I don’t see dragonflies in Boston.

Dragonflies are one of the most curiously amazing creatures in my eyes.  I couldn’t say why, really, except that I love their long, slender bodies, and four gossamer wings, and their large, round eyes.  Maybe it’s the sheen of their skin, the oily-spectrum of color that lies beneath the immediate hues.  Maybe it 's my childhood fascination with dragons, and here is another gift to the world by the same name.  Well, almost the same name.

When I was younger (and by “younger,” I mean every day up to this one), dragonflies were the only insects I rescued from a swimming pool.  I’d hold one up in the sunshine, bringing it close to my face – eye to eye.  A visible pulse.  A tentative ebbing of the wing muscles.  It’s tiny legs would tickle my palm.  It would clean itself, licking furry feet and running them over cloudy eyes.  Within minutes, the dragonfly’s mosaic wings would be dry, and it would flutter back into the heavy summer air.

Beautiful.

This happened many more times than I can count.  Every so often, one would fly back and land on my hand, or cling to my arm or shoulder.  Did it remember a rescue, did it sense something gentle and friendly, or was I just a recent perch that proved useful?  In a bright daydream, we were friends.

I’ve become one of those people in movies who arrive in the “country” and – upon opening the car door and climbing out – inhales more deeply than ever thought possible.  And then I say “It smells so clean here, and sweet.  It’s so nice to not breathe the city air!”

When I first started living in Boston, I never noticed that the air was different.  I would return home and tell my friends and family that it seemed the same, that the city’s air was just as clean as New Hampshire’s.  After all, Boston does have some of the cleanest city air in the country.

Now, after six years of consistent city dwelling, and two years working on the slightly more “industrial” side of the river, my nose can tell.  I didn’t know it, but I relish the lightness and freshness of even the most humid and heavy of rural air.  Now when I return home, it feels like I am not only breathing for the first time, but my soul is in fact breathing with me.  In, and out.  In, and out, like release from suffocation.

(Can a soul be suffocated?)

I didn’t think I would miss something so seemingly trivial as air.  But I do.

And

I miss dragonflies.