Cicada Season

There isn't much to like about summer in Texas. It's so hot that your tires practically melt where they meet the road, everything is so sticky that you feel like you have to shower every hour on the hour, and the mosquitos that swarm around your ankles the moment you set your flip-flopped foot out the door are roughly the size of hummingbirds. But there are a few things that make summer in Texas tolerable: Fireworks, margaritas, and cicadas.

I'm sure that there are some folks out there who would disagree with me about this last bit, but those people clearly lack poetry in their soul or they simply just aren't from around here. To a Texas girl, the hypnotic part-rattle-part-whirr of a cicada is the sound of summer. It is the soundtrack to some of my favorite summer memories: Splashing around in the backyard pool as a child, drifting off to sleep at summer camp, taking an evening walk with my mom during the year after I graduated from college.

For a while the sound stopped, and I was convinced that cicadas didn't live here in Houston. Perhaps I was just too busy to notice, but I like to think that they just don't like apartment living. One of the true joys of becoming a suburban homeowner was the return of cicada season. I never actually see the little guys, but I can't get away from their noisy chatter and the remnants of the empty shells that they shed and leave behind.

After a long day, there is nothing lovelier or more soothing than to come home and sit on my velvety couch (it is too hot to sit outside), wineglass in hand and dog by my side, and listen to the cicadas singing their song of summer. Before the cicadas are gone, take a moment and try it for yourself (the dog is optional, the wine is not), because, in the end, taking time for yourself to listen and reflect is the ultimate indulgence.