September 7, 2009
After working late in my cosy studio out in the barn, it was a shock to open the door and find this solid mass of inky darkness – several shades of dark and darker, all incongruously muddled up against each other to avoid detection. More admiration for bats than ever before. Stopped using my eyes as much as my hearing to detect fence row, tree, rock, shadow, honeysuckle bush, horse, lead pipe, rock, and a whole pile of black walnuts that went POP and shot out to the side when the tire hit them.
Human out in the middle of nowhere, and the first instinct is to be scared of the dark. Living in Los Angeles where everything is lit up beyond comprehension, and yet people are always frightened there, too. Turn on the lights so you can see everything, and then sit there scared of everything that is suddenly seen.
So the dark was a joy. At summer solstice in the high desert of New Mexico, orientation was easy because the sandy soil is reflective, and the pale grasses and exposed mountain stone and cactus glow, luminous even without a moon. But in this jungly Virginia, it’s all absorptive. Like glue for darkness.
I just hopped on the bike and hoped for the best – when I opened that door right into the middle of nothing visible, I got a little scared of the things that go bump in the night. I thought of spindly-armed goblins that would pluck me from the seat and snap my bones between their ghastly rotting mandibles. To exorcise my courage I took the longer road home…a gravel path between two huge hedgerows. A perfectly savory place for rat-nosed hedgehorrors to snap and pluck my flesh and sinew.
But imagine my surprise! Instead, I was like a sailor coming home after V-E day! Just like lusty ladies tossing ticker tape from skyscrapers, the mighty shrubs were replete with spiderwomen, and I was festooned with web. Garlands and tendrils and tentacles of the stuff, draped festively from ear to wrist, chin to waist, elbow to nose.
They were likely as surprised as I.
I spent most of the day in the studio printing out the novel chapter by chapter, and doing a complete restructuring. It’s nice to return after several years, and find myself with more control over language, and more patience for the characters, who were rather maddening the first time around. Now I’m just editing for coherency, and enjoying reading instead of writing the hell-hounded ferocity in that book.
The only interruption was the incessant refugee resettlement of insects and arachnids – it’s all well and good to invest in screens, but leaving a one-to-two inch gap under the front door somewhat undermines the overall intention. There are thousands of pin-holes in the doorframe, and I wonder what strategies previous artists have attempted – towels? sheets? I suppose I could do something heroic – like weatherstripping or screens – but at the moment it’s the lazy woman’s natural history study. Instead of tromping through the fields at midnight, sit inside with a lamp and a net and wait for the entertainment to arrive.
The real traffic occurs just after dusk, when the creatures turn their attentions away from giant ball of fire in the sky and towards the lightbulb.
Some lunatic flying pencil sharpener came in and battered itself wildly against the window in a frenzy of anxiety – even if it hadn’t made these preposterously loud punkrock popping noises, its emotional condition of terror and agonized frustration alone was enough to draw my attention.
(At the moment, a being that sounds and looks rather uncannily like an LAPD helicopter just strafed my head, inserted itself into my closet, and promptly vanished from sight and sound. Is there a portal? Curious about what happens next.)
The most charming of these interlopers are the stink beetles. About the size of a nickel, they seem so disconsolate when they realize they’re not outdoors. They exude an overall patient dreariness, a resignation to ill fate and frustration, and then surrender to the white wall, not trying to hide, not trying to escape, as though they have assessed the situation and determined that any expenditure of energy would be senseless. I watch them for a little while and almost expect them to remove their knitting from under their carapace and start in on a muffler for little Joan, because the winter might be chilly and what else is there, really? Very war effort, the stinkbeetle.
Some creatures don’t seem to know how to identify help, or judge intention. The stinkbeetle – I sidle over with my sheet of paper and they sort of perk up a bit, oh? yes? quite right. thanks awfully.
And they trundle their fat, flat little bodies onto the piece of paper and settle in like it’s a nice car ferry over a tranquil pond. Or perhaps, again, it’s just resignation. Or perhaps purity of hope. Or perhaps complete lack of interest in consequences. Maybe they are curious and courageous. Either way, their composure is unflappable, and off they go with apparent security and calm, full of trust or desperation or courage into wherever the paper takes them.
Over to the door, open the door, deposit stinkbeetle on appropriate foliage, and in the process another seventy eight insects enter the scene. As though it’s a fantastic bar, and the stinkbeetle has just been ejected for bad behavior. I want to tell them there’s nothing going on inside. Just a bunch of spiders lying happily in wait for them. But it’s no good – they want the light. Anything for the light. Oh the light. LIGHT!
Just like Los Angeles. The lights of Hollywood mean nothing ’til I see them in your eyes.
There’s something to be said for the giant ball of fire in the sky being a much more trusty friend than the lightbulb. Now that the idiocy of the EU demands compact fluorescents, epilepsy folks like me will be rendered brain impaired as soon as the sun goes down. Not to mention the fact that a broken bulb – or a discarded bulb – exposes everyone to mercury. Ah, we’re scared of the dark, we little humans. And fire hurts.
Are the bugs just coming inside to hunt? Or does it suggest comfort to them? I’m woefully ignorant.
What is the allure of light, really? If it’s fire, you get burned. If it’s electric, you see things you don’t want to see. Maybe we should all spend much more time in the dark. Bike riding in the dark is a good example. I had a flashlight, and thought you know, if I use it, all the bugs will hit me in the face. So instead, I drove merrily through a morass of webbing, enjoying my ignorance, not caring to scream, and god knows what will crawl out of my hair in the night.
I finally make it back to the house, and make my way grumpily upstairs, picking spiders off myself all the way, traipsing back downstairs to let them out the door… and the lights are off in the hallway. I can’t see a thing, and run my head smack into a pane of glass – transparent barriers are especially tricky in the pitch black. Even the emergency exit sign is dark – what is going on? During dinner the lights were flickering, and something has apparently gone awry. I turn on my bedroom light, and am rendered insensible by the whoosh of leggy critters headed towards the glow. Even after I close the door, they quite merrily drive their exoskeletons in through the gap at the floor.
If we just keep the lights off, I’ll never know the difference – never know what’s crawling on me, what’s weaving its way through my hair.
Some might say it’s cowardice. I shall think of the stink beetle, and prefer to consider it trust.