Termites

At dusk tonight, I took a bike ride.  Not a great decision.

I live in the Deep South.  It is May.  The termites were swarming. 

As I rode my bike, standing and engaged rather than sitting on the seat, I felt the termites flying around me.  Or rather, I felt them banging into my body as I barged through their nightly gathering around each streetlight.  

On my neck, on my hands gripping the handlebars, along my hairline, down the front of my shirt, in and around my ears: termites, hitting me and then staying put wherever they landed.  Soon, I felt them crawling down my shirt, down my back.  

I didn't worry and I didn't stop my bike.  I kept riding, knowing that I would encounter the flying termites until I reached my home.  When I arrived, I carefully peeled off my clothes in the dark of the kitchen.  I didn't want to kill any of the termites still clinging to my body.  I also didn't want to carry them into the house.  Three of them dropped from my shirt, one huddled inside my underclothes.  Using a postcard from India that a friend just sent in the mail, I gently scraped them up from the kitchen floor, and put them on the cement outside.  Nothing for them to dig into.

Flushing them was an option.  Termites ruin many places they call home.  But I couldn't do it.  

During the swarming months, I keep my house dark at night.  I light a candle to travel from room to room.  I keep the porch light off.  I hope that this will keep the termites away.

Last week, I went to a Buddhist temple to help prepare for the Buddha's birthday celebration.  On the lawn in front of the Buddha hall, a monk and I planted flowers around the bath that the child Buddha statue would stand in.  It was also dusk.  Soon, as we worked, we were surrounded by flying termites.  At first, it was annoying; I hoped they wouldn't fly into my mouth or get caught in my hair.  When I took the time to look down at them, I saw that they were abandoning their wings and turning into larvae.  All over my body, and the body of my friend: disembodied wings, and dewinged crawling little creatures, looking like innocent little zygotes.  My friend didn't seem to mind.  After some minutes, I learned to accept the sensation.  I knew they wouldn't hurt me. 

"We should practice meditation out here," I told the monk, "with the termites flying all around."

He seemed mildly amused.