The Place Where it Stings
I learned enough the first time to understand that getting stung doesn’t feel good. There I was, barely under three feet tall, allured by the transparent wings of a bee buzzing around the rosemary bush in our southern California front yard. Naturally, I stuck out my hand to stroke one. That didn’t go well. Mom plopped me on the kitchen counter and put my finger in a glass dish full of what I thought was tartar sauce, though she tells me now it was really a baking soda concoction. No more bees, I declared.
But, I’ve also learned, sometimes the sting is where the most important information lies.
Thirty something years later (aka, last week) I’m at a hauntingly gorgeous historic farmhouse in central Virginia. The creativity is flowing. I’m staying in a spacious room where sunlight streams through oversized windows late in the afternoon. The glass is original, the owner tells me, and to keep the windows open you have to shove a wooden block underneath to prop them open. So, I do.
As the sun dips down behind the leafy vistas, I go to close the window and notice a pretty iridescent beetle clinging to the screen from the outside. Then I realize, she has company.
Sandwiched between the screen and the wavy glass is a big ole, honking wasp.
My instincts kick in: close the damn window. So, I do. For a hot second, I feel conflicted. Should I try to pry the screen open and let him find his way out? But I see there’s a gap near the top. So he’ll probably find it and free himself. Nature has a way, doesn’t it? I jiggle the bottom of the screen to see if it’ll come loose just to test it–barely trying. No go.
I sprawl out on the dreamy front porch to read by candlelight. Glancing every once in a while toward the window to see if the wasp has found the escape route. Not yet.
The thought keeps flickering through my mind: should I try lifting the screen once more to let him out? But that could bring in even more bugs. Nah.
I wake up a couple times during the night from the clicking sound of the window AC unit, yet still rise feeling mostly rested. Throwing the covers to the side, I grab my glasses and pull up the window shade.
Frozen, he’s still in the same spot as the night before. His minuscule legs, inert. I tap the glass lightly, seeing if he’ll respond.
Nothing. He’s dead.
It’s a wasp, I tell myself. A freaking wasp, Katie. Trying to brush off the little pangs of guilt I feel. Insects die. Don’t they have like a 72 hour lifespan? I mean, how many of those creepy ass spider crickets (look them up) have I sucked up with my vacuum cleaner lately, very much on purpose. But also. What was it to me, a few extra seconds of trying a little harder to open a screen and let this creature out? It’s not like he was even bugging me (pun absolutely intended). Again, who the hell feels this crazy cycle of feelings FOR A WASP, you ask. I ask.
I sink into my morning practice trying to accept this ridiculousness I feel before propping myself on a cushion for a quick meditation. And that’s when I see from the corner of my eye…
Movement.
Slowly, slowly, like he’s just spent the morning dozing and is waking up to the smell of coffee, the wasp crawls toward the center of the window from its spot.
I get up, jiggle the screen open (easily) to form a gap to the outside world, watch him calmly crawl out and fly away.
Even typing this I feel like a sap, but it’s the truth. When I saw that sign of life, it felt like an electrical current shooting through my whole body. Realizing, we both had been given a second chance.
I also knew where that guilt was coming from. It didn't matter how small. That notion of: but did I do everything I could?
Those familiar words may be tied to the death of a soul mate or a dream job or a friendship that has gone down the drain. Or an animal who doesn’t use words. We want to know in hindsight, with some proof, some verification that the answer to that question, for the sake of the jailhouse built into our conscience, is hopefully, yes. In chapter one of the wasp caper, mine was a no.
In the weeks following Ferg’s death, it pulsed so often through my veins: the visual of that weird, ever-so-slight tremor of his head that would occasionally happen years prior. Eventually, it became routine, a nothing. Only at the end did I piece together its likely indication of the neurological issue that cost him his life. Should I have pressed the vet harder on it? Earlier? Would that have bought us more time?
In hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t. Ferg’s time was Ferg’s time. But that’s a hard pill to swallow in the tunnel vision of early grief when the mind searches for answers and explanation.
I’ve heard it said before, something like: the thing that steals your breath, the place where it hurts to look the most is exactly the place you need to turn your attention. For years, that’s what I centered my work and career around. The ache of human suffering felt like too much to not dedicate so much of my time to. To not make it a routine part of my life felt, at one point, unfathomable.
And with all things, there is a season. We grow. We evolve.
AND, let’s also be real. That’s one of the last things someone in grief (of any kind) wants to be told: “But just think how you’ll grow from this experience!” Bite me. Maybe it’s like a little petri dish. Not so pretty at first. But, if we’re patient and eventually look closer… that immediate pain from the gash lessens, cultivating into more of a dull achy undercurrent. And accepting that it’ll probably always be there in some fashion can be another form of grief to grapple with, too.
So this week, when the sting flared and words didn’t fit, didn’t work, didn’t come, I took to paint instead. Got out an old, dried up lump of clay. Added some water to revive it. Shaped it into a heart. And whacked it in half. Which felt more true than any string of letters could (even for a writer).
Studying every curve and shadow of that broken heart with my eyes, I had my doubts. But I transferred it to my paper and let the paint do the rest.
For a few hours, the swirl stopped. The urgency of the outside world, stopped. The pulse of preserving and conserving and salvaging and nurturing and feeding all that’s around me, that’s around us that I can’t bear to lose under my watch, that makes our planet rich and worthwhile and god I could go on... stopped. And that pressure, the questioning of “am I doing enough and all that I possibly can?” quieted.
Long enough, at least, for something else to flow and grow.
P.S. For my fellow writers... check out the magic of The Porches Writing Retreat. Ooooh do I have so much more to share about this place. P.P.S. If you enjoyed this lil piece, join my email list for more stories + resources to come.
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