The Day The Pod Opened

Years ago when we had only two kids, no pets and no mortgage, The Gregory worked as a high school Biology teacher by day and a basketball coach by night. One winter evening he came home, hugged the girls, gave me a kiss, hung up his coat, put down his books, and placed a small brown pod on the kitchen counter.

"What is that?" I wanted to know. "And what is it doing in my kitchen? Am I supposed to cook it?"

The Gregory averred that the pod was something he had ordered from a lab supplier to use when he sowed his vegetable garden come spring. No further explanation was forthcoming. He asked if I had a container to temporarily house the pod, which was smaller than a ping-pong ball. It did not look even vaguely threatening, so I handed over a Mason jar. TG plopped the pod into the bottom of the jar and pushed it to the back of a small bit of counter space. The use of a lid was deemed unnecessary. These were days busy with caring for toddlers, and I gave the pod no more thought.

The weather is fickle in Northwest Indiana and that year was no different. About a month after TG brought the pod home and gave it a Mason jar repository on my kitchen counter, temperatures shot up and we had a few short-sleeve days. I opened windows and the kids played outside. It would get cold again; this we knew, so we enjoyed the warmth while we could.

On the second or third unseasonably warm afternoon I walked into the kitchen to begin preparing dinner. Some unexpected movement caught my eye and I glanced at the pod's Mason jar. And you'll never believe what I saw. Hundreds -- hundreds -- of tiny insects were proceeding willy-nilly from the interior of the mysterious pod, which had broken open like an egg. The bugs, about as big as rice grains and a disgusting light-beige color, had marched up the inside and down the outside of their Mason jar, across the counter, and were stalking, single-file, down my cabinets. A few of them had already reached the floor!

Let me interject right here, it would be difficult for me to convey to you in words just how much I hate bugs. You know how on that Fear Factor show, they used to offer people money if they'd lie down in a glass box and allow big bucketfuls of horrible bugs to be poured over them, and a glass lid put on for a certain number of minutes while the bugs crawled ... uhm, suffice to say, if someone did that to me I would expire on the spot. Two bugs would do the job; forget about a bucketful. I can't stand the thought of bugs in my house or anywhere near me. They creep me out. That goes double for spiders and do not talk to me about centipedes.

So picture my reaction when I saw the cadre of bugs marching around my kitchen! (Turns out they were neophyte praying mantises ... the original idea had been to put the pod in the garden so that, when it hatched, the little bugs would pour forth and patrol growing plants, scarfing up unwanted vermin. Unfortunately we kept them in the house one day too long.) I started screaming and ran outside, over to my next-door neighbor's house. She had a strapping teenaged son named David, and he came to the door when I frantically knocked. "David," I gasped. "I need your help!" David followed me anxiously; he told me later he thought I had a cooking fire or that one of the kids had gotten badly hurt!

When I took him into the kitchen and pointed to the droves of baby praying mantises (which by now had gotten the fridge door open and were organizing a picnic, heh heh ... just kidding), David chuckled. Armed with a broom, a fly swatter, and no discernible fear of diminutive insects, he earned my eternal gratitude by swiftly ridding my kitchen of the Mason jar, the pod, and the bugs that had emanated from its dark depths. TG's garden would have to rely on pesticides that year for protection from unwanted al fresco diners of all types.

Small but determined things sometimes emerge from the most unexpected sources. A box at the back of a dresser drawer falls open before your searching fingers, revealing forgotten objects that release a floodtide of bittersweet memories. A yearbook or a diary found while rummaging in a closet for something else entirely emits images and words that haunt us until the past is once again relegated to the recesses of the mind where it belongs. A shelf or table where mementoes are enshrined can be prodded while dusting and suddenly the treasures spring to life, humming with meaning and significance as we tenderly hold them and allow their messages to encroach on our consciousness. Sometimes feelings of sadness, panic, or guilt follow.

At such moments we shouldn't fear or avoid the emotional reactions that spill out unbidden. Awakened after a period of dormancy, it's healthier if they are allowed to walk around our psyche, sniffing out old fears that can be quelled by the energy of the seemingly unrelated event. Often, introspection naturally leads to housekeeping. But remember that feelings of guilt and regret, while they can be useful landmarks, are never to be mistaken for a reliable road map. It's true what Emerson wrote: What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Comments

[Deppfest]

Just so long as the lad next door doesn't come in an swat you during your introspection! Nice thoughts, Jenny.

Oh, and I love the Sweeney Todd reference - good one!

[Jennifer]

My introspection is virtually unswattable! Good thing too! LOL!

And I knew YOU'D get the ST reference, Carmel darling!