I had to laugh a bit when I saw Brenda’s post the other day, the photo essay about summer, because I’d been toying with a similar idea for some photos I’ve taken in the past two weeks. Only my photos are about summer* in Omaha.

It’s funny how you can have such vivid memories that you didn’t even know you had. My parents live in the same house they’ve lived in since I was 3 years old, which means this is the place I spent nearly every summer of my childhood.

Being here with Annalie in summertime, watching her form childhood memories in the place where I spent my own childhood, makes for a weird convergence of past and present. Annalie runs around the same yard where I played kickball with my brother and our friends (the bases, which we ran clockwise for unknown reasons, were always the same: corner of the L-shaped sidewalk near the house, cracked square of sidewalk by the street, crabapple tree). Annalie draws with sidewalk chalk on the same pavement where we had our horse tank and later a basketball hoop. The front porch Annalie jumps from onto the grass over and over again is the same porch I sat on to eat popsicles and read books.

When we pull into the driveway after going out to dinner, there are fireflies hovering above the lawn and flashing at us from under the bushes, just like there were when my brother and I were kids. Annalie loves to chase the fireflies around the yard till we tell her it’s time to come in and have a bath. We haven’t yet shown Annalie how to gently catch a firefly in her cupped hands, or how to make a firefly-powered nightlight with a jelly jar. I think next summer she’ll be old enough for that, and will understand why we have to let the fireflies out of the jar before going in for the night.

Years ago after Troy and I had married and moved away, I discovered that summer rain in Omaha smells different than rain elsewhere. I didn’t realize this till I was back home visiting once and it rained, and the smell of the warm rainy city was so immediately familiar, it surprised and delighted me. Now that I’ve moved around and lived in a few more places, I realize that’s true everywhere you go: each place has its own unique smell, wet or dry. But the smell of summer rain in Omaha makes me think of sitting in my parents’ breezeway listening to music while Kara and I huddle in sleeping bags, or playing under the weeping willow tree with Jenny in her yard, or dashing across the cobblestones in the Old Market to reach the shelter of the stores across the street. A thousand memories are attached to that Omaha-rain smell, and it’s always fun to see which ones will pop into my mind when I’m here and it rains.

Summer in Omaha—at least in my parents’ corner of it—means so many shades of green on the tall, old trees crowding out the sky; lawns that are emerald green and need to be mowed every five minutes, they’re growing so much; toadstools popping up everywhere because of all the rain.

It seems like we usually end up coming to visit family in wintertime, either for the holidays or someone’s wedding. I’m glad we got to come in June this year, during fireflies-and-thunderstorms season, that Annalie will get to share some of these memories with me.

*Yes, I realize it’s technically not summer yet. But it was 94F here today with 89% humidity, okay? IT’S SUMMER.