Confession

I killed a cricket. It was an accident, I swear!!

You see it happened like this.

A cricket got into the small room where I hoard my craft supplies. 

Now, it's easy to tell if a cricket is inside or outside. Outside crickets sound gentle, like water in a stream or waves on a shore - except much higher pitched. 

Inside crickets sound like alarms or a high creaking call of HELP! HELP! HELPHELPHELP! or some other very urgent noise.

HOWEVER, if the cricket is right outside an open window, one might mistake it for a cricket inside the house.

So I decided to close the craft room window - just in case the cricket was really outside,

Which knocked over a large potted amaryllis...And that spilled dirt all over the floor and the shelf below the window...and the stool next to the shelf that held a tool box...and the box on the floor full of craft supplies...and the plastic jar of marbles also fell.

The cricket shut up.

 I cleaned up.

The next night, I heard the cricket in the dining room, right at the bottom of the stairs.

So I went downstairs to find the poor little fellow, trap him under a cup or something and return him to the wild.

When I turned on the light, the cricket stopped chirping. I got a flashlight.

That little bug sounded like he was right under my feet but I could not see him at all. So I moved chairs, a bench, the pretty painted box I keep under the bench.

Bill came along to see what was up and we turned on the light and there - lying splayed on the floor -  was a sad dead cricket.

I have heard that a cricket on the hearth is GOOD luck. I have heard that crickets' chirps foretell rain or a change in the weather or tell us the temperature.

Now, I worry that this cricket has a mate somewhere in my house who will chew holes in all my stockings and socks.

Or even worse, that someone I love will meet an early demise.

Luckily, it was NOT a Sunday. Killing a cricket in your house is bad luck but it is REALLY bad luck if you kill a cricket on a Sunday.

But, it was an accident. I didn't know the poor little bug was there. He probably (it was a guy because according to the Internet, only guy crickets chirp.) fell off the box and I dropped the box on him.  

Since I killed this poor tunesmith, I feel unsettled, anxious, even unworthy - as if I cursed myself by being careless with one of my fellow earthlings. 

How do I regain my equilibrium? I can't replace a cricket.

There are a hundred thousand crickets outside our house. All singing or munching or mating or hopping. Why should I feel bad about the one cricket life that I snuffed out by being a big clumsy human?

There are millions of trees in this country. And millions of them are on fire. Hey! It was an accident. it is always an accident.

There are billions of people in this world. 900,000 have died from a novel virus. No one wanted them to die. No one got them sick on purpose. 

Does it make sense to draw a parallel between my accidental killing of a bug to the death of hundreds of thousands of people? Probably not.

Yet, if I had been a little more careful, less clumsy, the crickets outside would have one more singer.

If we took better care of our earth, the conditions in the West might not be so ripe for fire. 

If... well, if we had paid attention five months ago, perhaps some of those dead people would be with us today.

I killed a cricket. Forgive me. 

WHY Would You Say That?

President Certainpersonio (I stole that name from Charles Dickens) continues to fill the airwaves with "diverting" comments.  Don't ask what these comments are - check your favorite news site, unless it is Fox. What we might ask is "why?" And that is the theme of today's post.

Honestly, why do we say half the things we say?  Since we have been confined to our quarters, I have discovered that I speak without rhyme or reason much of the time. I am a talker. I am not alone. Still, a lot of what I say does not need to be said.

Some of these comments are observations on life. My audience of one has heard them all many times before so what purpose can repeating them have?

Then there are the times when I interrupt a conversation because
a) a grammar mistake has been made
b) I heard a mispronunciation
c) I am sure I know more about the subject than the speaker does
d) that reminds me of a story that has nothing to do with the conversation at hand
e) I have no interest in the subject
f) I don't agree with the ideas expressed
g) I want to change the subject altogether
i) I take the subject personally and it pisses me off

Yep. I inflict all of these tortures on my husband who is confined with me. He deserves your sympathy.

We ALL do that. We do it ALL the time. Most of us want to be the Talker in Chief. In normal conversation, where the discussion is really a way to socialize and connect, these practices are annoying if overdone but they are pretty harmless.

HOWEVER, when we want to instruct or talk about important actions or ideas, or even discuss our feelings, these habits can be used for all kinds of reasons.

We grab a tangential idea in order to take control of the conversation.

We correct the speaker as a way to undermine his or her authority.

We want to distract from events or behaviors to protect our own standing or to protect others from the repercussions of their behavior.

We want to sabotage the purpose of the conversation - coming to an agreement, for example, or moving forward with a policy.

We want to turn the tables, especially when our behavior has been below par.

We hope that nothing gets decided so we don't have more work to do.

I could go on and on and on and on...

You and I can not control what all the Certainpersonios in the world say.  We can keep a watch on our own tongues.  Before we enter the fray, or throw something into the conversational pile, we should probably ask ourselves why.

 When a discussion becomes emotional, then we really have to consider our comments.

People can not un-hear things once we say them.  Consider why before you speak. You could save yourself untold grief.

Don't be a Certainpersonio!