Reading: I finished the first Harry Potter book, and have now started the second, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Both books present imaginative situations, though they are peopled with slightly one-dimensional characters. I don't think that's a bad thing in children's literature, however.

Listening: Mozart, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

Background courtesy of
Ace of Space

Days of the Locusts

10:15 a.m. I'm at the playground with Stephen and Matthew this morning. We came earlier than we usually do in order to avoid the heat at midday. Actually, it doesn't feel too bad here. It is quite humid, but fortunately the sky is cloudy so it's not as hot as it could be. And there's a lovely light breeze that blows through now and again, a cooling breath of air on my face.

The shrill percussion of the cicadas almost drowns out the faint traffic noises in the distance. The sound takes me back to steamy summer mornings of my childhood. My mother used to call them hotbirds. "The hotbirds are really singing this morning," she'd tell us. "It's going to be another hot day." And she'd be right, as usual.

The cicadas I'm hearing right now are just the ordinary, everyday variety, but this area is also home to 17-year cicadas. The first emergence of the 17-year cicadas in my lifetime was in June 1970. I remember hearing about them from my parents, but they weren't particularly prevalent in our Ewing neighborhood. Ten miles away in Princeton, however, they were numerous and noisy. They were so loud on the university's graduation day, that Bob Dylan, who was receiving an honorary degree, later wrote a song about it, "The Day of the Locusts."

Seventeen years later, I was back here in New Jersey after more than eight years in New England. Once again, the cicadas emerged. The newspapers heralded their arrival like the return of a celebrity, with much harking back to their previous appearance in 1970. Many Princeton residents, remembering the noise and inconvenience of that earlier infestation, made plans to vacation out of town for the three weeks in June during which the cicadas were at their peak.

One day in the middle of the cicada outbreak, Tab and I drove to Battle Road in Princeton, where, as he remembered from 1970, the cicadas were plentiful. Battle Road is one of my favorite streets anywhere. It is lined on each side with tall, straight sycamores that arch overhead. Driving down the street under the trees, I always feel as though I am in the nave of a natural cathedral.

The cicadas must have especially liked the sycamores because the sound on that street was almost deafening. We parked the car and walked around to look at them. There were live cicadas in the grass and on the tree trunks, funny looking things with ruby-red eyes. Dead ones, too, lay all over the ground.

Most numerous were the discarded exoskeletons shed by the cicadas as they grew. Piles of these shells, inches deep in places, lay on the sidewalk and in the street, crunching under our shoes as we walked. The shells were tan in color, brittle and translucent. I picked up one and looked at it. It was whole, perfectly retaining the shape of the insect. Tab told me that during the last outbreak he liked to collect the shells to torment his mother, who has a morbid fear of insects. He was 14, then, and thought it was great fun to make his mother scream in fright.

I had read in the newspaper that the life span of each of these emerging cicadas was only a few days.

"Imagine lying dormant for 17 years, and then when you finally emerge, you have only a few days to live it up: enjoy the sun, sing your little heart out, and find a mate."

" Yeah, and what if you don't make the grade?" Tab replied. "What if you can't find a mate because your eyes just aren't red enough?"

Standing there on Battle Road in Princeton in June 1987 with a man I loved but to whom I was not yet engaged, I thought ahead to the next emergence of the cicadas in 2004. I calculated how old we'd be and wondered if we would return to this street to see the cicadas again and whether we'd have children with us.

Well, twelve years have passed, and I know the answer to that question. Five years from now, Daniel will be 11 and the twins 8 1/2, and they will no doubt be fascinated by the 17-year cicadas. Seventeen years is a significant stretch of time. It is almost the measure of a generation. Tab and I could practically mark our lives by the visits of the 17-year cicadas: first as children ourselves, then again as lovers, and next as parents.

And the locusts sang off in the distance,
Yeah, the locusts sang such a sweet melody.
Oh, the locusts sang off in the distance,
Yeah, the locusts sang and they were singing for me.

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