Under Siege

I’m old enough to have lived through this cyclical event three times in my life. I’ve known about and experienced this mysterious-- as of yet not fully explained phenomenon-- since my childhood. At the same time, I did not know; and I did not experience. Before this year I did not live in a town where a large brood secretly coexisted; hidden away, a foot deep in the earth, waiting for thirteen years.

This year we are under siege. I keep trying to tell myself that this is a showcase of nature’s ingenuity. I try to tell myself that my children are absorbing firsthand knowledge of the powers of the natural world.  It doesn’t help. Every time I feel a tickle or a brush, I absently, then frantically, swat at my hair or my clothing—knocking imaginary cicadas off my person. I see their red, buggy eyes in my dreams.

Their chattering and whining wheedles its way into my brain, and makes it hard for me to think. They surely have reached the 80 decibel range around Ant’s school—just like the paper said they would. They surround us at work, and whenever anyone steps outside, it is a constant act of whiplash trying to keep your eyes on where you place your feet, and also keep an eye looking above your head, lest they drop on you. They sputter around, slow, confused, and are likely to run right smack into you. They make lazy, imperfect circles in the air, from tree limb to tree limb, especially in the morning.  I think they may be drowsy.

That would be, hopefully, the only thing we have in common.

I cannot tell if the newness of their adulthood, their lack of experience with wings, is the reason why they consistently fall out of the trees and meet with the ground. Perhaps it is not newness at all—perhaps it is only their temperament. Despite the fact that I know I should not characterize these insects with any type of personality trait, I like to think of them as enjoying the fact that they are pests. I sometimes think they frame their actions to be pesky.

By the end of the day—they seem to be most active in the evenings, when we are driving home from work—I consistently develop a headache. They sometimes swarm, as they did two days ago, and we drive home through clouds of them. J hits the windshield wiper blades more than once to clear the glass. I love the feeling of driving with the windows rolled down, but now we don’t dare open any window—in the car, in the house, at work.

This time of the year is usually my favorite time to be outside. The air is warm and the earth has fully come back to life. The bitterly cold days of winter and the endlessly rainy days of spring are still fresh in our memories. I plant flowers in the front of the house—irises and daffodils fade into geraniums and then mums. I plant our vegetable garden in the back of the house—and this is the time of the year that we add to our spinach and radishes with young, green tomatoes and baby pea pods. I usually do everything within my power to be outside in June—stocking up on sunscreen and antihistamines and natural products to keep mosquitoes away. This year, things are not going according to plan. This year we are being attacked.

I had hopes that the birds and squirrels and even our dog would take it upon themselves to make a large dent in the population of this brood, but there’s been no such luck. Sophie apparently abhors these creatures as much as I do, and will stare longingly outside, but will evade them when forced into the backyard to do her business.  The birds and squirrels both have put forth valiant efforts, but now bloated and lethargic, cannot seem to eat any more. Yesterday, as I cautiously looked above me while walking underneath a tree, I saw a squirrel. His belly was obviously full, and despite the fact that he was 1) a squirrel, 2) out in the open where predators could see him, and 3) it was the middle of the day, he was stretched out on a flat length of tree branch, too full to do anything but take a nap. 

J chides me for my lack of empathy for the natural world. I know there are many out there who are completely unfazed by our summer guests. I am not one of those people, however, and I cannot imagine several more weeks or months of these unwelcome visitors.