The last time we -- or anyone -- saw these bugs, it was 17 years ago.
That was 2008.
Technically, it wasn't these bugs that we saw. It was their parents. They're Brood XIV Cicadas, which only live in Sandwich and Mashpee on Cape Cod, and only emerge every 17 years.
Back in 2008, we had a home in Mashpee. We'd just moved back in after a spell in the city, when these things started burrowing out of the ground.
They emerge by the thousands. They've just spent nearly two decades underground, feeding on tree sap and whatever else they find in the Cape's sandy soil. They shed their pupa shells and dry off their wings, and then fly erratically around looking for a place to catch their breath.
Then they start to sing.
Oh, man, that's the uncanny part. One of these guys (it's the males that do it) produce a mating call that's the same volume as a lawnmower. Now, multiply that by 1.5 million per acre and sustain it for a month or so, day and night, and you get an idea of the volume we're talking about here.
Fortunately, they don't sound like a lawn mower. It's more of a haunting, two-tone buzz, dropping in pitch towards the end. In their legions, the noise takes on a sci-fi, Star Trek sort of feel.
Personally, I love it. Like anything repeated long enough, it starts to feel like home.
It would be hard to imagine a less threatening insect--or animal of any kind, really. They're done eating. They don't bite or sting. They don't do anything at all to defend themselves, other than emerge in tremendous numbers.
And while some people find them "gross," I think they straddle the realms of awkward and elegant.
Their wings are diaphanous. Their faces dorky.
We don't have the house in Mashpee any more. But our niece and her husband still live there. A couple years ago I realized we were coming up on another "Cicada spring," and suggested we might have a little tea-party there to sit in their yard and listen to the song.
Fortunately, my niece isn't one to object to her old uncle inviting himself over for tea in two years. Life got complicated and scheduling got weird, though, and it ultimately turned out that the only day we could all do it was my birthday.
So now I was inviting myself over to her place for my birthday, too.
The cicadas emerged right on time, starting about a week ago. While the males haven't launched into their full blown song yet, we could hear patches of it from the woods here and there, like the sighing of an orchestra tuning up before a performance. There were more than enough bugs flapping around the place, and it wasn't long before one crashed directly into my teacup.
It was a lovely day, sunny but cool, not too windy. Lots of my favorite people were there. I got to catch up and be social outside of work, which only happens a couple times a year. We went around collecting pupa shells and photographing the bugs, and once the dog realized what we were looking for, he happily marched around the yard gobbling up a few unfortunates, before retiring contentedly with a full stomach.
For us people, though, my niece outdid herself with some cicada shaped chocolates filled with a green pistachio paste. It provided a bit of the gross-out sensation of biting down on a bug, but with a much improved flavor.
Much more memorable than any birthday cake would have been!
It hasn't been such a bad 17 years.
Although I'm not sure I'd want to go through it again.
Nor has it been such a bad 49, even if it is a bit shocking to sit this close to 50. Next time I see these cicadas I'll be 66, and I think I'll make a point to come back for them, whether or not there's anything left tying me to the area at that point.
It seems as good a touchstone as any, celebrating this insect life, a life as meaningful as any: 17 years of slow growth underground, in quiet darkness and in no particular hurry, sucking up root sap and rainwater. And then a struggle into the sunlight to sing for a bit, and fly -- fly! after all that time underground! -- and maybe mate and lay some eggs, or maybe drown in a teacup or get eaten by a dog.
It's strange to contemplate life on a 17 year cycle. That's a prime number as awkward and derpy as the faces of these sizable bugs. (All periodic cicadas emerge on some prime-numbered cycle of years, most likely to minimize competition with other periodic insects.)
For them, it's a blink. It's their everything.
It's hard not to think of the brood collectively as one extended consciousness, coming up, opening their eyes for a few weeks every 17 years, looking around and seeing the world march along in this strange acceleration.
Except that, for much of their evolutionary, past, nothing much changed. They've only come up 14 times since the founding of the country. It's probably a bit of a shock to see this suburban tourist area sprouting up around them, and some may wonder at this strange asphalt blocking their emergence and the rumble of gasoline engines passing overhead, but it probably won't be all that many more cycles until everything's gone again, and they're just left blinking those big eyes, wondering, what the hell was that all about?
I'm just being silly, of course. What they'll really be saying, ten generations from now and then ten more, is:
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
And we'll be the ones who are missing out.
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