The Ladybug

I can hear the sound of the leaves rustling against each other in the strong autumnal breeze. I somehow picked just the right spot to sit and write that I can catch the wind face-on. It gently rushes past my ears, and I see more golden-yellow leaves slowly drop and nestle themselves into the ground. It is a sunny day, with enormous white clouds billowing through the clear blue sky. There is a slight bustle of students, on their way to their respective classes and various appointments, and their chatter mixes melodically with the breeze. As the quad empties out, I am left with the sun beating the tree behind me, and the easy shuffle of leaves dragging themselves along the pavement. The trees are all in various states of undress; some have only just begun to turn, while others have turned completely and lost nearly all of their summer leaves. A large gold maple leaf falls into my lap from above my head, and I smile at it as the breeze re-directs it to join its fellows. There is a slight nip in the air as the large clouds pass over the sun, and I shiver until the brightness shows itself again.

I switch my position against the tree to better absorb the fleeting sunlight, and find that a black-speckled yellow ladybug has found a home on my leg. I lift my finger out to it; it tickles as it crawls up my hand while I am writing. Upon looking closer at it, I find that its wings seem to be crushed beneath its bent-in exoskeleton. It flexes them several times in vain, attempting to fly. The thin, black, transparent silk of the wings now protrude from beneath its crumpled golden exoskeleton, and it begins to trek around my hand again for some miniscule morsels to munch on. I examine her even more closely. She has nine spots on either side of her exoskeleton, in a series of four rows. Going all the way across her back, the rows align themselves with four, six, six, and two spots. One side perfectly mirrors the other, even down to the dents in the dome of her exoskeleton.

She’s a peculiar little thing, crawling contentedly back and forth along my thumb as I type, occasionally attempting, in vain, to flex her wings again. She crawls along on her six spindly little legs, occasionally using one of them to scratch another, or wipe her face, or something of that sort. Her curiosity then overwhelms her, and she begins to investigate the rest of my hand, my wrist, my palm, my fingers, all the while flexing her wings from beneath her exoskeleton. She perches herself in the space between my left pointer and middle fingers, and investigates my fingertip as I type. Content with investigating my pointer, she continues on to my middle, and sits just above the bend underneath my first knuckle. She makes typing a bit more than difficult, but it is nice to have a companion. She nestles back down in the skin between my two fingers and uses her middle legs to scratch her hind ones.

I look up and see that the quad has emptied itself. The ladybug continues her quest up and down my hand again, and I wonder if any other person here would have let her crawl around on them for as long as I have. She’s a gentle little thing, the only living thing that I’ve noticed being around on the quad for as long as I have. She sniffs her black crown around on my palm after carefully searching my pinky, and seems to nestle there, upside down in the lines of my palm as I type. I wonder, not for the first time, how her exoskeleton managed to become so bent-in. I hold my palm up to my eyes and watch her gently clean her face with a front leg, in much the same fashion that a cat would do. She rubs her antennae softly, and continues about her business, becoming accustomed to my left hand. She uses her middle and hind legs to clean the rest of herself in much the same way that she cleaned her face, and crawls back up and down my thumb.

I’ve moved several times to face the sun more, but she has been content; though, I realize, this could be in part because no part of my left hand was touching the ground. She flexes her wings again, and I place my left hand on the ground, knowing that she will crawl off when she is content to do so. After some time, she doesn’t seem to be moving more than a few inches around my palm. I put my right pointer finger out to her, but she doesn’t climb onto it. Instead, she brushes against the tip of my fingernail several times in a row, almost nuzzling me, trying to fix her dented exoskeleton. I can almost hear her sigh as she continues to trek around my left hand, so I pick up a leaf, the same color as her, and put its tip next to her. She crawls upon it, and I place it gently on the grass next to me. I look to my computer screen for a brief moment, and when I look back to the leaf I placed her on, she is gone from sight.

I marvel at the short time I spent with her. I never would have expected any creature of nature to have been content with my presence for long, let alone made a temporary home on my hand. I also never would have imagined that I would ever have made such a connection to as miniscule an insect with as simple a mind as a ladybug. I am puzzled by how feline she acted, and enchanted by the strange metaphor of her flight troubles and her disappearance. This ladybug has left a profound and stirring effect on me, and will not be forgotten.

Accidental Adventure

On Katherine Anne Porter's "St. Augustine and the Bullfight"

Katherine Anne Porter talks much about adventure in “St Augustine and the Bullfight.” She discusses the difference between adventure and experience – adventure being “something you seek for pleasure, or even for profit…for the illusion of being more alive than ordinarily” and experience being “what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.” Porter describes several of her adventures, such as climbing a cliff face in Boulder, being carried away at a bounding gallop on a stallion of a horse, and watching bullfighting with friends. All of these adventures undertook her suddenly, and it wasn’t until later that she deemed them “adventures.”

Is it possible to actively seek adventure, and still come upon it? Some would say not, and might say that adventure is something that just happens, and cannot be planned in advance. I must say that, though I do believe this to be accurate, I also somewhat disagree. It is my opinion that, though the best adventures are the kinds that are complete surprises, you can specifically seek out adventure and still manage for it to find you in unexpected ways.

Some of my favorite adventures, for example, took place on days when friends and I got together and decided, “Today, we are going to go on an adventure.” My most recent adventure took place just after my nineteenth birthday, on a day that was planned as a final adventure with my friend Aaron before we both left for college this fall. I can remember the day perfectly, with the warm late-summer sun beating down on us, and the smell of excitement looming in the air. I got into the passenger seat of his Subaru Outback when he picked me up that morning, and the first words out of my mouth were, “So, what kind of adventure are we going to go on today?”

We wandered for a while, bouncing around the bustling, pedestrian-heavy streets of Newburyport, joking and laughing as we ran into old friends. It was a very calm day for adventure, it seemed, and though there was a twinge of excitement still in the air, it was disappearing quickly. Adventure, it seemed, would leave us alone for the day, content with letting us just have time to spend together before we parted ways for the entirety of autumn. The afternoon settled and became just another hang-out day, full of simple, open conversation and camaraderie. It wasn’t until we were on our way back that we found our adventure.

Taking Rt. 1 was the most direct way from Aaron’s home in Hamilton to mine in Georgetown, a trip of about a half an hour. In the car we discussed driving, and how much more fun it was when nobody else was on the road with us. We were driving behind an SUV with vanity plates that, if I recall correctly, spelled out “LXNDER,” or something similar of the sort, that told us that the driver’s name was Alexander. I took note of this (more out of sheer amusement than anything else) as the SUV was slowing down and putting their left directional on to make a turn. Aaron put his foot on the brake, slowing the Outback to let this Alexander and his SUV make their turn.

The next thing I knew, the sound of crunching metal and Aaron’s surprised shouting filled my ears as I felt myself jerk forwards and back again at least twice. I clenched my eyes shut against what was going on around me as a reflex, but had a strangely calm air. When I opened my eyes, I looked around to take everything in. The airbags had not deployed, so the accident must not have been too serious. Aaron was fine, just a bit shaken up, as was I. The worst thing that had happened was that his sunglasses and my hat found their way into the backseat, and the heel-caps of my boots had popped off to find a new home on the floor of the car. We pulled over to assess the damage. Apparently, the man who was driving in the car behind us had not noticed Aaron’s brake-lights, and did not touch his brakes until it was too late to stop the car. He had rear-ended us, propelling us forward to in turn rear-end the SUV before the driver had the chance to make his turn.

Nobody was injured, but the cars were literally bent out of shape. Alexander’s SUV escaped with barely a scratch, while the hood of Aaron’s Outback had crumpled. The same case seemed to be true of the back of Aaron’s car and the hood of the car behind us; barely a scratch on the Outback, but the other car’s hood was crumpled. We called the police to report the incident, and immediately afterwards called our parents. The cars had to be towed, so Aaron’s dad came to pick us both up. I remember marveling at how calm I had remained throughout the entire ordeal, even though I could feel the excited heart rate and slight airy head rush that went along with the adrenaline that coursed through my veins. After retelling our story countless times to police, EMTs, and parents alike, we were finally back on our way to take me home. I distinctly remember the final words of parting that Aaron left me with as I waved goodbye: “Amanda, I think that was way too much adventure for one day…”

Why I am an Optimist

There are plenty of people in this world who believe that pessimism, as a belief system, is the way to go. Their thought is that if one always expects the worst from everything, there’s no way to be unpleasantly surprised. Though this may be true, the way of the pessimist also means that you cannot have positive expectations from anything, or from anyone. I imagine that a pessimist always lives in a sense of fear, or hatred, or depression, caused by the way it is that they look at the world. The definition of pessimism is the tendency to see only bad or undesirable outcomes, the doctrine that the world is the worst possible of worlds and that everything tends toward wickedness, the belief that even goodness and happiness cannot compensate for all the evil and pain out there. This leaves the true pessimist with no room for joy, no room for hope, no room for goodness: a kind of “Eeyore complex,” as I like to think of it.

This doctrine, this radiation of negativity, this “Eeyore complex,” is such a downer, in my eyes. How can you expect me to see bad in everything, when there is so much good to be found? The glass, after all, is neither half-full nor half-empty; in the end, it is all-full: half-full of air, half-full of water (or whatever liquid happens to be residing in the glass). Most people tend to forget that air is matter, too, and not just empty space, just as they forget that there is always good in something, and not simply bad. No matter what the event is, no matter who the person is, there is always some good in it, somewhere. Any occurrence, given enough time, can grow into something good.

Yes, there is pain and suffering in this world, and much of it, but there has not been a case yet that I have seen no good come from. Even in situations of uttermost misery, there is gain in the personal growth that occurs, and in the knowledge of just how strong a person can be under strain. In the cases of people giving up, harming themselves, or even ending their own lives, it is my belief that these people were not able to see the good things there were to see for whatever reason. When the mind is clear, and brain chemistry is as it should be, there is absolutely no reason not to see the goodness, light, and joy that there is to be seen in this world.

I was once a pessimist, so I know just how it can feel. I never thought that anything positive would come to me, and always saw the bad things in anyone I wasn’t already friends with. I had a negative attitude about nearly everything I came across, and was overly wary of every situation I was put into. My trust levels were very low, and I had very little faith in humanity. I was miserable. I didn’t feel at home anywhere, I didn’t feel as though there was any love anywhere, because I didn’t feel there was anything in myself to love. The world was a bad and a scary place, and I had to live in it. It was as though I was trapped in the confines of a pitch-black room, blind to everything around me, eyes clamped tightly shut to block out the monsters. The only things I could feel were coldness, harshness, and emotional strain. I sat in my cold corner, arms wrapped tightly around my legs, bracing myself against the wickedness. All it seemed I needed, though, was for someone to simply turn on the light and get me to open my eyes.

I don’t quite know what it was, or who it was, that finally pushed me to see things differently. The realization that there were far more important things to be worrying about than my own negativity, though, certainly played a part. My friends were going through far rougher patches in their lives than I ever had, and there I was, brooding and complaining about my own life, oblivious to the fact that they needed someone to be their rock in an ocean of uncertainty, fear, sadness, and doubt. A wave of emotions washed over me, made of shame and remorse, telling me that something had to change. How could I help save them if I couldn’t even save myself? How was I supposed to show them the light and the goodness in themselves and the love that surrounded them if even I couldn’t even open my eyes to try to see it? Something in me turned on the light-switch in that dark room and stoked the dying fire in the hearth, telling me that it was all right to see, that the monsters in the dark had gone, that I was safe, warm, and at home, that I was needed elsewhere. I took a deep breath, and I opened my eyes.

Instantly I was filled with the warmth of that hearth-fire in myself, astounded by the brightness and goodness I was able to see. I saw the beauty in the laughter of my friends and in the hearts of all the people I met. I could see the suffering and the pain that lived in all of my loved ones and all the stress that they were going through from day to day, but I could also see the goodness, the strength, the happiness that their troubles would one day bring them. I knew that if they took the experiences and shaped the way that they changed because of them, they would turn out better at the end. If they let their experiences change them without any of their own input, there was no telling what sorts of negativity and bitterness would form around them, but if they took control, they could learn from their troubles and grow.

My positive attitude was a gift that I knew I was meant to have, and was meant to share with those who suffered. I became the rock that my friends so needed. So long as I kept myself above the water and solidly rooted to the ground, I could withstand any ocean they brought to me. If I could see the good in myself and the good in others, I could do my best to convince others that it was there; they just had to gain the courage to look. The hearth within me warmed my heart and kept them from freezing. I gave them my knowledge as it grew, telling them, “Look there. Look at all the good there is to see. Look at the beauty of even the cloudiest of days, and look at how the sun still shines behind the clouds, even if we can’t see it there right now. The sun is always there, even after the longest night, even past the darkest of storm-clouds. It will never stop rising, we just need to have the strength to wait out the storm, and keep things as well as we can in the mean time.”

I have become a much better person, in my eyes, since committing to optimism and positivity. I’ve learned to trust, and learned that not everyone in the world will hurt you if they get the chance. I’ve learned to love more deeply and more openly than I ever have before. Love comes in many types, many shapes, and many sizes, and all are welcome. Not to love your friends seems to me like doing them a disservice; they are there for you through thick and thin. You play together, laugh together, suffer together, and cry together. If you don’t feel that you love a person even after all of that, you have a colder heart than I could have imagined. I have learned to appreciate the little things for their untouched beauty and their simplicity. I have learned to open up to all the options and to broaden my mind to all opinions and beliefs. I have learned that there is no inborn tendency for evil, that “evil” people are nurtured to be the way that they are, and that doing bad things doesn’t make a person heartless.

It is my opinion that where there is strength, where there is knowledge, and where there is love, there is always a way to see all the good out there to be found. Every aspect of a person’s life is a chance to do something good or to find something positive. There is beauty in everything; we just have to look for it. When they say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” we just need to make the realization that we are the beholder; it is up to us what is beautiful. It is up to us where the goodness is. It is up to us to decide to open our eyes and to see the goodness in everything.