Saturday, June 19, 2010

Cacophony: Or, A Little Night Music

After three days of driving through the American Deep South for the first time in my life (Atlanta doesn't really count, does it?), we finally arrived home last night. Well, we actually arrived in town in time for dinner, and went straight out to Red Boot for Welcome Home Spaghetti and pool time. And Blueberry Pie. After night swim, the kids got to watch Wow! Wow! Wubbsy! while the adults got caught up with slide shows of our respective adventures. We finally pulled in our driveway at 11:45pm, just in time to say we arrived home on Friday.

We have had a few days to slowly acclimate to the climbing temperatures as we traveled south. But I had forgotten the sounds of high summer. I think sound travels differently on a sultry summer night than it does at other times of year. As day gave way to night the symphony began. The crickets played their usual strings, and the frogs down in the swamp shouted their chorus from a quarter mile away. And joining them sometime in the last three weeks of our absence were the cicadas. Between all the night musicians, we had to speak up to hear one another there in the pool.

We floated in the pool under a cloudless sky, feeling that strange equilibrium that comes when the water is nearly body temperature. But it's tricky water, that. After awhile we began to chill, as the water was merely 93 degrees, making it slightly cooler than body temperature. So we got out.

And I had forgotten the risks of night swimming. At dusk the dominant wildlife changes. The fat juicy spiders that hide all day in the oak leaves, lower themselves and spin giant webs to catch themselves some dinner. When it was time to get out of the pool, sure enough someone walked face first into a web, complete with the garden spider that got way more than she bargained for! It wasn't me, but I still felt sympathy for the victim. I don't mind spiders, as long as they are not on me. When they get that close, I sort of freak out.

The half-full moon lit our path home from the ranch house. We put a trio of very sleepy children into their own beds, where they went instantly to dreamland. I snuggled into my very own bed and joined them shortly after.

It's good to be home.

1 comment:

  1. See, that spider thing keeps me from ever moving further south. When folks talk about Honduras mission trips, I think "How about Norway?"

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