Sweet Like Honey Water

This was meant to be a letter to my son at camp when he was a kid, revisited with a few changes. I’m not sure I ever sent it, maybe worried he might be horrified by my ant-killing experiments.

I’m spending my time watching ants because they’ve invaded our kitchen since you went to camp. I’m learning things like, they’re cunning and fast and very hard to kill. They just seem to spring back to life and even when I think they’re dead for sure, they still cling to the dishcloth I’ve just smacked them down with.

I’ve been busy setting traps for the ants. I left out a teapot filled with honey water. They climb into it, go down the spout and after swimming around, can’t climb back out. It’s a horror to open the teapot lid to discover what’s inside. Still, when I empty all the teapots, there are always a dozen ants, still alive that run for the hills. They go fast, really bloody fast.

I’ve made a few more elaborate traps with water bottles, elastic bands and chopsticks. I filled a water bottle with a honey mixture and then made a complicated contraption for the ants to enter and hopefully not exit. After thinking I had captured dozens, after a mere five minutes only four were left. Not only had they climbed out of the sticky honey water, they went on to scale the slippery plastic and then found the obscure exit. Even though I’m thoroughly disgusted with the ants, I can’t help but have great respect for them.

It makes me think about how the outside is always trying to get in. This week, Oscar left bird feathers for me on the doormat — probably meant for my pillow. I barely missed them as I walked out onto the porch, only to land directly on the birds’ teeny heart. I felt it’s life-force underneath my foot, maybe even a pulse. When I carefully picked it up, my hands and arms wrapped in plastic bags, I found the bird’s little foot too, but without a match.

The ants are really and truly everywhere. It’s like they’re living with me now and are part of my daily routine. As I wipe up around them I don’t panic like I did at first and now even purposely let some of them run free.  When I told my friend Alan about the ants, he said there must be rotten wood somewhere. They like to eat it, he said — it must taste sweet, like honey water.

Hope you’re having fun at camp!

Love, Mama…

***A karmic postscript for my future self…

You had no idea that your ant-killing karma would come full circle. Because even after the ants left, this story did not end that summer. A few years after writing this, while on vacation in Cuba, you would eat half a granola bar, carefully saved in your hotel room on a side plate. Only when your mouth began to sting, would it dawn on you that your mouth was full of ants. You’d run to the bathroom and frantically wipe ants off your tongue, looking in the mirror like you were in a horror movie and then remember back to your ant-killing experiments and recall how tenaciously ants could stick to things, like even your tongue and how hard it was to kill them, like even when they would be inside your mouth…years from now.

More respect for ants and proof that they can swim. Please watch below.