What the Cicadas Taught Me

Cicadas have always been apart of my life. Growing up in Brazil we caught and played with both the insects and their shed exoskeletons. Ugly and loud, they were just scary enough to be intriguing. I associated cicadas with hot weather and wrongly assumed they were a tropical insect.  The North American variety has evolved to survive ice ages, cold summers and glaciers.  It stays underground for 13 or 17 years before emerging in the heat of the summer to develop flight and reproduce. I don't encounter many, but after finding one among my bean plants, I started to find their discarded shells everywhere, especially on my grape vine.

Now I am very attached to my garden.  We read, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matt 6:21)  Well, my garden is my treasure, and I have put all my heart (to say nothing of my sweat and quite a bit of my money) into it. I justify the time I spend gardening as being healthy for both my mind and body, as well as being something that grounds me and helps me to feel settled in small town Minnesota.  I love to gaze out at my flowers through the window, and take a walk in the garden in the early morning. I enjoy watering and pruning, planting and replanting. If I have been away, I can hardly wait to come home and see what has grown, or started to flower. I check the grapes and tomatoes for ripeness, catch my breath over the sight of a small frog or kaleidoscope of butterflies, mourn over an abandoned egg, and celebrate the discovery of a new (to my knowledge) species of plant or animal. 

On social media I watch my friends take off,  on their way to an overseas post.  My sons prepare to move, go back to school and start a new job. Not me.  I am concentrating on the fact that it is apple-pie-time and plans to can tomato chutney.  Could I move on, and leave my garden? That is a difficult question. I still remember the stress of moving each August to start a new job in a new country with all the packing and paperwork.  It was exciting until it got stressful.  Just as I think I'll just stay put and enjoy my garden, I find the cast-off skin of the cicada.  It was willing to leave even its skin behind as it ventured upward and onward. I notice also that everything in my garden is in motion, ready to move on.  The flowers bloom, then go to seed; the cucumbers fade away exhausted; the butterfly takes one sip and moves on; the squirrels never look relaxed; the old is gone and the new growth appears. 
I get all excited about a new project and just need another pot, tool or bag of soil.  As I am unloading the car I see my neighbor out in his yard.  He was born in the house and has

lived there for 78years.  He is making a fire, burning away the old growth.  We chat as he sees me hauling dirt, "You still farting around out here?" I tell him that we pulled down a tree house and old apple tree, and now I need more. He misunderstands my feelings and suggests we pull the old creamery building down too. "It's an eyesore." NOoooo! My reaction is quite emotional.  I don't want to lose that old building, just as I didn't want to lose the apple tree I made pies from, or the tree house my sons played in as little boys.  It's not that I have a hard time giving up the past, I just hate it when someone bursts my bubble.  Eventually the old building will fall down, and I will probably never own a winery, or make lots of money. or write a book, or retire on a Greek island. That is the stuff of movies, magazines and Instagram accounts. They are not realistic or healthy dreams, they are just baggage to leave behind.  I can settle with less.