I've become the Snow White of insects. I chat with ants as I chop celery, make silent deals with slugs intent on sharing my shower, and knock politely on the cupboard's door before barging in on what some nights sounds like a mouse parade. We've all been there once or twice, especially those of us that enjoy the quaint characteristics of residing in what's stood against time. It is likely we'll all reckon with the critter kingdom.On a less grimy note, I am moving to a new apartment, one that was built with insulation and uses electric heat. Imagine that! When you've gone without what most people (Americans) have, you recover the original appreciation for the discovery/invention of that thing. Like a dining table, for instance. I will have one (although small and shoved in a corner)! I hope to sit there when I'm done eating and do all sorts of things that can only be done at a table (solitaire, scrabble, draft a blueprint).
Needless to say, things like new apartments are ripe with hope. They wait around the next corner doing excited dances. But, I must say, in the old place, the place I still live, I've learned how to be okay with the uncomfortable reality of a drafty winter, how to not let spider crickets send my blood bolting when they hop like popped corn from my next step, and how to walk calmly past the carpenter bee, who hovers outside my front door because his front door is a hole drilled in my roof. I'm not sure what these skills have prepared me for, but I can hope they've added a cornerstone to my character.
I can also hope Snow White will stay at the old place so I can get some rest.
xx Corrie Lynn
PS: Here's my mom, me, and a lovely shadow in the old place.
Corrie, I would like to remind you of the time you stood on a chair in our kitchen and trapped a monstrous cockroach in between a drinking glass and the wall while he furiously squirmed as you slowly slid the glass to the floor and took him outside with me screaming behind you. so, so brave.
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