Crickets

I awoke last night (not evening) to the sounds of crickets chirping. Like the ever-present whine of the distant traffic on the macadamized roads, the seasonal song of the crickets acts as some foundation for the world of sound. These steady melodies seem to be those over which the noisy functionings of the world runs. But because they are so present, I often do not hear them.

I like the sound at night of the crickets during these summer months: they support the world when it does not know it needs support. I think that when I first go to sleep there is too much noise to even hear the crickets, though they do not care. There is the detritus of the day shutting down, the busy-ness of the preparations for sleep, the doors and drawers opening and closing, the swish of waters in sink and toilet, the brushing of hair and teeth, the clatter of the day’s unfinished business that will soon become the stuff of my dreams. I am at this time too preoccupied to consider the existence of the world outside; I do not then even look outside the windows, obsessed as I have become with shutting out the world beyond them. But when I awaken in the earlier morning hours, when in most places outside New York City the world has retired at day’s end, on this steamy summer evening there is no sound but the chirping of the crickets. And they recall to me that the world goes on without my awareness and that while the crickets chirp all remains well with them and they very much unconcerned with me.

In the Fall the crickets will fall into silence, and then only the wheels on the road will support the world.