There’s a hint of blue in the sky today. Not much of a hint, but most welcome. For a long time now, we’ve been dealing with the smoke of Canadian wildfires. Our northern neighbor is battling fires that just won’t go out. The smoke must be a breath-to-breath challenge near the fires, and it’s no picnic for us either, even at this remove.
Most folks here limit their exposure to the smoke, but some people can’t or just don’t. Respiratory problems tend to manifest as tightness through the chest. Then the back and sides get tight, too, until it feels like you’re being squeezed and can’t draw a full breath. Like there’s not enough air in the air. Resting helps. Sometimes you just get the urge to rest, without going through the whole tightness sequence first. Perhaps there’s a learning curve there. In any case, the best course of action seems to getting indoors where there’s filtered air.
While more northern parts of the state have suffered visible smoke, down here we’ve been getting what meteorologists have taken to describing as a milky haze. At least one of the Detroit news stations has come up with a new logo to represent it. And the weather people say things like, “We would have had blue sky today, if not for the smoke.”
Michiganders don’t usually lack for sunny skies in the summer, but this year we do. For our northerly counterparts, blue skies must be the subject of prayers.
On the plus side outdoors, the cicadas are back. Some people, I understand, don’t like them, think they’re disgusting, and wish they’d be quiet. I love cicadas. They’re big and interesting and have the most beautiful wings. We haven’t had a brood of periodic cicadas this year—the ones that show up every x number of years—but the annual cicadas have been around for weeks now.
My sweetheart and I enjoy seeing them. They don’t pester people or pets. They don’t bite. Their only defense mechanism is to show up in great enough numbers that their predators can’t eat all of them, which leaves some to reproduce. Cicadas don’t even fly away when you look at them, so you get a chance to see them molt, shedding their old, too-tight exoskeleton for a form-fitting new one. One of them was doing that before my very eyes this week.
Also, cicadas are great singers. It’s only the males singing, and the lyrics all translate to, “Hey, babe, check me out!” Even so, they make a wonderful sound. I associate it with happy childhood and also perceive in it a note of melancholy: cicada song signals the waning days of summer.
According to poet Joyce Kilmer, only God can make a tree. Nevertheless, Rascal took a shot at becoming one yesterday. He was aiming at sycamore. On summer walks, it is his habit to cool himself by rolling in the grass. This process is a great pleasure to him, and he selects his grass with care. Not for him the scruffy, weed-laden, hardscrabble lawn. No, for him the well-tended, well-shaded, householders’ pride.
Sometimes, he rolls a second time if he feels the first effort failed to suffice. If the first or second roll approaches sublime, he may decide to just lie on that glorious lawn for a bit. He did that one summer, and the lady of the house brought him a bowl of water. Shortly thereafter, the man of the house came to the porch and said, “In the shade, lying on the grass with a bowl of water: living large.” And Rascal agreed.
That’s why, when he deviated from his pattern of selecting only the finest grass for a good roll yesterday, I paid close attention. Not only was the grass he chose not the softest, it was in a sycamore’s debris field. We’ve had a fair amount of rain lately, and the neighborhood’s many sycamores have been ridding themselves of their old non-stretchy bark with abandon, shedding it both in the usual bits and pieces and in good-sized sheets. All the cast-off bark is raggedy-edged and scratchy.
And Rascal tried to cover himself with that stuff. The only possible explanation is that he’d decided to explore a tree’s approach to life. He wanted to become a sycamore.
He did a good job, too. When he’d finished rolling, he sported the same all-over blotchy bark pattern as sycamores. The color was a little off, given that his base coat is quite dark, but he seemed satisfied with his work and didn’t shake it off. He decided to keep being a dog, though: trees don’t play with squeaky balls.
8 August 2025