Hide-and-seek with the sounds of summer, searched for with my daughter

The sounds of summer.
The sound of cicadas echoing as if falling from the sky under the scorching sun.
Every time the wind blows, the wind chime at the entrance rings faintly with a chime.
Just that is enough for my body to remember that summer has come again this year.

I searched for cicadas with my daughter.
Even though I can clearly hear them when I listen closely, I can't see them anywhere.
"Is it over there?" "Up in this tree?"
My two-year-old daughter makes a small telescope with her hands and peers at the sky.
But no matter how hard we strained our eyes, we couldn't find the cicadas.

"Where could they have hidden?"
"Hmm, maybe they're playing hide-and-seek."
"Are they higher up?"

Time spent searching for sounds that cannot be seen.
Time spent listening to the voices carried on the wind.
That afternoon when I stood side-by-side with my daughter looking up at the sky,
it becomes a memory not of "we didn't find any cicadas,"
but of "we heard so many cicada voices."

I think the sounds of summer are not things to be found, but things to be savored.

The sound of wind chimes,
the chirping of cicadas,
the sound of sipping cold barley tea,
and the pitter-patter of footsteps on the floor after a shower.

All of them are the sounds of summer.
All of them are our sounds, unique to this summer.

Sincerely, Yoshiki

#ShirokumaLiteratureClub I wrote this for their project.
I haven't been able to show my daughter, who just turned three, a real cicada yet.
This summer, the sound of cicadas also feels a bit sparse.
But—the fact that we heard them, the fact that we listened closely.
That alone has become our summer.

Thank you very much for reading this far💖