2006

As I sit here looking back at my accomplishments while trying to ignore the shaking imposed upon my home by the upstairs neighbor's inconsiderate walking, I am hopeful and optimistic about 2006.

I have an ambitious list of things I'd like to accomplish before the year is out. I am hopeful that in the process I will discover some things about myself and make some important decisions that will positively impact my life. I promise myself that 2006 will be a more creative year. I will nourish my soul with art.

The critters above are cicadas from the 2004 Brood X Emergence that occured here in the states. (Can you see the cicada on the sleeping guard's knee?)

I travelled to the east coast to see these guys emerge after their 15 year slumber. People thought I was insane. I am reminded today of that trip and the cicadas' life cycle. They emerge to eat, mate, lay eggs, then die. Their offspring hatch, then dig their way underground to sleep for another 15 years. The cycle is repeated beautifully if their habitat is not destroyed by the time the next 15 years rolls around.

Didn't some famous person say that we humans, too, do the same: we are born, we fuck, we die.

In 2019 I will be 44. I wonder who the cicadas will see I go back to visit them. I know I will find the alien howling in the trees familiar. That sound is like sleigh bells mixed with howling, clicking, rattling, all at once. It was beautiful.