Alone or Not

From her chair, Sue silently watched the ant walk with the grain of the wooden floor to the edge of the fireplace. She blinked, and in that brief space, lost sight of its whereabouts. “Warmer temperatures bring the ants inside”, she thought.

Earlier that morning, she raked some leaves and winter's remnants from her garden. She found the woody sticks where the peonies soon will fill the air with fragrance. “The ants will open them.”, she remembered saying out loud. She didn’t mind ants or other insects if they stay outside, except daddy long legs. She remembered watching them as a child. They lumbered with their long, spindly legs when she sat on the outside steps next to the garden where chives grew every year. She wondered how something almost invisible could be so strong and precise. They weren’t scary and they never jumped in front of her face like other spiders. She always remembered them near the chives. Perennials returned and no one had to plant them every year but she never realized until years later the toil of maintenance involved.

She looked out her window, and watched blue skies disappear. As a harrow turns rich soil, she felt like she was on the underside, not the seed, or even the soil but the climate in which a seed grows. This strange phenomena was suddenly broken with a sharp clap of thunder. Sloppy drops of rain fell on the metal roof, and wind slapped them against the windows.

“Where did this come from", she asked, to no one. Today she had the day to herself. She was glad she did her yard work that morning, and loved the sound of a storm

This day didn’t seem to offer any great fanfare. No invites, appointments or plans, she wondered how it would unfold. She decided to hide herself into her cocoon walls. She turned off her phone and started sorting through papers. She found piles of journals and notebooks, thumbed through them, and remembered events, times, and people. Where were some of them? Relationships, once tight, obliterated by innumerable circumstances, now floated to the surface of her mind, loosely hovering, waiting for re-entry and resolve.

She thought of how often she was the one who moved away, physically or emotionally, thinking she was moving forward only to end up later back in the same place. A circle has no beginning or end. Even a hamster on a wheel knows when to jump off. “Rodents know more than I do”, she again said to no one.

Thunder rolled and rain fell, and she was safe inside.

She looked back at some unfinished stories she wrote. Actually, many had a beginning and an end but each contained only six sentences. She could keep her stories short, and sometimes stretch them but those, she never finished. Even when she thought she could piece them together, they spread like an invasive weed and strangled one another.

She read out loud four short stories.

1. She turned the corner, followed the pavement to the end, and proceeded onto the dirt path down a winding hill, and up to a house with a garage attached on it's left side, and off to the right a truck and sedan sat at the far end of a clean, swept driveway. A bicycle stood in the yard, and a few indoor pillows aired in the sun.

Beyond the house, she saw no others, and as she thought of the sign at the beginning of the street, “dead end", marveled at the impeccable tidiness of it all.

Away from the mainstream, how many would care, and what would it matter if things were disheveled and thrown all over the place? Does a single eye mean more than a thousand excuses?

Later that evening she erased the pencil sketch for the umpteenth time because the angle wasn’t quite exact and time never complained.

She lay the paper on her lap, and thought about it a few minutes. This morning she washed the dishes from the night before, started a load of laundry, exercised, raked part of her back yard, and hauled away a lot of debris. Last July, her friends came every week and helped her organize inside and out. One day before the first snow, leaves were raked and hauled away.

2. Fran watched the caterpillar crawl on the ground, over the top of her shoe, down the other side, and said, “you don’t even know where you're going, I could have squished you” but the wooly insect just kept on as if she did not exist. It was the middle of spring, hungry bears ravished feeders and garbage cans, and butterflies and hummingbirds were an expectation.

A few weeks later, when temperatures rose, Fran gave no thought to that caterpillar. Butterflies flitted from flower to flower and drank sweet nectar. 

Insects know exactly where they are going. Hope sees no obstacle.

Hmm, she thought. “I watched that ant today, until I blinked and lost it.” It no longer mattered where it went. She looked forward to her peonies.

3. Mary immersed the ice cold, creamy condensed milk and coconut flakes into the hot, melted chocolate, placed them on the baking sheet, and set them in the refrigerator. 

Rather than waste the remaining chocolate, she took a few dates, cut each one in half, stuffed it with a walnut, and a spread of peanut butter, closed it, and dipped them into the chocolate. Later that day, she served them to her family and everyone raved. 

She remembered one Christmas years ago when she bit into squares of chocolate and loved them, until she noticed her older brothers half-smirking, enjoying the performance. When she melted the remaining ones down, she found an insect in each.

Everything tastes good wrapped in chocolate so beware!

Wow, these three stories, she thought, written at different times now come together and form a circle of sorts.

Sue stopped and thought about what she learned about circles from a drawing class. If one wants to draw a perfect circle without a compass, one must start by drawing a square, divide it into perfectly measured segments, and once done, carefully fill the rest in, using your eye and drawing instrument. It takes practice, patience and persistence.

“Maybe I’m just a circle in a square peg", she laughed. No matter how many times life slapped her, eventually, she always ending up laughing. Laughter was her square one but usually tears were close behind, the environment in which she grew.

She also thought about exponents, squaring one but that didn’t make sense. No matter how many times you square one, the answer is still one.

What if she multiply one. “If I am on square one fifteen times, then I'm fifteen times further than I would be if I quit.” She couldn’t count the number of times she wanted to quit but didn’t. If one thing didn’t work, she tried another.

Sue decided square one was always a safe place to land.

The unpredicted storm lasted about an hour and blue sky returned.

 That evening she watched beautiful lilac, pink and blood orange hues gently escort and lower the sun behind the mountain. She knew it would rise again in the morning even if she slept through it. Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours and orbits the sun Every 365 days and time never complains when it lands on square one.

A day in a cocoon gave her reflection, resolve and resolution.

She added ant traps to her shopping list.