They're coming ... by the trillions :)

 They're coming ... by the trillions. :)

You just know it’s gonna be a scorcher when you hear the cicadas in the morning. They sound like 90 degrees in August; like sizzling, sticky heat bubbling over and down the tops of the Sycamore trees around you. They sound like ice cream trucks, the whistle of a whiffle ball, the clink of ice in a glass of lemonade—cicadas stealthily singing in the backdrop as if they were there all along.

This year, in a matter of days—or hours, or maybe it’s already happening—the conjoined song of the cicadas will elevate to a symphony. The Brood X cohort of cicadas, the largest of 15 known periodical cicada species—seven of which emerge every 13 or 17 years—will crawl up from their underground burrows and unleash a cacophony of noise across much of the Eastern United States. At least 15 states are expected to welcome trillions—yes, trillions—of cicadas over the course of four to six glorious weeks. Glorious because, as much as this event may sound like the plot of a fucked up Guillermo del Toro film, the phenomenon is a wondrous and sentimental marvel of nature. Never mind the fact that the cicadas you hear are males crooning to prospective partners, an altogether necessary yet romantic act of survival; the hum of the cicadas is tinged in nostalgia. To hear their song is to remember childhood—and not just for those who grew up in the pockets of woodlands scattered across the Atlantic seaboard.

Yes indeed, cicadas & childhood are forever intwined.