Revelations

I just had an epiphany that is too revelatory not to share. If this is something every 23-year-old has figured out and I’m just late to the game, forgive me. 

I say this with sincerity and for real: I carry a lot of shame. I have and continue to carry lifelong guilt. Over the years I’ve been a daughter, a friend, a sister, cousin, niece, aunt or coworker and more. I’ve stepped on a lot of toes.

With steel in the toes of my shoes. 

I’ve never been able to shed the heaviest of this guilt, and I too easily shed the smaller guilts of a harsh look or a light left on. I’m an enigma.

Despite years - decades, really — of psychological and medical interventions, I have never been able to fully shed some of the shame. In true chicken-and-egg fashion  I’ll never know which came first: shame or depression. I’ve honestly given up on forgiving myself, and have simply accepted that this that the heaviest of that shame will be with me for the rest of my life. It occurred to me that problem isn’t the guilt; the problem was that I was simply trying to do the impossible. For simplicity’s sake let’s say it was turn back time so as to not do the deed and to not feel the feeling in the first place. Logical.

But from my 2026 vantage point (I just turned 70 so maybe that’s it?) I have so many happy and sad memories with so many people I love that I’ve known since birth, and others that I met last week. Would I want to erase those memories too? Those people and their favorite memories? Maybe we can work something out.

Instead of being a backpack loaded with a week’s supplies for the entire bunker, why don’t I just hang onto the receipt? I can crumple the receipt and toss it in the trunk.  It’s proof I was there. There’s a record, if anyone asks. Sure, I carry it everywhere I go, but at no cost to me. Crumpled up, jammed into the spare tire well with me none the wiser. It will never hurt anyone’s feelings; it will never cause an accident. It’s the history that made me the person that made those memories with those loved ones. By the time anyone finds it it will be illegible and drenched in oil drippings and they’ll toss it in the rubbish and by that point I’ll be long gone.

One take.

It's Cicada O'Clock Somewhere

Originally published in May 2021

It started out almost imperceptible, in early May, sounding like the soft snore Zoet made when she slept. It sounded so much like her in fact that I turned to look for her and decided that the cats must be breathing particularly loudly that day, which turned into a couple of days. That was followed by an irritating, distant tractor. Not loud enough to close the patio doors, but loud enough to scowl, stare sternly in the noise's direction, and wonder why it's taking so long to mow the grass.

Then the jet planes started circling overhead, just the constant drone of a jet coming in for a landing but never quite finding the runway and circling around again.

You know the Brood X emergence is starting when you see their little holes in the ground as they dig themselves out. If you're lucky you'll see a muddy chimney reinforcement. Then you see the last pupal stage, at least if you look fast, because once they're out of the ground they shed that last exoskeleton (by this time they've already shed four or so while still underground) and leave it in some random place for you to sit on, or for it to fall on you, or, if you're a cat and you're lucky, your momma brings you one to bat around.

Then, you're all cicadas, all the time. Well, from dawn until dusk anyway. 

My completely unscientific, anecdotal evidence and observations (based on a sample size of exactly one, with a margin of error rate of +/- 100%) allow me to draw a few conclusions:

Once they find a safe, secure point to latch to they flex their little  cicada shoulder muscles and in an Incredible Hulk-like transformation (watch the video and tell me I'm wrong), they burst through their exoskeleton, emerging colorless, except for those crazy red eyes. I caught this one in the evening and time-lapse-videoed (is that a word?) the transformation, which seemed to be synched with dawn. Watch the sliver of window on the right to see what I mean.

Gradually over the course of an hour or two they harden and deepen in color to the now-familiar black, sometimes with a striped underbelly and delicate, transparent wings edged in orange. And they'll hang around a bit if you name them. 

These images were taken over the course of about 90 minutes, beginning minutes after the hulking? Exit from the exoskeleton? I can't really call it an explosion because cicadas already use that word for something else ...

... This year's Brood X periodical cicadas have spent 17 years underground, sipping liquid from the small roots of trees (they particularly like maple I've been told) at about 8 inches below the surface. If, while digging their way out at the end of the cycle they happen to pass through a particular mass of fungus, the fungus attaches itself, gets inside the exoskeleton, and takes over what I will for the sake of a PG rating call the back end of the cicada. The fungus eventually takes control of the cicada, until the fungus's turn to to reproduce, at which time they, let's just say, explode. Click at your own risk, but I promise you won't be sorry. (Credit SmithsonianMagazine.com, May 20,2021.)

No matter how many you've seen (hundreds? probably thousands), no matter how close you've gotten (inches), no matter how many photos you've uploaded to #CicadaSafari (457 if you're me) you're still allowed to scream when they land on you. I don't make the rules.

Little did I know at the time that I first heard those barely audible snores that became an irritant that became a complaint that became my very own tiny jet engines that they would so quickly become the obsession that has me planning a vacation around the Brood XIX emergence in 2024. (Hello, Missouri!)

I have too many photos not to share a few (don't be fooled: it's not a few) of my favorites. Not in the least bit sorry about it, either. Just pretend each one is labelled, "Cicada, greater DC area, Spring 2021." That'll make it easier for all of us.

Once upon a time Scruffy, an adventurer by nature, learned that if he wanted to get in the house and we didn't respond to his meows at the back door, he could climb up to the treehouse, jump onto the sunroom porch, and meow at my bedroom window and eventually someone would respond.

Scruffy (the black cat)
with Pixel (who's just made the realization, "Oooh, I like this idea")

He's been doing this for ages. I have even gotten phone calls from neighbors on two different occasions: "Linda, that black cat is up on the roof again. My husband's worried about him," went one. "I just love watching that cat up on the roof!" went the other.  It gets confusing for poor, neglected-at-the-back-door Scruffy, though, because the air conditioner goes in one window. When there's no air conditioner in, I let him in through that window. But when the air conditioner's in, I have to remove the screen from the other window that faces the roof and let him in that way. It's a learning curve twice a year, every year.

So today I hear the meow and head to the window. I'm not the only one who heard the meow.

Guess who now thinks the bedroom window is the most efficient way in AND out of the house.

Originally published in 2013