Last night while I was playing around with Facebook, a ladybug suddenly appeared on my hand. A real, live ladybug who was somehow surviving the Ottawa winter just started crawling along my finger.

It or she or he might have been outside and come in; when the temperature rises above -2 or so I open my windows to let fresh air into the apartment, she might have come in then. Possibly she just found a warm crack in my baseboards somewhere and decided to hibernate there and the very new spring air woke her up. I'll never know.

Whatever the reason, there was suddenly another living creature in my apartment. I tried to shake her off at first cause that's what you do, right? Bugs are all well and good and nobody wants to kill a ladybug, they're good luck but what sensible person would turn their attention to a life form the size of a freckle, unless you are a bug collector or a scientist, it makes no sense. Can't toss her outside in -19 weather, that would be cruel so I did what any sensible modern girl would do - I tried to ignore it.

She wouldn't leave me.

I got up and went to the kitchen. During the summer I had quite a few ladybugs who seemed determined to get into the apartment so I looked them up. I remembered reading about their winter habits and although I didn't really believe it I did remember reading that they typically come into the house because it is warm but eventually they die because they can't get enough water.

I filled a small glass bowl with water and rested my finger on the rim of the bowl. The bug seemed to panic. No matter how I turned my hand she ran toward my arm as fast as she could. She didn't lift off, she didn't leave, she seemed to be looking to me as a kind of safety. Then I realized the bowl full of water must have looked like an ocean to a creature that small. I moved it over and sprinkled a few drops of water on the counter.

I admit it, I talked to her, I tried to calm her down and I rested my finger on the counter. I showed her a droplet of water just a little bigger than her body. She went to it. I turned away for a second to do something else thinking this is just too silly, it's just coincidence, bugs don't get scared, they don't think, they don't look for help - ridiculous of me to think they might.

When I turned back to the counter she was still there. Her little body was tilted up a bit and her head was in the droplet. I leaned close to look and the droplet seemed to be rippling, shivering just a little bit. The reflection on the surface was definitely moving. She was drinking.

I left her there and went back to the computer but I thought about what had just happened quite a lot. I saw a dead ladybug on the floor of my bedroom the last time I swept. It looked dried out. Winters here are very dry. The snow takes all the moisture out of the air when it's cold. Sometimes you can see ice crystals floating in the breeze, they are generated out of nowhere it seems, in actuality, they are the moisture that would normally be in the air as we breathe. The ladybug on my bedroom floor, the dead one had probably died of thirst just like the website said.

But the ladybug who was drinking in my kitchen survived because she came to another living creature in the house for help. She found me and she stayed with me until I helped her.

When I got up this morning, I went to the kitchen and started getting things ready for breakfast. When I moved the scalding pitcher for the cappuccino machine, she crawled out. She spent the night in the kitchen and as I cleaned up she just got out of the way but she had stayed. She was not afraid of me.

The website about ladybugs also said they can survive for a winter on a single raisin. I went into the cupboard and took a raisin out and put it at the back of the counter on the backsplash where it joins with the wall - it won't be noticed there and I won't miss it.

When I finished the dishes I made sure to sprinkle a few drops of water on the counter.

Such a little thing but such a big one - to think that with such tiny gestures we can help each other through the winter. That a drop of water can mean survival for someone - that a creature as tiny as a bug can look for help, can feel fear, can trust enough to stick around. That I can give somebody a raisin and a drink of water and that can save their whole world. It makes me feel - well it makes me feel a dozen good things, taken together I think they're called grace.

lollyblogging

When I started this blog I was unfamiliar with the term lollyblogging. Like so many apt symbols in my life, it's built in to the name of the thing.

I'm slow sometimes, sometimes I'm erratic. I think it's true of human beings in general that when things aren't settled, aren't OK, we look for stabilizing factors. Often those times turn out to be when people write their great works - or so I tell myself. And I think that's because a big project can feel like a routine, it can be comforting.

What can I say? I'm not like that. Wish I were.

When things are unstable I think. Some people would call it worrying, I don't think that describes it completely - I think things through, sometimes I start to write but then guilt sets in because I should be doing something and that something should be unpleasant because sorting out problems is an unpleasant task - isn't it? Doesn't it have to be?

Well, I'm thinking about that now.

Just looked at the clock and caught it at 11:11. A few people have told me that when you see the clock like that it's the universe's way of telling you to pause and think about who you really are.

I think, for starters, I'm off the hook.

I think that's how it has to be to ever accomplish anything authentic.

This week three small things occurred to me:

1.) President Obama is what the writer of the new testament meant by loaves and fishes. He's just one guy doing what's right for his family, his country, his job but because he does that, everybody is fed. We're all nourished by a strong example - it's a metaphor, multiplication of sustenance, something substantial, shared cannot help but multiply. I like that.

2.) It is possible to see every example of seemingly fantastical or mythological things in everyday life. It happens all the time, we've just forgotten how to look. Constantly dismissing things has been fashionable for years, it's tiresome, I'm not doing it anymore. I'm posting a picture of the old testament burning bush at the bottom of this page. It's real, anyone could have seen it - it's not literal. We just have to learn to raise our heads once in a while.

3.) The serpent in the garden of Eden was the penis. I have very little doubt of this and if I did it would only take a few conversations with men about how they are ruled by that organ and how they can't help it and how they need porn or secret masturbation fantasies or close encounters with chat-based cheating because they can't overcome the compulsion of the dick. Well, women like sex too. If we like it enough to learn about it, society frames us as whores - serpent - knowledge - apple - expulsion. It's all there.

I'm not accusing, I'm just trying to make an honest peace with it.