It is hot and humid so tonight I went around the house closing windows as the air conditioner cranked up. The motion was pretty much automatic and without incident until after raising the blinds in the front, south facing window there it was...a dead wasp on its back.
I mean, who really cares? A dead bug that was once fierce and feared is now crispy and sun fried but something gave me pause. A sadness came over me when I noticed the hole in the screen. Why hadn't this little creature found the out? There must have been hours of buzzing and head butting against the glass as the southern heat became too intense. The backing up to a set of cheap mini blinds would be as lethal as barbed wire. The up and down motion of slamming your head against a glass that you cannot break would be like drowning under ice. Why couldn't it just slow down, take a look around and find the hole in the screen?
A wasp is a bad ass to me; gorgeous and wicked. Growing up, there was never a fear of a honey bee (I even intentionally, slowly stepped on one at age 5 to experience the sting) but wasps with their geometric, light as a feather nests were something of awe. Their precision in flight and design are one of the wonders of nature or nightmares.
I kept thinking "Waspy, why you gotta die like that?" Where was the honor? What was the purpose?
I guess in the grand scheme of Darwinism there was no forecasting of mini blinds, screens or glass windows for surely this little creature would have been prepared. I am not saying that it would have had an appendage for cutting the glass but rather an internal mind set that would say "it is ok to slow down and redirect, crawl threw the hole in the screen or walk right past that cheap, plastic mini blind platform. You will not lose your fierceness by stopping the madness and simply sashay into the next environment."
Damn wasp...it could have asked me but instead there it was cooked after what must have been an extremely desperate situation.
Damn wasp...it could have stopped trying to break the glass and felt out the environment to find an escape.
Damn wasp...it had to make me think all these things just so I could find a lesson in its death.
For some reason, I think if a spider had trapped it or a bird grabbed it then the sacrifice would have been justified but just to die between the mini blinds, the glass and the torn up screen was not right.
There was no burial at sea or funeral. A tissue and a toilet were its final rites but the metaphor should resonate that just because you are in an environment that you were not built for does not mean you have to lose your shit and implode. Look for the hole in the screen, slow down and walk through the blinds. Slowing down and redirecting will not make you less fierce but it just might keep you from dying a frantic, painful and pitiful death amongst the mini blinds.