Published under a pen name at the author's request.

Some afternoons, after a hard day, I sit on the back porch and look up the hill behind our home.

The hillside looks different now than it did a few years ago.

Clover spreads between the grasses. Rows of raspberries and blueberries fill out a little more each season. Wild strawberries creep along the edges of beds. Wildflowers bloom in places I do not remember planting them. Up the hill, two hummingbird feeders hang from a black iron pole where hummingbirds race through the summer air.

Above it all, the dragonflies patrol.

By summer they seem to be everywhere. They skim low over the clover, dart through the gardens, and weave between the berry bushes with a kind of effortless precision. Only the hummingbirds seem capable of keeping pace.

Sometimes they look less like insects and more like tiny aircraft conducting aerial maneuvers over the hillside. They stop, hover, reverse direction, and disappear, only to reappear somewhere else a heartbeat later.

But the dragonflies are not why I look forward to summer.

My children are.

A few years ago, I taught my daughters something I had learned from watching the dragonflies.

Hold out your finger.

Stay still.

Be patient.

The first time it happened, they stood perfectly still.

Then one landed.

Then another.

Before long, they were standing in the yard with their hands stretched out, trying not to move, trying not to laugh, while dragonflies rested on their fingers.

Looking back through those photographs now, I see more than dragonflies.

I see wonder.

Bare feet in the grass.

Summer sunlight.

A little girl proudly pointing toward the tiny visitors gathered on her hand.

Moments that lasted only minutes, but memories I hope will last a lifetime.

I tell the children that the dragonflies know we are friendly. If we are kind to them, I say, perhaps they'll tell the others this is a safe place.

I have no idea whether that's true.

But I like believing it.

The children do too.

Only later did I learn that dragonflies spend most of their lives underwater.

Not days.

Not weeks.

Years.

Hidden from view before they ever take flight.

For much of my adult life, I felt underwater.

Not unhappy.

Not defeated.

Just always striving.

Always pushing toward whatever came next.

Looking back now, I wonder if those years were accomplishing more than I understood at the time.

Perhaps some of the most important growth in life happens where no one can see it.

Including ourselves.

Sometimes I find a dragonfly resting on a tomato cage, clinging to a leaf, or sitting quietly on the deck railing beside me.

That is when I notice the details.

The soft blues.

The bright greens.

The wings, delicate as glass, their tiny arches and braces reminding me of cathedral architecture viewed in miniature.

Occasionally I'll find one resting in the morning sun.

I'll wait.

Without warning, the wings begin to move.

The dragonfly lifts into the air and is gone.

There is a little sadness in knowing that every dragonfly I see is living through the final season of its life.

Its years underwater are behind it.

Its season of flight is brief.

Yet that isn't what captivates me.

What captivates me is how completely it seems to inhabit that season.

This summer, my son will be old enough to learn what his sisters already know.

Hold out your finger.

Stay still.

Be patient.

If he waits long enough, perhaps a dragonfly will land.

I hope it happens.

I hope years from now all three of my children remember summer evenings filled with dragonflies, hummingbirds, wildflowers, warm grass beneath their feet, and a father who taught them to slow down long enough to notice.

Some living things spend years preparing for a brief season of flight.

The older I get, the more I understand the dragonflies.

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