Considering The Lady Bug

1/30/24

The human experience, as of late, has become something that I have little interest in. Particularly, the experience of being a human, and considering one’s place within the species. I will not bore you with the lengthy explanation as to why, but simply say that it is largely due to the fact that the human species is not one that I am particularly fond of.

For this reason, when my after school group of 4th graders found far greater interest in the presence of lady bugs in the grass than in my modest outdoor education, sea-themed game, I was more than happy to scrap the latter in favor of the former. We, and by we I mean they, proceeded to spend the remainder of the class period, close to 30 minutes, exploring the lady bug population of the field. I did too, of course, but at a distance, sharing very few words with the students, sitting quietly in the grass.

And the lady bug population in the field was considerable. Our activity soon became finding a group of 5-10 lady bugs in a section of grass, and bringing any other lady bugs discovered to that location via finger or hand. At one point, I counted 53 lady bugs without having to turn my head very far in any direction. I saw lady bugs of all sizes, and some with 7, 10, or zero black spots.

From what I could see, the lady bugs were crawling up and down blades of grass, getting to the end, and either reaching for the adjacent blade and climbing onto it, or turning around and going back the way they came. Were you or I to climb to the end of a blade of grass and attempt to climb to an adjacent blade, I imagine we would do so carefully. Cautiously reaching out a single hand, careful not to lose one’s balance, until the second blade has been grasped, and then carefully shifting one’s weight onto it. The lady bug, however, reached the tip the blade and immediately began flailing its front legs as if in an attempt to get the attention of a rescue helicopter while standing on the deck of a sinking ship. Once it happened to find a new blade, the lady bug calmed down significantly, and proceeded to climb onto it.

I hoped desperately that my students would remain distracted enough that they wouldn’t find a need to come talk to me, for long enough to reach the end of the class period. Sitting alone, quietly, I imagined my brother Joe and I as lady bugs ourselves, crawling up and down deep green stalks of massive grass, ducking and diving inside the vast forest of tangled blades, and I imagined that the two of us would be just fine, if not in ecstacy.

The lady bug and I are both trapped, in a sense. The lady bug can only experience the life of a lady bug, and even then, cannot really consider it, likely having no awareness of its own existence, nor that of anything else. Meanwhile the human can only experience the life of a human, but is aware of so much, and capable of considering the experience of any other creature.

To be a human means that one can become aware of so many other things, but never leave their body in favor of another. But to be a lady bug means that one gets to be a lady bug, a possible improvement, but fails to see the significance of it.

Therefore, neither of us truly get to experience the joy of being a lady bug.

Eventually, the sun set and took with it the warmth of the day. I sneezed in the sudden cold. Below me, a lady bug hung upside down, slowly opening and closing its wings, in what I can only guess was an attempt to refold a single wing, bent out of shape. I got up, and walked back towards the school.