A Loveliness
Thoughts on luck, free will, and learning how to listen to your gut.
Even through the thick layer of bleach and ammonium, the walls still pressed their dank cloud of neglect into the room.
Before moving out, the tenants renting my parents’ small colonial had trashed the place so thoroughly that I wasn’t even allowed inside until every surface had been fully disinfected. This was my first memory of walking through that little house on the hill, and it’s punctuated by a quiet, persistent call.
Lips sucked into my teeth, I let out the last bit of air through the end of my nose and moved in as smoothly as I could. Ready, steady. I was pulled over the threshold of the empty second story bedroom and through to the window not for the view of the desolate, junk heap of a backyard, but for the cluster of red and black polka dots slowly shifting about the window sill.
Did you know a colony of ladybugs is called a Loveliness?
In my eight years, I had never seen so many ladybugs in one place. There must have been forty perched there, some clustered up in twos and threes, others ambling toward one direction or another with what seemed like a great deal of purpose. I felt my eyes glowing in the warm, orange-red crimson of their coats as I studied them. My heart rate slowed, my lungs continuing to avoid the deep breath that would surely be laced with a concoction of cleaning chemicals. This was important work, worth forgoing a few rounds of respiration. By then, I had lived enough life to know that ladybugs aren’t like spiders or grasshoppers, or even other beetles in bell jars. They’re special. Lucky.
I also knew that in order for a ladybug to impart any of their charms to humans, one needed to be chosen. If a ladybug lands on you, that’s lucky. But maybe I could game the system, rig something up. I lowered my hand down at a whisper, careful not to burst the thin prism of magic hemming the ladybugs. Inched the tip of my pinky finger closer and closer until it made contact with the chipped paint trimming the sill. Slower than sand formation, I slid my finger up over the roll of the trim, making sure to angle it into the path of one of the wandering.
I could barely feel the bug’s sliver thin legs shifting quickly to scale my skin as she made her way up onto my pinky nail. It was a perfect size match, giving my nail the appearance of a red-and-black-polka-dotted manicure. She sat there for a moment, long enough to give me the confidence to slowly raise my hand up off the sill to get a closer look. Halfway to my face, the ladybug flipped up her fancy wings and flew out and back down to her family on the sill.
It didn’t seem like long enough of an encounter to impart any effective level of luck, but this was surely the most ladybugs any person had ever seen all at once, wasn’t it? That had to count for something.
For the rest of the week…month…year I attributed any tinge of good fortune to my encounter with the Loveliness. A long forgotten dollar in my fall jacket, a day off from school to play in the perfect first snow of winter. None of this chance, all of it fate, controlled by my lucky run-in that August afternoon at the house on the hill.
Free will is a funny thing.
Its very existence allows us to contemplate its existence, tipping off a strange tumbling cycle of chicken-or-egg. Does our ability to wonder whether or not we are free define our freedom? Does the alluring lore of a lucky ladybug lock in our fate as predetermined pawns? Some even wonder about the space between these two black and white realms, free will vs. fate. Is there some nebulous combination that forms life as we experience it?
These are not the heady type of questions I usually volley on an average August afternoon, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about these things…the space between life stages…our capacity to make decisions…how and when to choose. All my life I’ve been an over thinker. I can think myself into things, think myself out of things. Mind over matter- but sometimes my mind seems to be all that matters and that’s no good either. So, how about we get into our feelings? (Cue the groans, I know.) But bear with me. Bear down and bare down.
Next time we’re faced with a decision, you and me, let’s take some of that activity out of our heads, lead it away from our hearts even, and push it all right down into our guts. What is your lower belly saying? Notice a tightness, or a warm release? Can you identify which is a yes, this and which is a turn and run? What about those more difficult to decipher, closer to the middle feelings? Those are the real rubs. Those decisions require patience and practice in tuning out your mind and listening- no, feeling- into your gut. Patience, quiet, softness, grace. Stillness.
Can you get so quiet and so still for so long that a ladybug might land on you?
And how would it feel, then? To get so quiet you can hear your thoughts forming, and then ignore them in favor of a feeling in your bones? Uncomfortable at first, sure. But to be so liberated by the sureness that you might feel…that would be the ultimate comfort.
Last year, in the twilight weeks of a particularly transformative round of therapy, I recounted a secondhand self-observation to my therapist.
“A friend recently told me that he has noticed a pattern in my decision-making,” I reflected, confident in this close friend’s ability to assess my nature. “He says that I tend to take a long time, considering every option. Thinking things through from every angle, weighing pros and cons,” I continued with a hint of self-depreciation.
“But he said once I know, I know, and he never questions my intent.”
My therapist’s golden eyes widened and she nodded slowly, lips hinting a curl at the corners.
“This friend knows you well,” she consented.
And she was right. This friend has watched me weave my way through this decision making process countless times and in every area of my life- work, love, identity. He sees through me, sees my wheels turning, knows me well enough not to predict my next move, but to know that it will be painstakingly planned, for better or for worse.
I’m proud of this process I’ve spent 32 years crafting. But the time invested into worrying through potential scenarios is heavy and expensive. Only once I’ve exhausted my mind can I get down to the feeling in my gut. Nowadays, I’m working on getting to my gut quicker with the hopes that one day hearing- listening, feeling, trusting- my gut will be my first reflex. My second nature. So I can be my own Lady Luck.
Wouldn’t that be the loveliest?
WHAT I’M GETTING UP TO AND INTO:
The SKIMS Scoop Onesie. This sucker is somehow both pj’s-level comfortable and flattering. I didn’t think I’d feel as confident as I do in so little fabric, but I get compliments every time I wear it. Just ordered the navy- on sale for $36…run.
A summer salad formula. Late summer produce is my favorite. Last August I was all tomatoes on toast with a thin layer of mayo and a thick sprinkle of Maldon salt. This year, I’m putting a variation of the follow into a bowl: torn spinach, fresh basil (keep the leaves big), burrata (or mozz), cherry tomatoes, stone fruit (black plums & nectarines have been the favorites), olives (I like kalamata or castelvetrano), optional protein (recommend 7 minute boiled egg or torn prosciutto), chunks of avocado, salt, pepp, a drizzle of good olive oil and maybe a splash of red wine vinegar. *mwah*
Turn Back The Clocks, an album written, played, and produced by Providence-native (and my once next-door neighbor) Jonathan Elyashiv. It’s such a lovely, listenable, Beatles-y mix of songs. Jonathan will be making his debut as an artist with my music/dance collective, Revolve Dance Project, at PVDfest this year! Go forth and listen, and then catch him in downtown Providence September 7th.
Providence Olive by Benjamin Moore (trim color pictured). Or any color in the BM Historical Colors Collection for that matter. Everyone in my family is big on Gettysburg Gray thanks to my mom, and I swear both of these colors can find a place in every home.
A nondigital, pre-work morning routine- mine’s tea a daily crossword puzzle. The Monday NY Times puzzle books make me feel good about myself first thing.
What are you doing this weekend? If you’re in the NE area, check out Rhode Island Women’s Choreography Project. Founded/directed by various dancer friends of mine, this company showcases new choreography created by women in the Ocean State. Saturday at 2:30 PM and 7:00 PM, Sunday at 2:30 PM.
CAM’S REC REC OF THE WEEK:
Revealer, by Madison Cunningham
portraits by James Jin, art and all other photos by KEM.
XOXO