Cicadas

The last time I was in Maryland, it was August. All of our worldly possessions were being packed and moved. It was a whirlwind trip of cleaning, sorting, packing. There was little I wanted to do on that trip other than help get us out of dodge. Permanently. Except there was one thing I wanted to do, one experience I wanted to have one more time. Each morning I woke up, went out for coffee, then sat on the front porch. I admit, part of the porch sitting was defiance. If anyone walked by the house, I imagined myself barking at them. Loudly. It was August though, the dog days of August. No one walked by. Mainly, I wanted to sit on the front porch and listen to the cicadas early in the morning as the sun was rising.

The cicadas in Maryland are loud. So loud, sometimes it was impossible to sleep with open windows. I love their collective sound. The rise and fall of their wings grinding and grinding. All night long. Well into the early mornings. To me, hearing the cicadas in August in Maryland is like being embraced by creation. Their song is the sound of the world, recognizing you, hearing you, holding you. On those few days in August, I thought there is nothing else like this in the world. Nothing that sings in such a way to remind you of your place in the world. Nothing that overtakes every single sense you have, reminding you that all together, all are one.

Tonight I was thinking about the cicadas again and how pleased I was to her them those final days. There are cicadas in Florida and all other manner of insects. They do not sing with the same intensity so far. There is however something extraordinary here that fills me with the same awe. The night sky. At night here it is very dark. The only light from the moon. The night sky is vast. Sometimes clear and starry. Sometimes cloudy. It is like the cicadas, but seeing the night sky, sitting beneath it, driving in it, is not quite an embrace. The night sky is a blanket. It covers you. It shelters you. It holds the world as if everything might just spin off its axis, turn away from its center, without the night sky blanketing things, holding it all together through the darkness.

There is no lack of wonder, no lack of splendor, no lack of love in the world.

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