I do realize that not all life’s problems are so easily airbrushed, and not everyone has a flower to watch, and I wish it were otherwise. But the other day this happened to me. I was utterly out of patience and stormed out to the back, and there was this gorgeous, tranquil little being, totally absorbed in the zinnias. Imagine being hit so hard by calm.
That, as you may remember, was my mother’s incantation on the first of every month. I’m not sure why except for the twelve rabbits’ feet involved.
I am not enamored of rabbits, as you know if you’ve read my blog for a while. They are the garden’s Visigoths and nothing can withstand their onslaught. Here, in the wee hours of one winter morning, by the light of the lamppost, I spotted one of their kind. It was huge. And obviously reconnoitering. Duly noted, you furry pig!
I am equally not enamored of Canadian geese, as you also know from my blog. They, however, are enamored of this retention pond. Why Mother Nature, who came up with the song of the lark and the wren, invented the honk of the goose is explainable only in terms of her caustic sense of humor.
Then, of course, the ants. Oh, they keep on a-comin’. At first in my desk. Now along the baseboard and up through the furnace vent in the dining room. Yesterday I was out in the cold mud dousing the side of my new house with Home Defense. In January? Really?
Having lived in California, I know about ants, which there put earthquakes to shame in terms of intimidation. They come like an undertow and pull you to your knees.
But this is Indiana, which, though definitely ant-ridden, usually doesn’t let the little rotters out mid-winter.
And have you ever noticed how observing ants can make you itch?
Life in a new place has an edge to it. Every day taunts you with your confusions. You never choose right the first time: that first drawer or cabinet door you open is inevitably the wrong one. Whatever you’re looking for is somewhere else.
You mutter at the builder, who put the pantry next to the refrigerator. It is his fault that you put the eggs in the pantry and the aluminum foil in the refrigerator.
You are grateful for the handy little storage closet, but you cannot seem to navigate it without a ricochet off that lower shelf.
Then one week that edge seems smoother, and you wonder if indeed that is so. Are you really opening the right drawer the first time? Are you no longer finding the paper towels in the freezer? Are you actually retrieving the hammer from the closet without dinging your head?
You allow yourself to take a deep breath and acknowledge that, yes, there is the slightest sense of routine seeping back into your life. Yes, there are still things in storage and much more to be done, but there does seem to be a smoothing of the edge. Ahhhh….
And then, incredulous, you see them: ants! In January! On your desk! Did they hitchhike in from the storage unit? Did they come from outside, enlivened by those warm days last week? Do you care? No! You just want a cannon to blast them out.
You hear them snickering, and you know the edge is still there.
p.s. The black and blue of this post has some ironic meaning, I’m sure, but I have no idea why the two colors happened. Probably the doings of the ants.
When your plumbing’s contrary
If I,
If I were a bug
The air was still