Fire Ants!

A recollection inspired by James Brennan’s poem on ants & by our pestilent politics

When I dug my trowel deep into the soil of my plot in the community garden, I expected a few scratches. I was weeding my roses, after all…and, as Anne Bronte wrote, “He who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose.”

What I didn’t expect was a bumper crop of ugly, purple, painful, itchy pustules and welts, courtesy of a colony of ants with teeth. Nor did I know that, after a fire ant bites, a stinger emerges from its tummy like missiles from the doors of James Bond’s Aston Martin. Also, while bees call it quits after one sting, fire ants mercilessly tattoo you with circles of stings. By the time I realized the soil teemed with more than microorganisms and minerals, my hand was ablaze.

Fuck! I hollered, dropping the trowel. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

Pardon my French, but plus ca change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In California, where I’d lived for 32 years prior to my three-year stint in Texas, I was ceaselessly at war with ants. Not fire ants, thank God — just the kind that erupt from the earth like black lava, smothering everything in sight. Estimates of the ant population hover around 10 quadrillion (that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000, for visual learners) and a good 1,000,000,000,000,000 of them loved hanging out at my place. At predictable, too-frequent intervals, I’d discover rivers of tiny foragers flowing along windowsills and floorboards, in faucets, shower stalls, pantries, interior walls, once even in the refrigerator (ick! ick! ick!) and, of course, in the garden.

My California ants, however, were like worker ant “Z” in Disney’s Antz — mere “soil relocation engineers”. If they went on the attack, it only involved sugar.

Now, however, after my encounter with the soul mates of Z’s nemesis, General Mandible, I peer forever at any dirt before plunging in. I bring gloves to the garden, although I have yet to bother to pull them on. I keep ant-killer handy. I leap back, my heart pounding, at the sight of anything sporting six legs and a distended belly.

In the Brazilian Amazon, boys at the brink of manhood undergo an initiation rite that requires thrusting their hands into a glove fashioned from leaves brimming with bullet ants. Bullet ants are even meaner than fire ants; the Schmidt Sting Index ranks their sting as the most painful in the world. Yet the boys are subjected to over ten minutes of The Glove, and they must endure it quietly. If they make too much noise, they must retake the test.

Why put a child through this? To teach him courage, endurance, the ability to overcome his emotions. He is now a man. He is a warrior.

I, too, had thrusted my hands into a glove of soil awash with mean ants. Am I now strong enough to do battle? Am I a warrior?

In Texas, I had to be. I was undergoing a divorce. Sure, I wanted to be fair, kind, compassionate. To behave with integrity. Yet I couldn’t afford to roll over and play dead either. This was my future we were talking about.

Buddhist monk Pema Chodron assured me that, like a reversible raincoat, we can reveal one side while remaining the other. “…embracing the warrior spirit is not a matter of denying gentleness or compassion…We can exhibit strength without sacrificing tenderness.”

Throughout my divorce, I met this challenge. My Ex and I became good pals.

But meeting Pema’s challenge in this political era, as red-capped fire ants swarm over our constitution and institutions, is tough.

Yes, there are stories of Tibetan monks who prayed for their Chinese torturers as they underwent said torture, but I’m so not there yet.

And you’d better believe it’s torture, watching red-capped fire ants in action.

The other day, I stumbled across a book called Why Men Love Bitches. Of course, I had to thumb through it, even though I risked gagging at the game-playing implied. Yet, as ever, Things Happen for a Reason. According to author Sherry Argov, a ‘bitch’ is a warrior, an Amazon.

Putin’s lapdog would call them “nasty.”

My God, I’m tempted to shove my fist through the screen and knock him flat whenever I hear him hurl that term at a female reporter or politician.

At this point, however, I’m an angel of patience and empathy compared to the ATTACK bitch I become when friends and family persist in supporting you- know-who despite all the appalling, scary evidence they shouldn’t. Whose hide do I want to bite the most? Trumper pals who pride themselves on their ‘spirituality.’

How can they call themselves ‘devout’ or, worse yet, mystics-in-training when they support a man/party blaspheming everything our nation holds sacred?

I endured a divorce with integrity; why can’t they behave with integrity and divorce themselves from their broken, rabid leader?

As comedian Jim Gaffigan tweeted recently: “”Look, Trumpers, I get it. As a kid I was a Cubs fan and I know you stick by your team no matter what but he’s a traitor and a con man who doesn’t care about you. Deep down you know it…you know Trump is a liar and a criminal.”

Wiser writers than I have pondered this conundrum. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-christians-support-trump/613669/

Meanwhile, I fear for our nation. I so get the Civil War now — and how sad is that?

Even more sad is my steadily advancing split with Trumper friends.

It’s not their doing. It’s mine. Increasingly, I’m allowing my dismay, sorrow, disappointment, and deep, ruthless condemnation of their beliefs to corrode my love. Like spring showers on cast iron garden furniture, these emotions pit and rust our friendship.

There’s more to them than their politics. There’s more to them than their politics. There’s more…It’s become my mantra after sending several red-capped pals an article listing all the lying that went on at the Republican ‘coronation — https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/28/fact-checking-president-trumps-acceptance-speech-2020-rnc/ — and hearing crickets.

Or, as Anne the Irish Mystic put it, THIS GAL’S FOR TRUMP!!!!!

I’m stung with irritation, rage. I’m drowning in sighs that bite.

And yet…When my partner was diagnosed with cancer, I learned to ask this question on dismal days:

What can I learn from this?

What can I learn from Anne’s reply?

Well, for starters, I may never understand Anne’s decision/politics — albeit I suspect fear is at its core. But perhaps her reply is a question.

What does my reaction reveal about me?

Not mini-me, self-righteous me.

Not angry me.

Not wrathful me.

Not bully-esque me. (See it my way, or else!)

Not compassionless, judgmental, name-calling me. (You hypocrite! How can you vote your pocketbook and lead spiritual bookclubs?)

No, I’m talking eternal me. Energetic me.

Is fear the spark fueling me? Do those adjectives listed above remind you of someone?

I turn to Father Richard Rohr — whose ‘fire ants’ are often the uber-conservative wing of the Catholic church — for help with this struggle.

“How do we live the contradictions?” he asks. “Live them — not just endure them or relieve ourselves from the tension by quickly resolving them?”

Hoping for a step by step tutorial, I couldn’t read fast enough. What I got instead was this:

“When you can lend yourself to it and not fight it or explain it, falling into the abyss is ironically an experience of ground, of the rock, of the foundation. This is totally counterintuitive. Your dualistic, logical mind can’t get you there. It can only be known experientially.”

HUH???

However, I do collect rocks; I am a disciple of experiences. Particularly experiences that metamorphose into epiphanies.

Ergo, this essay has metamorphosed into a vow winged with prayer.

I will keep “falling into the abyss” — the chrysalis of cluelessness — over and over and over. As long as it takes.

Until, kicked upside the heart by the Cosmos, my spirit soars with understanding, and I’m grounded in the counterintuitive.

Or, to put it another way, goodbye, resisting. Hello, fire ant rite of passage.

I will plunge into the Glove of God, where millions of my misguided fellow citizens scurry, hoard, and bite along with the rest of us. Then, rather than spray them with a pesticide of true political points, I’ll shower them with what I’d like. The gift of acceptance and appreciation. There IS more to them than their politics.

To quote my partner’s son, “Everybody’s different.”

Lastly, I’ll remember the second question I learned to ask during my partner’s cancer:

What can I be grateful for today?

Today, when I turn on the news?

There, but for the grace of the Divine, could have gone I. Everybody’s different but, thank God, this former Republican got it.

Thank YOU for reading this. Thank you, James G Brennan, for taking a stint as my muse.