I can`t hear you for the cicadas!

I love silence. There is nothing I enjoy more after coming home from a ‘hard’ day`s work than entering a completely silent apartment and doing my chores in complete silence. It`s hard enough to find a place outside that has the luxury of complete silence, except in the forest during winter when the snow dampens the sound of nature down to a minimum. And I thought when summer hit, I would be able to get some small amount of silence, even in my own house. I was terribly wrong.

It`s not the traffic. It`s not loud neighbors (even though they have obnoxious kids screaming at all hours throughout the day and night). It`s the cicadas!

This is one of the many things that I dislike about the cities. In the sticks, where there are plenty of trees to go around, the cicadas can spread themselves around and make as much sound as they please without bothering anyone. Everybody wins.

But in the city, where there are maybe 20 trees per square kilometer (I am making this number up by the way), the cicada group up into one tree and make this ungodly sound that pierces your ears and probably leaves long term damage to your hearing.

It`s a game theory thing for urban developers ( or so I want to think). Would I build a neighborhood in the city with plenty of trees, thereby attracting those loud creatures and making my neighborhood a natural heavy metal concert for a few weeks in the year. Or do I not have any trees and leave the nature up to other neighborhoods. If everybody planted trees in the city, the problem wouldn`t be a problem.

Maybe I am overthinking this. But the point stands. They are loud and a bother. But then nostalgia kicks in and I would miss summers without that sound.

…I can never be happy…