Cicada Time Capsule
2004 Flashback It’s 2004 and the cicadas come. I’m a stay-at-home mom in Virginia with my husband Paul and two children. Jack is almost five and Katherine is three. I fill a scrapbook with pictures of our family—the doting grandparents, grinning cousins, and, of course, Uncle Bobby’s dog Bear. I think I will remember these preschool days so clearly. On this Saturday afternoon in May, the cicadas are a source of wonder. Bear is stretched out on the patio, and when a cicada lands close enough, he paws at it and eats it. Jack and Katherine pull empty shells off the tree bark, collecting them in a pile as Paul and I plant perennials. Katherine drops her finger to the dirt, guiding a cicada to crawl up her arm and Jack shouts excitedly when one alights on his shirt. In the evening, we sit on the patio, listening to the insects’ high-pitched songs as Uncle Bobby gives Jack and Katherine wheelbarrow rides. For a few weeks, the vibrating tymbals of the cicadas overtake the sounds o...