A Hill Country Welcome Home

Three weeks away, and what happens?

Nature takes its course, that's what. The grasshoppers, chicharras (cicadas), crickets, tree frogs and a drunken crowd of rowdy celebrants from around the insect world do what comes naturally after Spring rains. They fill the night with sounds seeking their companion, calling out, "Hey, there, listen to me! I am a great candidate for a mate. Check out my song!" "No, listen to my song! Here! From my tree! I'm the one you should have your baby (fill in the blank) with!"

Across the hills and wafting up from the bottoms there came last night wave after wave of their hello- look-at-me calls, thousands of churning, whirring maracas and castanets filling the clear full-moon sky.

Our serenata from the hill country might have sounded raucous and disorganized to the casual listener trying to sleep after 18 hours sitting upright in a speeding magical bird that old Columbus could only dream of while crossing back and forth over the ocean between Spain and the Americas.

But tired is tired, even in a speeding magical bird. Yet, laying flat, finally, back on your own bed, if you breathed deep and slowly, and listened hard, after a while, you might start to hear the melody strands of a familiar song carried on the breeze from the window facing south.  Coming in on a whim, the rhythm section brings in  ribbons of the familiar tune, Cielito Lindo. There now is the chorus, "Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores..."  Here now is the gentle trot of the opening of the song, and there, too, the lilting conclusion, "...se alegran cielito lindo los corazones." 

This non-linear rendition of Cielito Lindo came not in the logical progression, but all at once and from all directions. One hill carried the first strands of the song, the next hill the third, while from deep in the ravine below, I think I heard an old Woodie Guthrie or Johnny Cash tune trying to get untangled and join in with mariachi trumpets.

This joyous music came from insects that had not been born when we left for España.

The singers sounded like sailors glad to be home after a long journey away. Or maybe the choirs nestled in the cedars were singing for the travelers who were too weary to take up anything but their nightgowns.

The song's pieces were spread across the night sky, but my brain in that moment and at that stage of exhaustion could strangely and easily braid the pieces together as they lulled me to slumber.

The occasional chiming in from the mourning doves and whippoorwill completed the night's entertainment, and we felt all of nature welcome us back home.