As the drowning cicadas surround me

I let my thoughts sink into the echoes of the trees

As the cicadas buzz around me, their relentless hum rising from the sunburnt hills of the Italian countryside, I let my thoughts sink into the echoes of the trees. As if I believed the sound itself conjured the sea of my mind. One I can’t resist diving into. As if I believed it, I can hear the crackling of the fish and the breaking wavelets far above my head.

You ask me how I’m doing. How work is going. But those questions barely reach me now. I can almost hear your voice, distant, muffled beneath the surface, as though my ears are submerged. My heart stumbles. a beat skipped, maybe from the pressure. Or maybe from something you said that I wasn’t ready to hear.

I wonder what I’d find in those depths, what waits beneath my surface, mirroring my soul’s mysteries. Is this sea within me an ocean? Or merely a lake? I don’t know yet. But if I listen long enough, I think I will. Not today, not tomorrow. There’s no need to rush. I want to let it unfold in its own time. For now, the cicadas drown me, their chorus so constant and consuming that time and space blur. My thoughts disappear with them, and my mind, at last, feels still. Empty, even. And I don’t mind. I don’t want to think right now.

You start speaking of the past. Of things I’ve tried to leave behind. But the ocean doesn’t forget. Maybe I am like that, or maybe I want to be. I wish people would pass through me, unnoticed, untouched. I wish I didn’t try so hard to understand them. Their moods, their words, their worries. I listen to your words, and I think I’d like to cry. Not from sadness. Not from fear. But because this sea inside me is brimming, and I don’t know where to pour it.

The cicadas vibrate through me, cell by cell, until there’s nothing but sensation. My thoughts fall away. And in their absence, I begin to see more clearly. The more I see, the less I forget. And there is so much I want to remember.

I lie on my back and stare up through the leaves. It’s all so beautiful, isn’t it? I don’t say anything, but I think you understand. Or maybe I just want you to. A breeze brushes lightly against my legs. I close my eyes. The cicadas are always there, always singing, but never seen. I don’t want to speak anymore. Everything I say feels pointless, as though language can’t keep up with the shape of my thoughts. Every word feels futile, hollow.

As if I believed it enough, the tide begins to rise. I wonder what it would be like to stay submerged. If I look back enough, I’d already know. As the drowning cicadas, I’d like the trees to conceal me.

A sketch from the trip, barks are difficult...but that’s why I practice!