About our summer, where we say 'It's cool' when the cicadas chirp

I love summer too much.

When the cicadas are chirping, my husband and I say, 'It's cool today, isn't it?'
A while ago, if you heard cicadas, you would naturally say, 'It's hot today,' but in recent summers, there are many days when you don't even hear them.
It seems that insects can't be active if it's too hot, so we only hear their voices gradually on the rare days that are suddenly cool, or in the evening.
If the brown cicadas have started chirping in the evening, do the evening cicadas chirp in the middle of the night?
Perhaps the cicada world's shifts, which were fixed every year, are being reorganized because of the heat.

The summer I love, to be precise, is the summer of my childhood.

During summer vacation, we would head to Nara, where my grandmother's house is, in a car driven by my father.
Long-distance drives were extraordinary and fun.
Since we were a family of five, the car was always packed. In it, we would swap CDs and MDs, taking turns playing our favorite music and singing along.
Powerful Maki Ohguro, refreshing Masayoshi Yamazaki, and 2000s anime songs that you could really get into.
I don't remember being bored much, sleeping in positions that made my neck hurt or talking with my siblings. I also liked looking at the scenery outside from the car.

Once you leave the highway, there are towns different from your own. Spacious rice fields, low-rise buildings. Commercial facilities with large grounds. Convenience stores with huge parking lots.
Under the vast sky where you could see cumulonimbus clouds, time felt like it was flowing slowly.

My grandmother's house is a traditional two-story detached house.
The front door is a sliding door, and just like the Sazae-san house, it makes a rattling sound when you slide it. A small raccoon dog figurine sits perched on top of the shoe cabinet. The figurine here changes from time to time. If you look up, right in front of you, you can see the slightly steep, large staircase leading to the second floor and the hallway. There is a Buddhist altar room on the right and a living room on the left, and when you go inside, there is a faint smell of tatami mats and incense.

My grandfather had passed away early, but my aunt and a cousin close to my age lived in my grandmother's house, so it felt like I had gained another sibling. We spent time going to a big pool together, playing games, and visiting graves.

My parents have lived in Yokohama for a long time now, but they were originally from the Kansai region, so when we went to Nara, their dialect naturally became stronger. The interjections like 'So nan?' that came out between conversations with my grandmother and aunt, and even words that wouldn't look any different from standard Japanese if written down, were fun because of the change in intonation.

Now that I'm an adult, I especially think that this picture-perfect, ordinary experience of a 'country house' was special. Everything I saw, heard, and even smelled was not part of my daily life, but something I could meet when summer came.
There is no doubt that it has strongly influenced my love for summer.

And of course, summer memories aren't just about my grandmother's house.
I also went to local festivals a lot wearing a yukata. At one point, I thought, 'Isn't a dark base color more mature and better than a pale color!?' and had a black yukata bought for me. The deep pink flowers stood out against the black background.
I also watched fireworks. I thought, 'There's no one here, this is a hidden gem!' but it turned out a tree was in the way and I couldn't see about half of them.
I caught goldfish at a goldfish scooping stall and troubled my mother. Afterward, we bought a tank and raised them properly.
I woke up early in the morning and went to radio calisthenics with my brother. I went back to sleep when I got home.

A period where you don't have to do anything, but you can do anything.
As expected, summer was the only season that felt special, as if it were enclosed in brackets.

Because I spent such a perfect 'the summer vacation,' even now that I'm an adult, I chase after the phantoms of those days.
Every year, I wish for a summer like that one, hoping 'may this summer be like that too,' and I'm collecting mysterious 'summer points' in my heart. They are added when I do something summery. It doesn't really matter if they accumulate, but if I think they haven't, I start to get restless.
The song 'Natsu no Kesshin' (Summer's Determination), which was playing on Ponkickies back then and which I loved, eggs me on and makes me feel anxious that I have to do something summery.

While almost drowning in nostalgia, even as an adult, I am struggling desperately to pick up the fragments of that summer vacation.

But, perhaps a summer like that one will never come again.

I can't beat the scorching temperatures. I can't go outside, and the cicadas don't chirp. The pool is too hot and gets canceled. Even summer festivals are being moved to September or October.

Even so.

Now, by my side, there is my young daughter.
The summers that lie ahead for her.
What can I do in this summer?
I would be happy if a day comes when my 'that summer' and her 'this summer' overlap.
But even if they don't overlap, I want to watch over the excitement she encounters in summer.

I believe it is that kind of special season where she will surely be able to find her own treasures.

This is no time to be pessimistic, saying things were better back then. Summer is short.
Even though it's so annoyingly hot, before you know it, it's over. That, too, is the magic of summer.

Let's collect summer points together.
We'll play in the water and eat shaved ice.
I might laugh because the water coming out of the tap is lukewarm.
The shaved ice will be a modern, luxurious one topped with lots of fruit. It might be too much for one person, but if we share it, it will surely be just right.
Wearing a neck cooler that didn't exist back then, we'll find the voice of a brown cicada chirping in the evening.
We'll have a conversation saying, 'It's unusually a bit cool today, isn't it?'
Going to an aquarium or library with air conditioning might also be good.
If they are held, I would of course like to go to festivals and Bon dances.

The reason I still love summer is no longer to reminisce about a lost past.
It is to celebrate the future summer that she will come to love.

In the morning when the sun is still weak, let's put a hat on my toddler daughter and go for a walk.
I wonder if the cicadas are chirping.