The wasps came back again, and tried to climb in my mouth. Again.
A story that isn't about feminism, and which probably maybe is not about anything at all.
If you’re a new subscriber, you might not know that sometimes on Saturdays I send out random nonsense that’s really not relevant to much of anything, but that I still thought was worth sharing. Some of these pieces are supposed to be inspirational. Find those here. This one is…I don’t even know. I just thought I’d share a weird little slice of life for a change of pace.
It’s spring, which in my house, means only one thing: it’s time for wasps to start trying to live in, on, and around me again.
If you’ve followed me, or this newsletter, for very long, you probably already know about my complicated relationship with wasps. They terrify me, but I also respect and sometimes love them. They lead apparently feminist lifestyles, and sometimes violently wage war on their oppressors (that would be humans, for those of you struggling to keep up with my wasp fever dream).
I try to treat them with kindness, and hope they will return the favor by not murdering me. I keep lots of pollinator-friendly plants. I don’t kill them. I teach my kids not to kill them. I yell at other people for killing them.
Two years ago, a colony of wasps decided to build their house right outside of my infant’s window. I did what any normal person would do: I called around to see which pest control company would relocate them without killing them, and finally hired a man going by “Crocodile Dave” to evict them.
“Crocodile Dave will arrive after nightfall,” his office manager told me.
“Do not call the cops. Warn your neighbors not to call the cops. Do not intervene. There may be noise.” I took that to mean screaming.
I promised my children I would wake them when Crocodile Dave arrived, and threatened them that Crocodile Dave would not come until children had gone to sleep. The carrot and the stick of Good Parenting.
Crocodile Dave arrived. I woke the children, to see a man approach the wasp colony without any protection, calmly put the colony in a bag, sling the bag over his shoulder, and then place it in his car.
The next summer, the wasps built a colony at the far end of the yard, and occasionally flew into my clothing. They never stung me. I spoke nicely to them, and by the end of the summer, I was picking them up (only when necessary!) with my hands, without a problem.
Now, they are back, and we are yet again having Wasp Incidents.
To understand the latest installment of the saga, though, you first have to understand that I do not sleep.
My oldest child never learned to sleep through the night. The baby is still up half the night nursing, and occasionally scream-singing the backwards ABCs. I have been continuously nursing or pregnant, and often both, for more than seven years. I am deeply tired, and so is my immune system.
I used to never get sick. Now, I get mildly ill for extended periods whenever anyone else in the house gets sick. I’m the least sick and the last to get better. I attribute this to my lack of sleep. For two nights in a row, my two-year-old has awoken in the middle of the night, demanded cheese, then recited every book she knows for hours, all while insisting that none of this is happening.
“Go to sleep,” I tell her.
“I am asleep, mommy,” she says to me.
So I spend a lot of time half asleep because of exhaustion, and a lot of time breathing through my mouth because I always have a cold.
And that is what I was doing yesterday afternoon while watering my garden.
I saw a European hornet buzzing nearby. I could just tell she was up to no good. I backed away to another area of the yard, and continued watering and mouth-breathing.
She flew into my mouth.
I felt and heard her buzzing. I silently willed her to not crawl down my throat. I knew she would sting me, but really didn’t want her doing that on the long slide down my esophagus.
She did not sting me. She left my mouth, and flew nearby, seemingly watching me water. I got irritated, yelled “wtf what are you doing?” at her, as my sweet next-door-neighbor looked on.
He’s seen a lot of weird shit at this house, so he probably thought nothing of me yelling at a wasp.
It was a weird thing that happened, and I had mostly forgotten about it, until today.
I was moving plants around on my lunch break.
A wasp approached, and I knew. I knew what she fucking wanted.
So I closed my mouth, and she proceeded to fly into my lip. Repeatedly. Like she was trying to unlock the mouth-door.
I don’t know why this keeps happening, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I decided to tell all of you about it.
I’ve put up with a lot of bullshit from these fucking wasps, but I am not letting them continue to investigate my mouth as a potential colony home.
😊
I, too, have had wasp colonies circa the premises for years' and years' time.
With no little human ones, anymore, I am able to, too, keep my mouth shut.
And just let 'em be. Or bee. Pollinators that they are.
WHAT, though, I once was ... ... OF the same ? Bodily / nighttime nursing / sleeplessness / exhaustion.
With, once upon a time, humans who were 0, 13 months and 37 months and some of them still nighttime nursing ? I did NOT ( BEGIN to ) .r e c l a i m. my body and its own immune system and its otherwise - INTEGRITY altogether ... ... until 0 - Babe was six - to seven - YEARS of age. I was perpetually exhausted. With, too and simultaneously, my out of home - job and ... ... ( X's exploitation of ) MY in - home one. Hour after hour.
I, PHYSCIALLY, felt and L O O K E D ... ... BETTER, finally, UNwed and INSIDE my 50s ... ... THAN I EVER DID throughout my LATE 20s and throughout ALL of my 30s and 40s.