesting activities I’ll like or even love, despite my many hesitations. So when she wants to get outside to stroll through the neighborhood, trailing after a billowing summer breeze as the sun sets and leaves behind a deep purple sky ... I get all grumpy and drag my feet like an enraged toddler leaving a toy store. 

But summer calls to her. And when it does, we answer. All of us.

And finally, I know it’s summer because once I’m finally walking down the sidewalk, holding my wife’s hand and trying to stumble along with her elegant strides, I see the fireflies. The sky grows dim and there they are, flittering along the edges of everything.

We love fireflies. Of course we do.

My kids will stop goofing around and stand silent, watching for the little dancing lights popping on and off here and there. By those lilacs. By that doorstep. Up in that tree.

They appear from behind some black curtain, showing themselves for only a moment or two before vanishing again. A tiny magic act.

Watch closely now ... poof.

We know how the trick works. It’s a chemical reaction in their bellies, causing a luminous reaction in our hearts – from where all the best magic comes.

It’s science. But science that’s as good as or better than magic. So why don’t we just call it magic? Let’s do it. Let’s call fireflies magic. We’ve studied them, we understand them, and we can explain them. But they’re still amazing, so we can call them magic if we want to, can’t we?

This is a magic of the most basic kind. A magic of the most hopeful kind. A small wonder, out there in the summer dark.

A little bit of light winking back at us.