It’s hard for me to write. There are so many distractions. Lovely, lively distractions. Demanding joys. And that’s the maddening paradox of the artist’s life; we hope for more empty time to do our work, but take away the demands and distractions, and we have only dead, sorry things to say.
I strolled my baby boy through the park this morning. We stopped at a bench so I could eat some sweet, sticky bread and coffee. The sun shone sideways, spotlighting bands of grass and gravel. It was brisk in a good New England way; fall up here is almost like another spring, in which the deadness of heat gives way to an awakening chill.
In this spirit, a milky gold larva writhed in a band of sunlight next to my bench. I noticed how it stopped crawling on its six crowded legs, turned over, and strained into an arc. In the warmth of the sun, it was either gripped by death or transformation. I watched, hoping to see a slimy something split through the thin coat, that alien moment in insect life which defies our understanding of identity and mortality. But my baby boy was starting to grunt and writhe, snapping me out of my abstract meditations.
Rather than leaving the larva a delicate mystery, which would have made for a pleasing end to this entry, I scooped the thing up with one of those maple tree seed helicopters. I dropped the startled creature, along with a few bits of gravel, into a plastic cupholder on the handle of the stroller. Wondering if I had upset the balance of nature, I strode on, keeping an eye on the specimen. Due to lack of sunlight or the shock of the transfer, the larva curled up fully, locked its legs around its tail, and froze indefinetely. Poking it with a stick did nothing.
I scooped it back out into another patch of gravel in hopes that it would stop playing dead. But it maintained a posture of death, and I left before I could be completely sure that I killed it.
I’m honestly not too worried. This little bug was only a representative of millions, I’m sure. And if it didn’t live, it fed a worthy bird. Though I fumbled and mishandled this mystery, I was unable to ruin the poetry of it. It reminded me that even when I lack grace and connection with life, even when I squander the opportunities for transcendence around me, wonders never cease. No matter how plastic and disconnected we become, the overwhelming majority of the universe continues its noble, strange magic. I worship God today for His unblemished standard.
