Bugs Are Saving My (Writing) Life
July 20, 2020 § 57 Comments
By Abigail Thomas
Another rainy day in a long succession of rainy days and I’m bummed that the part of myself that has always kept me company seems to have disappeared. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic, I haven’t left the house in five months, and can’t write a word. What’s the point of being me? I wonder. I’m so stuck. Write about what you notice when you’re stuck, I tell my students. Write about what you notice and see what happens. Nothing happens here except bugs. Oh my god, I think. I’ll write about the bugs!
For instance: I often see one large black ant wandering across the living room floor in early evening. I think there’s only one of him. He (I think of it as a he), is always headed toward the dining room but never seems to get there because the next night, and the next, there he is again, walking across the same portion of floor towards the dining room. It’s as if he’s having his own Groundhog Day. The pale brown ants, like little freckles, are everywhere and get into everything. One morning they turned up in the jug of maple syrup even though the cap was screwed on tight. My grandsons were horrified and refused to eat their french toast, although I ate mine and part of theirs.
But the most interesting thing is that once or twice a week I find a dead wasp on my bedroom floor. Their presence gets me in gear. Because where are they coming from? The windows haven’t been opened in the four years following the discovery of a spider the size of a salad plate in a basket of old yarn, and wasps are nowhere else in the house. When I find one I use my cane to nudge it behind the bedside table so I don’t step on it by mistake. It doesn’t occur to me to throw them out. They are too perfect, and too tiny to be rubbish.
It isn’t really a bedside table. It’s an old filing cabinet, empty of whatever files it once held. The drawers are now full of whatever I don’t know what else to do with when I find it in my hand. Uncomfortable earrings, a letter from somebody called William C . Estler to a woman named Mardi, apologizing for taking her to The Iceman, which she hated and asked to leave. “’I don’t like it and I want to go home,” he quotes her as saying. Not The Iceman Cometh unless he didn’t bother with the whole title. Whether it was a play or a movie I’ll never know nor do I know how it ended up in my possession. When I looked him up there were two of him, both dead, one a painter from West Virginia, the other a scientist of sorts in Palo Alto who published an article called Ion-Scattering Analyzer. There is also a silver bracelet, other scraps of paper on which various grandsons have written darling inauthentic apologies, licenses from four dead dogs I loved, and a necklace I bought because the woman who made it told me the tiny silver sword charm was supposed to cut fear. Why not? I thought.
Today I picked up a wasp by one wing and put it carefully in the cap of an old pill bottle from the drawer. The wasp is so completely dead, tidy and beautiful. Its wings are slender, themselves like tiny swords. I’m amazed that I’m not in the least worried by the intrusion. I’m not afraid that I will one day discover dozens of them flying around my bed. What’s wrong with me? It seems a natural fear, but I’m just not afraid. Maybe the necklace works whether you’re wearing it or not.
They are paper wasps, I looked them up. They chew wood or whatever else is handy and their saliva turns it into paper and they make hanging nests. Somebody had the brilliant idea of giving these wasps colored construction paper and my god, the nests they made look like beautiful misshapen rainbows. I am kind of in love. Paper wasps are also good for gardens, eating bad bugs. They aren’t ornery, like yellow jackets who’d just as soon sting you as not, but they will defend their nests. Well, who wouldn’t?
Some time ago I noticed what appeared to be a lightning bug clinging (or stuck?) to the side of my sofa, and I’ve been careful not to disturb it. It stayed fixed in place for several days without moving an inch. I wondered if it had decided to die. Then it vanished. Where was it, I wondered. Last night I saw bright blinks amongst the geraniums that climb up my front window. On, off, on, off. There you are, I thought. Oh good, there you are.
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Abigail Thomas writes mostly memoir, her latest being What Comes Next and How to Like It.
This is lovely. My grandson just finished a week at Bug Camp (yes, that’s its official name) and said, “That’s the best camp I’ve ever gone.”
thank you! Bug Camp! that sounds like fun.
Diagnosing from a distance: your big black ant is female and probably a scout carpenter ant. (The essay itself is beautiful.)
uh oh. but thank you!
Of course. Bugs. I always enjoy your writing it makes me feel like we’re having coffee, discussing the real world.
I wish we were in real life, Sonja.
Beautifully written!
thank you. I was lucky, I had a good cast of characters.
Good morning, my dear friend. Thank you for starting my day with bugs. I think.
thanks, Juliet. they are nice bugs.
Abigail! It’s Janine from Maryland. While bugs do not give me solace – I prefer sunsets, wine, flowers, my sheltie, and my kids when they are behaving well – what a fun journey with you. It’s almost like a little ditty about ants and hornets. Thank God for the lightening bug. That little guy I can wrap my heart around.
Seems we all close our notes now with stay safe. From someone who has been held up for months too, stay sane is being added to my closings. Thanks for a glimpse into your bug world 🙂
thank you, Janine. we all have to stay safe.
Just wonderful.
thank you, Sandra.
Abigail, writing about bugs is perfectly fine — Virginia Woolf wrote a celebrated essay on the death of a moth!
it was a lot of fun, thank you.
What a (quiet) jolt of inspiration you and your bug friends have given me, Abigail. Now, to write…
Oh, yes, Cheryl, write. that’s the nicest compliment I could have.
Thank you Abigail for telling beautiful stories. Reading your work always awakens something in me. xo
thank you, Roseanne. what a lovely thing to say.
Thank you for this post about bugs. No matter what, there is always something to write about.
yes! exactly! thank you.
Hi Abby! I like that you followed the advice you give your students. And what a lovely result! Modeling what you teach to great effect. I’m happy you’re now unstuck. xoxo
Bugs.
Who woulda thought?
A fun essay, and a generous bonus: you’ve provided a new assignment to use with the Zoom memoir classes I’m leading these days. “Write about what you notice when you’re stuck — write about what you notice, and see what happens.”
Thank you, Abigail.
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thank you, Beth. it is a helpful thing to keep in mind.
I was so excited to see this essay pop up! I’ve run out of books to read by you. I keep coming back to them as I hone my craft: It’s not always easy for literary writing to be so human. Or maybe it’s just that it sometimes seems contrived when humans attempt to be overly literary? I’m not sure, but somehow your work manages to be both in a way that I admire.
Sophronia, thank you. I think I owe it all to having been kicked out of college!
Fairy-ale like, Abby. I could have read for hours ( as always.)
TALE!
Ryder, the typo was fine with me, and thank you.
Love.
thank you, Amy.
Your bug situation reminds me of ours here in central California. I keep saying, you’ve got the whole outdoors, why are you in HERE. Go outside and play.
very funny, thank you.
I’ve read and admired you since the late 90s, when I bought Getting Over Tom for a friend who was divorcing her husband . . .Tom. This essay is why I sometimes imagine you taking me under your wing, finding a way to open up whatever the heck needs to grow in my own writing life. Well done, and please do keep writing. Your brilliance might wear off on me yet. Linda S. Clare
how lovely to know, and thank you very much. I hope your friend found it helpful!
I love this essay and especially how you took your own advice and now have this delightful piece to show for it!
it is sometimes hard to take one’s own advice, I got lucky this time. and thank you.
This is too timely, given I started my (new!) substack with a post about watching the bugs in my temporary home’s back yard: https://julene.substack.com/p/lets-hear-it-for-continuity
Glad it’s not just me 😉
it’s certainly not just you, we’re all a little nuts these days, and what you’re doing sounds like fun.
Oh good. There you are.
thank you.
“ I’m bummed that the part of myself that has always kept me company seems to have disappeared.” This piece, for some reason, makes me feel like that part may yet return. Wonderful and thank you, Abigail.
Thank you, Irene.
You could have ended this after “What’s the point of being me?” and I’m guessing hundreds of creatives would sigh a wee bit of relief that someone actually said (wrote) it! Thank you!
right. like being a cat with no whiskers.
Thank you for writing this! I think you could write about pretty much anything and I would feel I am in the most excellent company of an old friend.
thank you, what a lovely thing to say.
Thank you for highlighting these tiny lives. I’m especially fond of paper wasps and collect their fallen nests. They’re extraordinary architects. I’d love to see the colored paper ones–as long as the dyes aren’t toxic to them 🙂
they are amazing creatures. thank you.
“What’s the point of being me? I wonder.” I’ve thought this every day for four months. It’s so good to know that I’m not bat-shit crazy. Thank you for making me feel less alone.
well it doesn’t mean we aren’t batshit crazy! but at least we’re batshit crazy together.
Thank you, Abigail, you gave me that tiny bit of hope. I loved this post. Your style reminds me that true storytellers are few and far between. Stay sane, stay safe, keep writing. You’re a treasure.
you are so generous, thank you. So glad you liked the little piece.
Abigail,
You make the literate and the(if there’s a difference) literal life worth living,
Thank you.
Big love,
adele
Adele, thank you. what a lovely thing to say.
[…] some people call “writer’s block,” and I was off to find that essay from this very blog. In “Bugs Are Saving My (Writing) Life,” Thomas wrote, “I’m so stuck. Write about what you notice when you’re stuck, I tell my […]