The first time I noticed it, I was transplanting my tomatoes in the back yard. It was a warm morning and the distant whrrr of neighborhood heat pumps added a background of mechanical white noise to the symphony of bird songs and wind dance through the tree tops. As I listened to these routine morning sounds, I picked up a distant sound that wasn’t quite right. The mechanistic rhythm wasn’t so precise. Somebody’s going to have to have their HVAC system checked, I thought, and I hoped it wasn’t me.
A couple of days later, as I was walking through the gym parking lot, I heard the same sound, a distant roar, like far off rushing water or farm equipment. What was it?
Then it occurred to me – CICADAS.
Despite the media hype heralding the arrival of the 17 year cicadas, I assumed that since our neighborhood was so new that any batch of baby cicadas nested in our area seventeen years ago would have been scraped away with the topsoil when the land was developed. I figured we would escape the onslaught of the clicking hoards.
I was wrong.
I began to notice hundreds of tiny holes the paths through the wooded part of our yard the deserted exoskeletons clinging to the leaves on the trees above. It was undeniable; they’re here!
By day they crawl across the top of the lawn, drying their wings in the sun (which has been a challenge lately) by night they sacrifice themselves by crashing into our windows, flying full speed towards the light.
They are beautiful, they are plentiful, and they are loud but they are hardly the pestilence warranting the hype. They aren’t even an inconvenience, rather one of those things that make you go “hmmmm”.
In fact, in comparison to this spring’s devastation in Oklahoma, I feel almost frivolous taking note of a few thousand extra insects in the yard.
Nature is mighty. We may be able to control some aspects of our lives, or convince ourselves that we do, but nature will always be wild and free; both beautiful and powerful and particularly unconcerned with the lives affected by its actions.
As humans, the best we can do, and it is the best; what makes us human, is to carry on despite the challenges Mother Nature provides.
This morning, NBC’s TODAY show showcased the reopening of the Boardwalk at Seaside Heights, NJ. I was amazed to see the overhead shots of the string of shops and planked walks. It looks practically the same as it did the first time I was there, forty years ago for my high school senior “cut-day”.
Nature is strong, but human nature is stronger. We are challenged but we endure.
Now when I hear the increasing din of the cicadas in the distance, I am reminded that nature is in charge of what surrounds us, but we are in charge of what’s inside.