As I merge onto 580, doing all the unconscious, automatic safety checks and motions—turn head, signal on off, speed up slow down, (apply lipstick and mascara ha ha)—I notice myself swiping at a gnat that’s bumping against the windshield. I swat once, twice, missing three times, getting irritated, then start making a concerted effort to snuff the life out of that tiny body, so delicate it’s practically transparent. But each time I try, the little thing manages to outmaneuver bigger, stronger me.
By the time I have to start looking for my exit, my adult self realizes that antagonizing this minuscule existence, this nano-portion of my bodyweight, could potentially put ME in physical danger. My even bigger self realizes that this insect, too small to have anything my species could recognize as a brain much less consciousness, actually cares about it’s insignificant life. It wants to stay alive. It wants to keep living out its purpose on this earth we share. Wants? From whence come the wants, in such an insubstantial being?
I don’t even know what kind of animal it is. Are insects even animals? There must be dozens, hundreds, thousands of varieties of gnats. At least as many as there are languages in Africa. Last night I learned from an immigrant neighbor that there are 126 languages spoken in Tanzania alone. Languages that have evolved through millenia of relating to each other. I also just learned that the Orcas who attack boats in the Gibraltar Strait sqeak a dialect completely distinct from all other Orca langages. I don’t know if gnats have language but somehow they find each other and reproduce. Something that is not mine to know; we live in different worlds, really, except when there’s a windshield we share – coming or going; not all gnats are as lucky as this one to be on the leeward side.
Now that I’ve had these thoughts, it seems pretty silly to expend any more effort trying to antagonize and erase this insigificant distraction, this thing that’s (literally) bugging me but otherwise doing me no harm. My next attempt is to catch it, and then what, throw it out the window? But the force of my fingers would injure or kill it, the mite is so delicate. When I roll the window down I notice how warm the breeze is, how gentle for January. Let this be a day of gentleness.
With my mind, I’m now encouraging this being to stop banging on the view that hampers its movement, and follow that breeze to its future, in a new land miles from its home, Even in the promised land there are spiders.
The compassionate impulse feels better than the mindless killing impulse. The live-and-let-live instinct is better for us, I think, collectively—because once I considered it I found an ease inside myself. When I opened the window I also opened a window inside myself, and a warm breeze to guide me.
Happy MLK Day, everyone, follow the warmth and find the open windows.
This month I’ve started a new novel and the main character’s name is Nat.
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