Goodbyes Loud and Soft
Tuesday, October 2, 2007 at 01:15AM Over the last few days I've exchanged one or two emails with my sister (the one who sews). She has lived in Quebec, Canada, since 1991, and I have had the distinct pleasure of visiting her there several times. If you ever go to Quebec, unless you like being so cold you think you totally missed Canada and ended up at the Arctic Circle by mistake, by all means go in the autumn of the year. Well, I guess you could go in the summertime, but my feeling is, you can be hot anywhere. The kind of cold they have in Canada in winter is ... uhm, unusual. I am trying to be tactful here. And spring ... well, let's just say it's not like springtime in South Carolina! Come see me for spring; go see her for fall. I promise you'll have fun in both places! Of course I'm the one with the Chihuahua and all the Johnny Depp movies, so bear that in mind when you make your decision.
My sister is a brilliant and gracious lady. I wish you could meet her! She has so much going for her, it is scary. She's only a little bit older than me ... not quite fifteen months, to be exact ... but she is much smarter than me (I will thank you not to snicker). One thing she can do is turn a beautiful phrase. She should write a book, and no mistake. I have been haunted all day by something she said in her email this morning. I had told her that I wished I could be there with her, to see the beautiful leaf color, and she responded:
Ah, I wish you could see the leaves, too, and the blueness of the sky, and hear the geese honking their farewells. There is really nothing like fall in Quebec. Thanks for writing. I am praying for you, too! ~~ Love you ...
The part that got me was "hear the geese honking their farewells." I know just how that sounds, and what a melancholy sound it is! The geese know enough to get out of that place when winter is coming, and they very stridently announce their going. Amazingly, the people stay! Such passive acceptance! I've never quite understood that! The snow is pretty if you're cozily ensconced in my sister's lovely home, wearing woollens and clutching a hot cup of something to your bosom as you watch the huge flakes drift down on the other side of the window. But sooner or later you have to go outside! And for me, that's when it stops being fun.
But the fall of the year there ... so beautiful! As my sister said: Ah ... there is really nothing like fall in Quebec. It reminds me of my favorite paean to Indian summer, by the incomparable Emily Dickinson ... the one that says that on these kinds of days "the skies resume the old, old sophistries of June -- a blue and gold mistake." I've been in Quebec on the kind of day Emily was talking about up there in Massachusetts where she was from. In South Carolina this time of year, the weather goes utterly perfect. You could not imagine more perfect weather than we are having, even if you had the best and most fertile imagination in all the world. Temps around 75-80 degrees, low humidity, a light breeze, lots of sunshine. Simply insanely perfect!
We have a massive oak in our front yard that is quite close to the house, so that when you're in the back by the pool, you look up and see the top third of that oak just towering over the roof. During the summer months that tree sounded as if it had about a million cicadas hiding in its dense leaf canopy. All day in summer the cicadas sang, communicating with other cicada groups in other trees in our subdivision which is chock-full of mature trees, talking about whatever cicadas talk about with one another. During the day their incessant many-layered, multi-faceted buzz was a persistent droning that permeated the neighborhood, sounding like a trillion little power tools working on ... something.
It was almost eerie this year; I think maybe we had a bumper crop of cicadas, or else they all ate their Wheaties. You never saw them, thank goodness (except one or two that ended up in the pool, dead, their iridescent wings splayed out from their lumpy bodies ... cicadas are horribly huge) but you heard every one of them as though they were hovering in the air around you rather than commandeering the cool interiors of the trees. At dusk our oak tree literally screamed! It would start as that low insistent whine, then crescendo into a sound so loud, it made you just stand and gawk. I would let myself imagine that I could see through the leaves to all the vibrating cicada bodies, but it grossed me out so much, I couldn't think about it anymore. And yet I can't imagine summer without the sound of cicadas; it would be unnatural.
Today when my husband got home from work, we carried our salads to the table by the pool. It was so peaceful out there, and I commented that the cicadas were finally gone or dead or muted or whatever happens to them when summer is over. "Dead," my husband affirmed, sounding like the one who made the decision that they all had to die. And then I heard it. It started as not much more than a raspy whisper, but as I listened it gained in volume until it reached full sound ... and that's not saying much. It sounded like five or six remaining cicadas, in their dotage, dying, life almost gone ... but still trying to sing. They still had something to say! They were saying "I'm still here." A few in a pine on the other side of our privacy fence answered: "We're still here too." And then they were silent.
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Reader Comments (3)
For the life of me, I can't figure out why no one commented on this post. Love the last paragraph. Very poignant. Your sister has some competition.
I heard those cicadas for the first time about six years ago in San Antonio. I thought there were aliens in the trees, I couldn't imagine that it was something the Lord made! Thankfully, all we have in our corner of Paradise are crickets that chirp us softly to sleep.
Deb ... it's because back then I didn't have any readers! LOL you are cherished.
Sue O ... the cicadas mean business around here and no mistake! I like the sound of cricket chirps too.