I saw this emerge today. I thought it was a tiny bunch of budding leaves unfurling on a tree trunk. Then I saw two black dots like eyes. Then I saw the cicada, unmoving, still half inside its shell.

I went for a walk today without my phone because I had too much screen time and I needed to look outside my brain. I noticed a lovely stranger walking a bit behind me and I asked them to please do me a favor and take a photo and send it to me. That was the second miracle.

We watched for an hour. I made a friend today. She looked up all our questions, and I immediately clocked her as a Gemini. I can tell you the whole metamorphosis timeline now. The window in which I spotted it was perfect.

They live underground for YEARS until a hormonal shift and pressure urge them upward. (Sound familiar?) They have only twenty minutes to climb up a tree before their shell dries and shrinks and splits open. Within minutes they emerge. For 30–60 minutes they unrumple their wings by pumping fluid into the thin veins. Their color slowly changes and continues to for 3 days. When they’re ready, they climb up to the treetops for a few freaky weeks of mating and breeding. Will they lay eggs underground? I don’t know that part.

Cicadas go through many changes in their lives. This is their FINAL MOLT. May we all go through our miraculous final molt with tender witnesses standing by, saying: wow wow wow.