GLIMMERS | noticing what's already there

Every July, I find myself looking for two kinds of light.

Fireworks.
And fireflies.
One asks you to look up. The other asks you to slow down.

Fireworks get everyone's attention. They are loud on purpose. Timed, announced, watched by a crowd that gathers just to see them. And then they're gone. A few seconds of color across the sky, and the whole thing is over before anyone has time to look away.

Fireflies do the opposite. They show up without asking anyone to watch. Low in the grass, quiet, blinking on their own schedule. You have to slow down to notice them at all. Most people don't.

I've been thinking about the difference between those two kinds of light. One built for an audience. One that exists whether anyone is paying attention or not.

For most of my life, I think I was building fireworks. Something bright enough, big enough, that people would look up and clap. It worked sometimes. But it burned fast, and there was always another one to plan.

Living with one word has taught me something closer to fireflies.
Small. Steady. Not performing for anyone.
The kind of light you have to be still enough to catch.

In the studio, we do something like this on purpose, hundreds of thousands of times over. It's called diamond dusting. Diamonds are harder than silver or gold, so when the pointed tip of a diamond is pressed into the metal, it leaves behind a tiny facet. We repeat that strike again and again until the surface is covered in thousands of tiny impressions.

No single mark changes much by itself. But together, they catch the light from every angle. The piece doesn't need a spotlight. Even the smallest light is enough.

That's what I want the words to do.

Not the one big moment everyone applauds, but the small, steady catch of light that's there in ordinary life too. On a Tuesday, in the grocery store line, at 2 a.m. with a crying baby, or in a quiet moment when you remember who you are.

Not a firework.
A firefly.

The stars are not afraid
to appear like fireflies.
robindranath tagore