I spent the weeks of August upstairs in our house in my office. I had a contract to produce a piece of software. The days of August were long and hot and wonderful. I had put a window fan in the window close to my desk. Each day I would sit at my desk and write code as I listen to the sounds of my new home. This was a particularly auspicious time. The Cicadas had hatched and the boy cicadas were in the trees and rattling their love songs to the girls.

Several times a day I would stop working because I had once again noticed the cicada love song. Most times I would write a short email to a friend in Washington “The cicadas are singing”.

Summer is a much quieter time in Olympia, no cicadas, few crickets with few of the night sounds of insects.

The nights in Olympia are filled with the sounds of frogs. Much of Olympia is wetland and the frogs sing and sing and sing. Starting in early spring they pick up the melody they had abandoned as the days grew cooler the previous fall. Mornings and evenings the small birds join in with their own melodies. Each morning from November to February I listened to the stillness waiting for the return of the birds. Sometime in February I would be rewarded with the return of their song. Preparing for mating and raising the next generation to carry on their oral tradition from early spring until late fall.

Click this link to Listen to my Frogs

But, in August, the nights here are filled with the sounds I associate with my childhood in the South, crickets and cicadas. I have even seen fireflies in the early dusk as I stood out on the sidewalk in front of my new home. I had heard that the fireflies were gone, another casualty on the way to global warming. I’m warmed by their light and their persistence in the world.

As a little girl, on summer nights, I would be given a jar with holes punched in the lid. My cousins and I would run around the yard catching them in the jar. When we went to bed, I would put my jar on the table by the bed and watch them light up as I would drift off to sleep.

3 Responses to “Cicadas”

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