As fall approaches, I’m thinking of summer sounds I will and won’t miss. The latter group is easy to list: gas and electric powered lawn tools – mowers and edgers. (Unfortunately leaf blowers will be with us a few more months. Hey, we need to have a serious conversation about the lawn fetish one of these days.)
Not being a cicada myself, I won’t get into what these male insects are saying to entice their prospective mates. But for me their love call evokes summer memories more than other sounds. Their voices (or whatever they’re called) can be as loud as a power saw, and during periodical swarms they’re as loud as a thousand lawnmowers and drive me to wear ear protection. Still they deliver me directly to long lazy summer afternoons of my childhood. And though I’d expect a more melodious love call from my own true love, I find the cicada calls charming and will miss them.
Their night-time counterpart are the crickets with their chirp. Although Sylvie sleeping in a tent gets with cricket chirps, but for me when they’re outside an open bedroom window at night, I find them reassuring. Maybe because I can close the window.
