It has been wicked hot around here lately. We had been spared for a few weeks while the rest of the country was wilting. The heat has now moved here for a spell. I don't know if it's the extreme heat or if it's just one of those banner years for cicadas, but they are everywhere. We see their old skins all over the ground and a few on fence posts and trees. When I was growing up in Georgia, cicadas plumb freaked me out. I would find fifteen abandoned cicada shells on only one side of a tree. I think it was the sheer numbers and their prehistoric look that got to me. I am not freaked out anymore and actually find them fascinating. The children of course love them.
Yesterday while waiting during Elijah's tennis class, she noticed she could see where the skin split and the cicada escaped. She also figured out she could use the front claws like tongs to pick up things if she squeezed gently on the shell. Okay that got to me a little bit, but it was still fun watching her discover.
Even though I found them unsettling as a child, I always loved their buzzing sounds they made in the heat of the day and during the evening. Something was very comforting about their conversations. Sometimes I didn't even notice the sound because it was ever-present, but usually I did notice.
The other day, I was hanging clothes on the line and heard their familiar buzz-I mean really heard them with new ears. The sound immediately transported me to my grandmother's house. Those were some hot summers I spent there and they were some of the best times of my life. I remember hours sitting on her front porch glider doing nothing, watering her many plants, reading or talking and listening to the cicadas. I remember her walking in the black river bottom dirt that fed her lush vegetable garden. I would watch her bend, tend and water all the while hearing the cicadas' songs. I remember lying in her big bed hearing the cicadas between and even over the booms of the trains coupling and uncoupling. I do miss my grandma tremendously. It's funny and wonderful how all of a sudden the sounds of a bug can bring a wash of such pleasant memories of my time with her. It is a gift and a joy to hear them now - to really hear them and remember.
Have a beautiful Thursday and stay safe in this heat.
