The temperature is in the upper 80’s even though it’s after 8:00 p.m. My laptop immediately began to “sweat” when I removed it from the house and to the porch, so much so that I had to get a paper towel to wipe it down. The humidity must be near 100%, but it doesn’t deter Amy or me from spending at least part of every evening on our porch.
One thing we like about sitting out here is the sound of insects. It’s July, and that means the lightning bugs have disappeared and been replaced by the cicadas. Their song is hypnotic. The tone is what I think an alien craft might sound like. I’ve not seen these little creatures, but they make enough racket to let all of God’s children know they’re alive and well. Most of them start on their own, but in no time they’ve fallen into a pulsating rhythm.
As kids, we’d hear the cicadas as we lay at the foot of our beds and turned our ears toward the open window. Our hopes were that the constant song would mesmerize us until we forgot about how breeze-starved the house was and finally nodded off to sleep. The woods at the back of the house were thick with a choir of insects, and the trees in the front yard held another group of performers.
One week each August our family and the Burns family made a week-long journey to King Cottages. We’d swim in the icy cold river all day long and sometimes at night. That cabin had a huge screened porch on the back, and we’d gather out there in the evenings to talk, play Rook, or read (only during desperate times). As the effects of too much sun and swimming kicked in, we kids would settle. It was then that we listened to the cicadas. Accompanied by the sound to of the rushing mountain waters that flowed not more than one hundred feet away, they sang to the Smoky Mountains and thrilled audiences.
Mother loved the cicadas as well. At home, she sat in a bench swing under a big maple tree in the back yard. She’d throw her legs lengthwise along the swing, put her right arm on the back, and slowly move backward and forward in her favorite ride. Mother didn’t say much during those times; I figure she was praying or talking to Daddy, who’d left her too early to take care of three boys. Sometimes she would lean her head on the arm and fall asleep until the wee hours of the night. When she woke, the cicadas would still be singing.
Nature’s musicians would be singing on the last night of summer before school. Falling asleep was hard, whether it was the night before elementary or high school, college, or, yes, even teaching. Excitement of a new year mixed with sadness over the loss of summer and the freedom it had given. Those songs continued through the first weeks of football season as well.
Now Amy and I sit on our porch and listen each night. The cicadas are still singing in the trees at the edge of my childhood yard. Now, those oaks, sweet gums, maples, and pines make up our side yard and the scenery on which we look. A little sweat or stickiness is a small price to pay to be able to hear the song of a summer night.
Amy and I travel to bed reluctantly. We’d love to open our bedroom window ever so slightly in order to hear the cicadas as we fall asleep. However, allergies, a dog who parks at the sound of a gnat fart, and our dependence on air conditioning prevent us from throwing open the sash. Never to worry, the cicadas seem to sense our quandary and decide to sing just a little louder.
I hope that I make it to heaven when my time ends. I also hope that the place is filled with lightning bugs, croaking frogs, and most of all, singing cicadas.
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