The gulls woke me up at the crack of dawn. Every morning they sit on the rooftops around our building screaming: Auw! Auw! Kee! Kee! Kee! Kee! Kyoh! Kyoh! Kyoh! Kyoh! With an effort of will I tuned them out and went back to sleep. I don’t know when Carol got up.
A cicada wakes me up much later. It must be sitting on the volunteer maple that sprouted up right next the the building behind us and which is now twelve feet tall. This cicada sounds just like the cicadas I listened to on hot summer afternoons when I was a kid. It almost lulls me back to sleep: zzzZZZZZ…. It seems to go on forever.
When it stops, I get up. I happen to glance in the mirror. If I’m not going to kid myself, my hair is more gray than blond now. It’s my day off and it’s still summer, so I forget to shave.
I stand in the kitchen. A cicada buzzes in the tree across the street. I hear a gull screaming in the distance. We bought a blueberry pie yesterday at the farmers market, and there is one small slice left this morning. I know I’m going to eat it for breakfast. There’s one slice of pie left, I say to Carol. It’s yours, she says, and looks back at her computer. I make a pot of tea, and slide the blueberry pie onto a dark green plate.
I just discovered your blog through the UU blog list, and after reading over your last few posts, I feel a sort of homecoming. In St. Louis, we have no gulls. Although there are plenty long the Mississippi and Illinois where we go eagle watching. But the cicada song and the blueberry pie – which must have been a particular treat after missing out on the last of the blueberries at the Farmers Market. The peaceful, gentle cadence of your writing were so welcome. Aside from the grown daughter, wheelchair bound with an undiagnosed neurological disorder and the impossible task of selling books when, for some reason, people would rather buy food. Between, around and high above those are the familiar cicada songs, the breeze passing through the trees in the park and all those cycles of nature that soothe. Thank you for your peaceful writings. I’ll be back ~
Linda