Cricket Season

We are now fully into Cricket Season, a time of year which takes in the second half of summer and the first part of fall. I heard the first of the chirping critters two nights ago. Then, on a walk yesterday afternoon, I heard several more.

I was delighted to hear them, because given what has happened to much of our other insect life, such as Honeybees and the Monarch Butterfly, it wouldn’t have surprised me had the Cricket fallen prey to habitat destruction, pesticide poisoning, or any of the other myriad plagues visited by human beings on the animal kingdom. To tell the truth, I was beginning to be concerned at not having heard any Crickets yet, though admittedly I was out of town for the second and third weeks of July, and might therefore have missed the official opening. Normally, Cricket Season in these parts starts about three to four weeks after the summer solstice and runs through to a week or so after (Canadian) Thanksgiving.

Why do I find Cricket Season so significant? To me, its opening sends an important signal–a signal that, even in the midst of summer’s heat, cooler weather and better sleeping nights are coming. It sends a message to the weary brain that after the torpor of June and early July, it can start to wake up again. A wake-up call in the best and truest sense of the term. Creative thought and intellectual endeavour are once again possible. I suspect it’s no accident that the two days since I first heard a Cricket were my best writing days since May. And the louder and more vociferous the chirping, the better will be my writing days.

Have you heard any Crickets yet this summer? If you have, what message have they been sending to you?