No life is too small.
The resilience of life, especially when I see it challenged over and over again by waves of false reason, continues to humble me. When it comes to the quantum web of life, humans miss out. We are busy. We are within this web, but often numb to it; taking and toxifyng more than should be legal, let alone personally ethical. We kill without reason, convinced by some invisible basis of need. For business, personal gain, survival, bravado or fear. I’ve killed a lot of bugs in my life, and not once did I use their carcasses for clothing, food or shelter. I admittedly did it because I didn’t know what else to do. Because I was afraid. I’ve learned to trap spiders in glasses and set them free outside. As I’ve grown, I’ve also come to understand that everything has a distinct reason to exist. Mosquitos wouldn’t be wrong to label my species as blood sucking parasites, on a good day. Every living being has its purpose, and each deserves respect.
We get ants in the house this time of year, on the hunt for sugar and water. They usually arrive in little organized rows on the kitchen counter, or along the sink in small scrambled crowds. If they’ve found crumbs to eat or a drop of honey to sip, I let them finish and thank them for the reminder to tidy up. They just did the work for me, after all. A few weeks ago, I turned on the bathroom faucet to brush my teeth. Before I had the chance to notice, a lone ant was quickly doused in the sudden downpour. The sudden blast caused the small body to wash up on the shores of the porcelain siding; its little sectioned body and thread thin legs crinkled up like wet paper. With the edge of my fingernail I gently scooped it up, muttering some apologies and asking the ant to be alive again. Despite the hopeless scene at the end of my index finger, I sat on the edge of the tub and watched. A mere 20 seconds went by until little legs and antennae began moving again. Within less than a minute, the ant propped itself up and began to crawl the length of my arm.
Yesterday while kayaking, I passed a bumble bee floating in the water. The Willamette river is wide and expansive, and bees can’t swim. I paddled by, then stopped. There was nothing stopping me from swinging back around just to check except myself. It took a few minutes of paddling back and forth, and I’ll never need those minutes back. I scooped up the unmoving bee, placed it on top of the kayak, and paddled towards a dock. Like the ant, it took a moment to begin moving. The bee’s slicked back wings freed themselves, vibrating dry again. The bee was left on the dry dock, and flew away content as I bobbed in the water.