Today, I spent maybe five minutes looking at a fly moving about the window pane, trying to find a way out. I gazed up and saw the sun’s rays break free from behind a passing cloud. The sky, a heavenly blue. Though it was a bit cold outside, it was a glorious day.
Usually, when I spot a small trespasser in my domain, my initial thought is that I must kill, and if the insect flies away, it becomes a search and destroy mission.
But on this occasion, as I took a moment from work to look at and reflect upon this small creature moving its body about, hesitantly spreading it’s wings and moving it’s legs seemingly desperate, all I felt was a melancholic sadness. For given the current circumstances, I understood how this creature felt. I knew what it was to want to go outside. To want to do what it was that came naturally without having to consider the safety of your family, your community, and yourself. I knew the joys of spending a lazy day underneath the wide blue sky staring up at the vastness of existence and basking in the sun’s rays without a care. I know now some of the things I have taken for granted. That some of the freedoms I have come to enjoy are now limited or temporarily gone. I could empathize with this small creature’s feeling of being trapped.
And so I wondered, what else are we selfishly holding on to that we could be learning to let go of? Some may say that this virus is a product of overcrowding, animal cruelty, or nature’s way of rebalancing power and redistributing resources amongst the species. Who’s to say? Maybe the why isn’t important, maybe it’s the what will you do next?
Maybe it’s a call for more compassion. Not just for your fellow human being irregardless of their gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, their past or present journey, path or choices and how they choose to represent themselves and the many things that we as people have no control over but are still judged for. Maybe it’s also a call for compassion for the animals that are left at home with nothing to do and no way to expend the natural energy that they possess. Maybe it’s a call to stop being so wasteful with our resources and to cherish what we have. Maybe it’s a call to not hoard those things that we need in abundance but to consciously distribute the goods that are available to serve the many and not just the few. Maybe it’s a call to not just call ourselves the human race but to actually practice humanity.
Maybe it’s a call for kindness and selfless empathy for creatures big and small.
Once a consideration that I reserved only for ladybugs, I searched around me for a container to collect this small flying creature. I climbed up on to the counter and very gingerly collected him. I quickly walked to the door, trying to limit movement to not jar my captive around too much and thus inflict too much unnecessary trauma. I opened the door on the bright spring day and semi-delicately tapped the critter out and onto the ground so that he might reorient himself and fly away.
Whether he’ll make it or not, I will never know, but it was nice to show a little bit of compassion in the midst of so much disruption.
Caia Rose 