There’s a cicada husk in a very, very tiny jar on my dresser.
If this sounds odd, it is. It’s also, given a very particular set of circumstances, an incredibly sweet reminder:
My mom lived, and her living could be such strange fun.
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On March 4, I posted “The Magic of Fighting Monsters.” I wrote about the absolute magic I’d experienced fighting monsters in an immersive theatre show a couple years prior.
That show had connected me to the experience of being with my living, breathing, horror-loving mom; in those moments about which I wrote, she was very much alive to with me.
So when I found out the makers of the show had a new show coming out on the ten-year anniversary of my mom’s death?
I. was. so. very. in.
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My husband and I, through a convergence of kindnesses, ended up at the first showing of the new show, Where the Others Are.
While I won’t say much about it, I will tell you my husband laughed as we walked away:
“Of all the possibilities of things that could have triggered you, it was the cicadas that got you closest?!”
Yes. Yes, it was. Cicadas sometimes felt like the bane of my existence when I lived in Japan 2004-2005;
there was no way to drown out their cacophonous choruses. Not with earplugs or pillows or music or phone calls or combinations of all these things.
They just. kept. chattering.
—
When I walked away from the show on March 4, I had a cicada keepsake in my bag and a full heart.
I had no idea that everything would shut down, thanks to COVID-19, within days, or that I’d feel profoundly lucky to have experienced this immersive show during the short stretch of days that it existed in this form.
I had no idea how glad I’d be to find a message from my husband saying, a couple months later, they filmed it!
(The trailer is here;
the on-demand link opening Friday is here.)
—
There’s a cicada husk in a very, very tiny jar on my dresser.
If this sounds odd, it is. It’s also, given a very particular set of circumstances, an incredibly sweet reminder.
Deborah L. Robinson 