Free Lensing Circle July

In June our house is covered with Cicadas. They are everywhere, dried up exoskeletons that you ride your bicycles around as though it is normal to have thousands of bugs everywhere. One day I tell you , "let's collect the wings for a photo I want to make." And so you and I fill up mason jars, half full with perfect tiny insect wings. I try to explain to you that they will not be here for another 17 years. Try to remember what this summer is like, you as an almost 6 year old, the summer of the Cicadas, when Momma was 39 and all your brothers were home, two of them teenagers, and your closest brother, your best friend. I tell you to close your eyes and remember how it felt to be small. I have done this my whole life, taking in a feeling of being a certain age, looking around at the faces and landscape. This is how it feels. Remember. When you open your eyes 17 years later, when the cicadas come again, you will be 23. Can you imagine? No you cannot, you say. And so in the warm air, we continue collecting the clear perfect, identical wings. I think of you flying away one day maybe at 23, maybe sooner, of your brothers finding their wings first. How time changes everything. In 17 years things will be different. In the thick Magnolia scented warm air, I close my eyes. Remember the summer of the Cicadas. Remember what this felt like. Look around. I pause for a few brief seconds, taking it all in. And we continue around the yard collecting the wings and remarking how strange these brown bug bodies are. how very strange.

Now please go check out my friend Joni's beautiful work to follow the circle around.