The Cost of Crickets? $388

The dreaded "-----" appeared on my cable box.  My husband, with a defeated exhale informed me, "Our cable was turned off. We can't pay our $388 bill until next week." Sigh.  It was not so much the lack of TV and internet that got us, it was more the cold realization that we do not earn enough to pay our bills. We work so hard, are educated but are in debt up to our eyeballs with jobs that never paid off.  Ugh. Student Loan Debt. Salaries are not where they should be to cover the cost of living in these expensive technological times.  I was paid more in the 90's!  So, ouch.  Ouch to our prides. Humbling.

These are indeed hard times.

 Now, hold up.  I know what you are thinking..."You think no T.V. and internet is hard times? Wait until you hear what my family is dealing with....."  Or, other horrific tragedies, which are sadly occurring all over.

I know.  It could be so much worse.  We have had our health scares, that thankfully, turned out okay. Our parents are hanging in there with their health issues.  Exhausting, but we are doing what we can.  But let me tell you, money problems create such enormous stress that lead to new health issues.

It hurts.

Anyway, I do want to move on about crickets....

As a result of our "Radio Silence", last night my husband and I were sitting quietly in our living room and we both heard the sound of crickets.  Eee. Eee. Eee. Pause. Eee. Eee. Eee. We heard a distant dog barking.  The cheeps and screeches of the night birds and squirrels. We heard a muffled voice in the darkness.  We both felt the same thing.  We were transported to another time and place.

It reminded us both of summers upstate where my grandmother lived on a lake and Pete's grandmother lived along a river.  When I was a kid visiting my grandmother's house living on a mountain with Babcock Lake as her backyard,  the TV had three semi decent channels and they were always snowy and painful to watch. We gave up after multiple attempts at adjusting and jiggling the antennae and shut the friggin' TV off.  So, my grandmother's large picture window was the center of focus facing the dark lake with spots of golden light from the houses dotted along its edges.  Crickets, bullfrogs, and occasional voices echoed across the lake.  I felt snug and cozy on my grandmother's couch wrapped in her afghan while she sat in her late husband's golden clothed rocker doing the Daily Jumble. We were in our nest enveloped in the sounds of an Upstate night.  I never felt safer.

My husband recalled, back when he was kid, they didn't have any reception for the TV as they were in a trailer perched on banks of the Oswegatchie River deep in the Adirondacks woods. TV?  No way were you going to get any channels there.  "Cards! Board Games!" Pete remembered and said out loud.  "Oh, we had such laughs playing cards and games."  And he remembered all the sounds of the darkness outside the trailer, night birds, dogs, crickets, splashes of late night swimmers jumping into the dark river from the dock across the way with all the laughs and exclamations that came with it. The sounds were sweetly muffled across water and mountain air.  He, too felt snug, safe and happiest with his Nana, laughing with his family while playing cards inside their lit up trailer, a golden beacon amid the deep woods darkness.  He drank that in, smiling.

My husband and I sat in silence.

The quiet brought my husband and I back, I mean, we were there,  to these wonderful memories with all the sounds and loving warm feelings that came with it.  That was priceless.

Actually, it cost $388.