Our Time Will Come
On Cicadas and Emergence
I’m a month away from my debut novel’s publication date and rollercoastering through ALL. THE. FEELS. I thought I had some idea what this time would be like. After all, I’ve seen the unboxing videos on social media and even that season of Jane the Virgin when she publishes her first book.
But when I held a copy of my book in my hands for the first time in real life, I wasn’t prepared for the flood of confusing emotions that came. Why did holding this book make me so sad? After all, I’d waited more than a decade (or maybe my whole life) for this moment. This is a happy thing, weirdo!
I’ve had a print up above my desk for the past few years. I took it from the 2022 Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar from the Certain Days Collective, introduced to me by JustSeeds. The print is a vivid and detailed rendering of a cicada by the artist Roger Peet, emblazoned with the words “OUR TIME WILL COME.”
In 2022, when that calendar was first up on my wall, Outside Women was on submission. The whole year was a long blur of publisher rejections alongside everything else that was already hard in the world. When the year was over, I tore out October’s cicada print and stuck it above my desk. I needed a reminder of that statement of power from many political movements so I could believe it for my artistic life as well. Our Time Will Come.
I’ve always been drawn to cicadas — how can one resist them? The stiff tulle pattern of their wings, their heft in my palm, the ghostly carapace they leave behind in tree hollows. The waves of their chorus rising and falling, an insistent summer pop track that won’t let go. The most metal of insects, periodical cicadas spend 13 or 17 years underground until they emerge in massive broods, taking over our summertime consciousness and airspace.
Last year, when I spent months in Minnesota researching the wood-fired Johanna kiln, I was lucky to receive a cicada pendant carved from clay by my new friend, Anne Meyer, accomplished local ceramicist and my volunteer shift leader at the kiln.
Anne’s work is a marvel. When I was walking through the woods near the kiln, I came upon a series of what first appeared to be ancient relics — life-sized sculptures of geese scattered amongst the autumn leaves, the rigging of an old boat, the armor of fallen warriors. I later learned that Anne was one of the artists who sculpted these haunting pieces. The geese in particular are emblematic of her work celebrating the most ordinary and mysterious residents of the natural world.
Anne told me she was inspired to carve the cicada pendants by the 2024 emergence of dual cicada broods across the Midwest and Southeast United States — a phenomenon that hasn’t happened since 1803. “Cicadas are a powerful symbol of transformation,” she told me.
What does it feel like to come up for air and come into yourself after more than a decade spent underground? I think I’m finding out. I’ve spent years writing through rejection and silence, waiting for my time to come. I’ve often talked about this feeling by referencing the Ted Solotaroff essay, “Writing in the Cold.” But writing underground feels like a more apt metaphor, somehow. It’s been difficult, yes, but also a comfort to remain in this hidey-hole away from prying eyes, playing with words. Leaving that comfort for the wide world above ground feels kind of like being turned inside out.
I don’t know what cicadas feel when they molt, but I imagine there’s the hunger I feel right now, with lots of awkward, teenager-y desperation. There’s grief, too, spilling out at times that I’m told should be purely joyful. But I can’t detach the grief of those underground years from the joy of knowing I got through them. Kahlil Gibran writes that joy and sorrow are inseparable, and I’m remembering that now: “the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.”
Outside Women Updates:
Please note that the book launch at Lofty Pigeon Books in Brooklyn, NY, is now on April 16th (not April 3rd). I’ll keep my website events page updated with any other changes (and RSVP links as they become available).
New event! On April 9th, I’ll be at Busboys and Poets in Washington DC in conversation with novelist Karen Outen.
And if you want to support Outside Women (and this awkward teenager cicada-wannabe), please pre-order!
What a moving post. The carved cicada is beautiful and I love the connection between it and the visual you already had hanging. Thanks for sharing about your journey to your book release!
What beautiful words you share here. I really appreciated how you brought up the reality of grief.