WHACK
a fast sucking in, raspy intake of air
silence

silence

silence

and then a wail that starts high and climbs immediately to a piercing pitch.

This is the ‘drop everything and go’ cry of a truly injured child. Not pouty, not disgruntled, not confused, hungry, mad or feverish. Wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

That’s what her call brought back to my heart.

I never answer my phone. Phone conversations never seem to be worth actually having. They either ramble, or they sell, or they try to collect money I don’t have. Phone conversations are for things that I usually hold at bay. So, no. I don’t do phones.

But the phone says it’s my oldest. That’s all good, right?

“Hello!!! How good to hear from you!”

silence

“Honey?”

silence

silence

“Hey, you! I answered! What’s up…you there?”

silence….then a fast sucking in, raspy intake of air

silence

silence

And then a wail that starts high and climbs immediately to a piercing pitch. From Michigan. 6 hours away. Almost 21 years from the first time I had heard it. Inconsolable – and so very, very, very far away. My mother-soul could have been hearing that sound without the phone in hand. It is a cry that travels – right to the marrow of your heart.

There is a rumble deep in my soul when the world isn’t okay. I’m experiencing it today as I dig into the why’s behind some of my student’s behaviors. Why can’t we do that math problem that has been repeated on our tests again and again and again?

Because life. And some more life. And life layered between life and life-lines giving out and sad and want and grief and, well: Life.

This rumble, this ‘sound that I can feel’ reaches the same place in my heart/soul/mind that my daughter’s true cry brings: and I bind to that rhythm and hold on for dear life.

This past spring, nature – not surprisingly – reintroduced me to that physical-ness of sound.

Cicadas.

For the human ear, it is often difficult to tell precisely where a cicada song originates. The pitch is nearly constant, and the sound is actually continuous to the human ear. Cicadas are known for their loud and penetrating songs that could be described as rattling buzzes or harsh trills. These songs have a pulsating or grinding quality. Their song starts slowly, builds to a crescendo, and then finally drops off at the end.

We live in a small three acre clearing near the center of a 98 acre wood – ideal Cicada territory. As these insects emerged from the ground and began their singing, by the thousands: our home, our entire immediate world was engulfed in a constant, pulsing, buzz of sound. Sound rushed through your ears as if hearing your own pulse. It surrounded you physically, vibrating your skin. It was penetrating. Persistent. Profound.

For me, the song of the Cicada illustrates the deep connections of life. A reminder that:
sound can be felt,
that cries can be silent,
that persistence can extract thought, create learning,
that distance and time are relative, at best.
My mother-soul may fear the vibration of my daughter’s broken heart, and in the same breath – in that same ‘consistent sound’ I can know with knowing – that she is in her Papa’s arms and in His constant care.

The overwhelming pulse of God in my life – pushing souls in my direction – bringing problems to my table – no longer weighs heavy. It vibrates with sound, with promise and with life.

24 Jan This entry was published on January 24, 2017 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Learning. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.