It’s that time of year again..the cusp of summer, the almost fall. Tomorrow is the first day of school for my children, and while it is sad, there’s a certain comfort in getting back to a routine.
And then, in then in the evenings, I hear that familiar sound. That late summer chorus of fall cicadas, shaking their tiny maracas repeatedly. Apparently after a brief youtube search to find that link, many people find this sound a nuisance, or annoying. Not me. That sound is the drumbeat of freedom for me — the drumbeat of change.
Most feel a sadness when summer ends — especially in the northeast where it seems so fleeting compared to the freezing long months of winter. But when I hear that sound in the twilight which seems to be creeping slowly earlier, it reminds me of late summers past. Probably the most influential late summer/early fall for me was the one between high school graduation and college.
So many changes — so many ends and beginnings. I went from never being allowed out of the house to working a summer internship in New York City. I approached my freshman year at Wagner College with excitement and nervousness. My first year of school in 12 years without a uniform laid out for me — I could pick my clothes out! What? My first schedule of classes where I was expected to get myself there — and truth be told I often failed at that. (Sorry mom.) The end of August 1988 meant saying goodbye to many old friends from my high school years as they headed off to other states and regions — until Thanksgiving break. The summer of 1988 included first kisses, last kisses, and some were both at the same time. The end of summer 1988 was a goodbye to a certain innocence — the fall of that year would mean my first cut class, my first alcoholic drink.
The beginning of my college years would mean meeting some of the most influential friendships and relationships I have to this day. It would mean the birth of a confidence in myself when it came to schoolwork, to English literature and to writing I never thought possible. It would mean the growth that comes from the first true love I’d ever experienced and the joy and pain that go with it.
That’s the sound of cicadas. The drumbeat – change….change…change. But more than that, the sound of cicadas is the sound of possibility. Of a new year. A new return to routine. I am not without such changes, 25 years later. I work in a business that resets in September after many return from summer vacations. Back to School and election season are the busiest time of year for community journalism.
And tomorrow, my youngest child will be entering kindergarten. My baby leaving the nest. My full day freedom that I’ll be sorry for tomorrow morning at 8:20 when both my girls board the school bus and it pulls away — my first empty house of this sort in five years. I’ll be sorry then, and I’ll be crying, but still, I know — its opportunity. It’s possibility. For all of us.
So let my friends, the cicadas, beat on. I’m ready to sing that song. It’s going to be an emotional week of change. Lucy and Annabelle heading back to school. My close friend and colleague will say goodbye to me after two years tightly together in the trenches. But its change — its change he needs and will be the better for.
I’ve learned that letting go is the song of the cicadas. It’s taken me a long time. Letting go and understanding the universe has its way of setting things right, even if it takes a long time to do so. I’m lucky to have the family and friends I have — both old, and new, and some both.
That summer of 1988 stays with me whenever I hear those cicadas — they give me that drumbeat of strength to accept change, and look forward to life’s possibilities for all of us. It’s the soundtrack to first kisses, first wine coolers, and the apex of change that would alter my life forever. It makes me feel free. it makes me feel invincible.
And most of all, it makes me smile.
Creative conjurings 