Cicada Song

One thing I didn’t realize I missed while living in the San Francisco Bay Area until I moved back to Des Moines was the  cicada song. Yes, I know that for some, these cicadas are locusts who make a shrill noise. They technically aren’t locusts, and the shrill noise is in the ears of the beholder. But still, I get that some people don’t like them. For me, however, it signals the arrival of one of my favorite months of the year: August. Okay, yes, it’s my birthday month, so that has a lot to do with my fondness for August. And of course, there’s the Iowa State Fair. I loved the Fair as a kid, but in my 20s my affection waned. While I lived in the Bay Area, I returned only once in those 14 years to visit the Fair (taking my wife to her first Fair in 2009). But now I look forward to it. It really is a great celebration of all that is Iowa (and food on a stick). Though my daughter is still a little young to remember much of it this year, I know she loved the animals, and all the sights and sounds, and it was fun to watch her take it all in.

Apart from my birthday and the Fair, I love August. It’s the last full month of Summer, which means the evenings come on a little earlier (but not so early as to interfere with daylight activities), baseball pennant races start to heat up, football season gears up (go Cyclones!). Even on hot days, there’s a sense of Fall coming (maybe it’s the light in August). And something about the cicada’s song brings me a sense of peace. I remember so many evenings sitting in the back yard under the huge black walnut tree with all my friends around. We’d probably just have finished a wiffle ball game and were getting ready for hide-and-go-seek once it got good and dark. The whir-hum of the cicadas that faded into the background, almost without notice, except now in memory. The way one would finish maybe just above you, but another would be singing not far away. The sound shifting but never stopping until full nightfall, and there was nowhere you could go while outside that you wouldn’t hear it.

I guess for me, the cicada’s song represents a simplicity I’ve embraced since deciding to return to my hometown. How you can sit outside, listen to the cicadas and just be in that moment watching the sunset and feeling a warm breeze. It brings back great memories, but it also helps to ground me in the moment and remember all I have to be grateful for. All that from the sound of a bug…