Because I Killed a Firefly When I Was Five Years Old

“The night sky is full of stars best seen from a dark place.” –Margaret Renkl

Sep 14, 2025

It was a summer afternoon in western Michigan. I was standing on my grandparents’ front porch—I couldn’t have been more than five years old—when I saw a hideous bug crawling up the glass of their storm door. Acting on impulse and fear, I smashed it, smearing its innards—its bright, glowing innards—across the clear glass.

A firely.

A harmless, beautiful firely.

That was how I learned what fireflies look like by daylihgt. To that point, I’d known them only as floating lanterns of neon in nighttime skies. They weren’t bugs; they were magic.

My body flooded with guilt and sorrow, and I don’t think I ever knowingly killed another bug in my life after that (ticks and mosquitoes excluded, though even those I’ve occassionally spared).

So often, we smash and destroy that which seems to threaten us, that which we don’t understand, that which makes us fearful.

In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, my teaching of which inspired me to write The Good Curse, Rebecca Nurse advises her neighbors, fearful of witchcraft and the devil, ready to blame The Other for their sins, to “Let us rather blame ourselves.”

While the semantics of blame might not sound particularly appealing by modern-day standards, the idea of curiosity might. What if when we felt fearful or threatened, as opposed to getting angry or judgmental or insecure or reactive, we got curious?

What if instead of lashing out, we looked inward? What if we asked ourselves: What internal factors make that external stimulus feel threatening?

After we figure out the answer to that question, we can ask a few more: Is the threat valid? If it isn’t, what can we do to mitigate our feelings? If it is, what can we do to mitigate the threat (preferably in a way that doesn’t include death and destruction)?

I am no longer generally afraid of bugs. No—my list of anxieties has become much more existential: AI, climate change, loneliness, failure, regret. Perhaps it is time I examine why these things scare me so much and what I might be able to do about it.

It’s instinctual to immediately act to protect ourselves when we’re scared, when our safety or position or relationships or sense of self feels threatened. It’s what Miller’s Thomas Putnam does when he moves to hang Tituba the second she’s pointed to as a witch. Without a trial, without an examination, without an investigation, “This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!”

But only after the firefly was crushed did I see its glow and realize what it was I had killed. And by then, it was too late.

What I’m Working On

My Current Work-In-Progress: The Good Curse

I submitted two signigicantly revised chapters to my mentor on September 1. I’d hoped to have finished reading through the full manuscript before then, but alas!, the school year has begun and working full-time takes up quite a bit of time, so that didn’t quite happen. I did, however, manage to finish reading it a few days later: Although not an actual book yet (yet), I finished my first read-through of The Good Curse on September 6, National Read a Book Day. In the course of reading through it in its entirety, I gained more clarity as to my motivation for writing it, partially explored in the introduction above.

I’m still diligently recording my progress in my revisions journal. My goal is to work on revisions at least five days a week. Most weeks, I’ve managed three or four days. One week, I did miraculously meet and exceed my five-day-a-week goal.

Did you know…?

On September 13, 1710, Sarah Good’s widower, William Good, petitioned the court for restitution for the pain and suffering the Salem witch trials caused his family. Among his complaints:

“My wife Sarah Good was In prison about four months & then Executed.” (Never mind the fact that he was among those who testified against her.)
“a sucking child dyed in prison before the Mothers Execution”
“a child of 4 or 5 years old was in prison 7 or 8 months and being chain’d in the dungeon was so hardly used and terrifyed that she hath ever since been very chargeable haveing little or no reason to govern herself.” This last bit refers to his daughter, Dorothy Good.

The court awarded Mr. Good 30 pounds.

Bonus Projects

“Welcome Home,” my piece about Archie, will appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Pets, Pets, Pets, due out in late October. I’m in the early stages of planning a fundraiser with the book for A Pet’s Tale, a non-profit exotic pet rescue in my neighborhood.

Outdoor Writing

Last week, I reviewed the proof of my article about the state arboretum, which will appear in the October issue of Cooperative Living Magazine, alongside photos by Radiant Snapshots.

Last month I interviewed a representative from Girls Who Hike Virginia, and next month, I have plans to interview someone from the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, both in support of my upcoming piece about winter hiking.

Writing Community

The first Prose and Cons Writing Club meeting is scheduled for September 18. I’ve been enjoying reading fellow writers’ submissions since September 1, and am really looking forward to our first meeting, which is scheduled to be held in a yurt (novel indeed!). I’ll be among the writers submitting next month, and hope to submit, at a minimum, the yet-to-be-written epilogue for The Good Curse and, if I can smooth it out enough to be worth critiquing, an essay about AI that may become an introduction to a future issue of this newsletter. Both goals might be a bit lofty, but shoot for the moon and land among the stars, right?

I’m also looking forward to next month’s James River Writers Annual Conference. More on that soon.

What I’m Reading

Between teaching school and revising The Good Curse, I’ve had to take a little break from my reading of Vanessa Chakour’s Earthly Bodies: Embracing Animal Nature, but it’s still technically What I’m Reading, because I won’t open a new book until I’ve finished this lovely work of literature, which maintains its place on my kitchen table, ready for the next time I’m able to pick it up, which I’m eager to do.