How to Summer

On letting joy run sticky down your elbows

Photo by Jackie Best

How to Summer 

Imagine you are a cicada 
with only weeks to live. 
How lucky to have this 
body—loud-mouthed 
& ugly with desire. 
Winter is always coming. 
I hope you let joy run 
sticky down your elbows. 

Even when we lived in Belgium, we came back to Kansas to visit my grandparents each summer. This means the symphony of cicadas in July and August is inextricably interwoven with my idea of summer. The times I’ve visited other places where these tiny insects don’t sing, I find the quiet haunting.

There are over 3,000 species of cicadas worldwide, and they don’t all sound the same, so if you’ve never heard how cicadas sound in the United States Midwest, you can listen here: Midwest Summer Cicadas.

Each summer we came to the United States, my friends and I would run around collecting cicada shells. They were everywhere, clinging to trunks, branches, and the siding on my grandmother’s house. We made large nests for our collection. I loved the way you could see through them when you held them up to the sun.

Cicadas spend the majority of their lives underground. Annual cicadas appear every summer and have a two- to five-year life cycle. Periodical cicadas emerge less frequently and have a thirteen- to seventeen-year life cycle. A few years ago, both kinds overlapped and the Midwest was swarmed with cicadas everywhere. Most people found it horrifying. I found it incredible.

Adult cicadas spend only four to six weeks above ground. Males spend half that time singing to attract mates. That’s the ear-piercing sound we hear each summer, which can be as loud as a passing subway. They are ugly creatures by our standards, but they are loud and hungry, and I’ve always loved how something so small can create so much noise.

My childhood summers were wild and sticky and wonderful. I climbed trees, swam all day with my friends, played in creeks. My imagination knew no bounds. We ate whatever we wanted when we were hungry and never once thought about how we looked in a swimsuit or worried about our complexion. Our appearance had no bearing on our joy.

Three full years into eating disorder recovery, I still have days when body dysmorphia makes going to the pool difficult, or when I’d rather curl up in a sweatshirt and sweatpants despite it being 100 degrees.

Earlier this month, I had a healthcare scare when I requested an early colonoscopy (I’m forty, and in the U.S. insurance won’t cover colonoscopies until you’re forty-five). They found four large precancerous polyps. They were removed, and fortunately the biopsy indicated they were benign, but it reminded me how truly little we know about what can befall us at any moment.

I’ve always been aware of death. I was exposed to it very young. I’ve locked eyes with it up close numerous times in my life, and yet, this result scared me.

My natural inclination is to wait for when things feel “right.” To go swimming when I feel good in my body. To share and submit poems only when I believe they are perfect. But as this poem says, winter is always coming. We cannot escape aging or the inevitability of death. We are never promised next summer.

I remind myself constantly how lucky I am to have this body, even on the days it frustrates me most. How I have this in common with the cicada—a loud desire for the brief season on this earth I am given.

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