IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED…
“The [ants] came back/The very next day
The [ants] came back/We thought they were a’goners
But the ants came back/They just [wouldn’t] stay
Away, away, away…”
(Adapted from “The Cat Came Back”, by Harry S. Miller, 1893)
The above slightly-amended poem came to mind the other day, after two weeks spent battling a steady stream of the little buggers (can you tell my patience is wearing thin?) with numerous liquid ant bait traps and different sprays that worked for about a minute and a half, and put me in mind of the famous Leiningen, whose struggle with army ants is the stuff of literary legend. (You can look it up.)
Adding insult to injury, I next sat on a lawn chair at the beach and was immediately crawling (literally) with what looked like two sets of minuscule “predators”. Tiny green spidery things (aphids?) and great numbers of equally small but transparent antish-looking bugs were stirred into a frenzy of activity by my presence, only rivaled by my flailing attempts to rid my chair and body of these miniature but multifarious “enemies”.
All this preceded the final KO punch of what I wrongly identified as a swarm of termites that plastered themselves on the exterior glass doors (and my iPad screen) like some sort of Hitchcockian pre-Hallowe’en.
When A.J. (no relation) from Smart Pest arrived I was apprised of my mistake, and shown how to differentiate between termites and carpenter ants, how to distinguish white sand from termite droppings, and why our bathroom invaders weren’t being successfully eliminated. The good news, neither carpenter ant nor termite nests were detected on our property. The swarms were a couple of those random acts of nature over which a mere human such as I have little control, except when it comes to bringing in the heavy artillery of an antidote (pardon the pun), that we successfully applied the next morning.
Why am I telling you all this? Because it seems I’m being challenged to practice what I preach. It’s all well and good to pontificate from a lofty perch of a yoga philosopher, removed as I might be from the worst provocations to my peace and equanimity, on an island thousands of miles from anything even remotely threatening. So how did I handle this first world problem, this triple-insect threat to my peace, harmony and ease of well-being?
Not well. Not well at all.
They say the meek shall inherit the earth, and if the past week is any indication, I’d say the insect kingdom is well on its way to world domination. To feel so defeated by such tiny creatures (albeit numbering in the hundreds) was a humbling barometer of how well-equipped I am to handle pressure or adversity. But I do have some things going for me.
Aside from knowing people who know people who will respond quickly to my panicky SOS, I have the tools of reflection, journaling and mindfulness that give me some distance from the story my unchecked imagination is telling me. When I observed myself running around like a chicken with its head cut off, with visions of having to tent our cottage for termites two days before a month-long run of company, I stopped.
Breathed.
Slowed down.
Collected my thoughts and feelings in my journal. Shared some of them with an empathetic friend. Did some inspirational reading. (I recommend When Things Fall Apart, by Pema Chödrön). Treated myself to some (disappointing) Hallowe’en candy. Chanted. And finally, napped.
I wonder if Leiningen did any of that?
Ultimately, we also prevailed over our insect pests, but, for me, the greater success was in transcending my emotional knee-jerk reactions long enough to effectively address the problem. We did not have to tent the cottage for termites. We did not have to find alternate places for the next three sets of guests to “vacay”. We did not have to track down errant termite and carpenter ant nests. The swarmers moved on. The fix was relatively easy: a few drops of Advion gel dealt with the lingerers.
The point being, we all have provocations, great and small, but the greater threat to our ease of well-being is the story, or illusion, we create around what’s actually happening. The purpose of this blog is not to know it all, or remain at all times preternaturally calm, but just to share some of the tools and practices that have helped me see what my inner storyteller is doing, and helped me respond vs react to challenges or problems.
P.S. The above-mentioned tools might come in handy on November 6, for anyone who follows American politics. (Though I don’t recommend it, you should at least have lots of leftover candy with which to celebrate or compensate, as the case may be…)