The cicadas are calling. Their bodies sound like thousands and thousands of tiny maracas in the darkness. They are playing an original song, only they know the lyrics to but their sound brings back memories for me. Of summer, at my grandparents house. The house sits along an old country road with more land around it than people. I would spend summers here as a child, playing on the railroad tracks smashing pennies, laying in the swing reading book after book, walking through rows of corn until I knew I was lost but later, realizing I was only about a mile from home.
What happened to that time, where kids could go off and play without knowing where they were going, with no phone to check in and not come home until dark or dinner, whichever came first? That I was even playing, outside, all day is amazement to me with today’s kids seemingly preferring to stay indoors. Do kids go out and play anymore?
But back to my cicadas. The sound reminds me of dusk, big canopy pecan trees, and the sound of tires pulling into the white stone driveway of the old house. At night, lying in bed trying to fall asleep, and working to convince myself that the funny shaped shadows on the wall were really from the trees and not some prison escapee, I would listen to the random cars passing along on the country road. With my eyes shut, I would listen to their sound and decipher whether they were moving east or west. And I would count them, like sheep, until sleep would take me away.
The cicadas were the backdrop to all these memories. Sort of like the soundtrack to a movie, you don’t really notice it, but ultimately it enriches the images and moments and without it, they would not be as vibrant and lush.
What happened to that time, where kids could go off and play without knowing where they were going, with no phone to check in and not come home until dark or dinner, whichever came first? That I was even playing, outside, all day is amazement to me with today’s kids seemingly preferring to stay indoors. Do kids go out and play anymore?
But back to my cicadas. The sound reminds me of dusk, big canopy pecan trees, and the sound of tires pulling into the white stone driveway of the old house. At night, lying in bed trying to fall asleep, and working to convince myself that the funny shaped shadows on the wall were really from the trees and not some prison escapee, I would listen to the random cars passing along on the country road. With my eyes shut, I would listen to their sound and decipher whether they were moving east or west. And I would count them, like sheep, until sleep would take me away.
The cicadas were the backdrop to all these memories. Sort of like the soundtrack to a movie, you don’t really notice it, but ultimately it enriches the images and moments and without it, they would not be as vibrant and lush.
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