Life away from the Bay Area, or "Learning to live with flying clicking beetles"

I confess: I hate bugs, critters and most things that slither. Imagine my distress when I laid my body, worn out and weary from hours spent in stores and setting up a new house in 100 plus degree heat, down onto my new expensive bed and heard the mini blinds rattling. For a minute I considered a "haint" was in the house, what the family in Mart Texas call ghosts. I had been hearing about haints since I met my husband 34 years ago, with humor (from him) and with dead on (forgive the pun)seriousness from the Davis family. When I switched on the light and saw a flying insect that looked like a roach soaring through the air and banging into the mini blinds, I almost wished it had been a haint. "Shit! I cannot believe I left a bug free existence to join air borne roaches." Peps and Pearl watched me with concern as I ran about the room with a shoe chasing these elusive flying insects. The cable/Internet had been installed earlier that day, and I ran to the living room, the only location I could access the Internet with an Ethernet cord stretched to capacity from my office. Sitting on the floor, I googled flying roaches in Austin and anxiously awaited the search results. I scrolled through numerous tales of woe and being grossed out. I went back to bed with a shoe in hand and my eyes refusing to close despite my exhaustion. Thoughts such as "I can't believe I spent all this money on a house with bugs, or I can't believe I left home for this crap, or who cares about a PhD when bugs rule the world?" ran across my brain like a ticker tape. At some point, though I cannot recall when or how, I fell asleep.

In the morning I surveyed the dead, defeated bodies on the floor. I made a desperate call to my friend and real estate agent who talked me down, and another to my friend Chris, leaving a message to call me. I called an exterminator company and left a frantic message. It was a Saturday, leaving me two days before I could plead with someone to drop everything and come to my rescue. I became obsessed with roaches, trying to sneak up on them with my shoe. Not so fondly, I recalled my days as an art student living in roach infested apartments in San Francisco, riding on public transit gazing into the windows of homes and flats, the world divided into two categories, those with and without roaches. I unfortunately fell in the first group in each flat I resided in, tormented by their thousands of years of survival, knowing full they well they would outlive me as well.

When Monday rolled around I called a company first thing, non toxic of course, and they assured me they would do away with these non paying roommates. The next day a man in a crisp uniform and soothing voice, with a large flashlight and fearless tone in his voice showed up at my door. Within seconds he made his first observation, my personal terrorists were not roaches at all, in fact they were clicking beetles. When I googled flying beetles the search results were about the singing group Beatles (if I spelled it correctly I would have avoided this), not the sort that fly through the air and crash into your body, bed, windows and desk. I was beyond joy when he said they were seasonal, that is until he visited the attic and discovered roach droppings, confirmed by the dead American Roach (patriotic roaches?) lying on my living room floor. He reassured me they would be disposed of and sent on their way for a fee. Where do I sign I asked? How soon can you get started? In my desperation and revulsion, I might have signed over my first born, a newly minted lawyer, or my recently graduated son from university, a handsome guy with potential earning power as a model if it would secure a pest free existence. I came to my senses when a check was all they required in return for assurances that these unwanted and uninvited pests would be banished from my otherwise wonderful new home.

I greeted the pest control man like a returning war hero when he arrived at my door. Humble and polite, he carefully grinned at my distress, amusement he no doubt had felt many times before. He explained things might get worse before they get better as the nervous systems start to go ballistic on the chemicals he sprayed around the perimeter of the house and in the dark corners of the interior. The dogs and I trailed him at first, then backing off as I mumbled prayers to myself that my house become a living breathing example of their ability to rid a home of pests. After speaking with my friends Chris and Kim, I felt confident this distress would soon become a distant memory.

In reality, the problem had been blown out of proportion and was not as bad as I first feared. Although there are roach droppings, I never really saw them. The clicking beetles and I engage in daily (and nightly) battles sometimes, me armed with my shoe and they with a relentless stamina acquired through thousands of years of breeding. Mother nature always outsmarts us humans, and we never seem to learn or pay homage to her beauty, power and wisdom, particularly when nature enters our sealed existence. I am waiting for the season to change or their timely submission to the chemicals. In the meantime, I talk to them when they crash into my computer screen like drunk drivers, or start clicking and rattling the mini blinds when I lay down to sleep. I proclaim victory when my shoe lands hard and fast on their bodies and makes a loud crunch. I have learned to live with the clicking beetles, and feel gratitude that they are not roaches, and that they are seasonal.

What is the lesson here? And is it really about clicking flying beetles at all or the roller coaster of change and transition? Fear can engulf you, strangle your momentum and leave you with nothing but doubt and recrimination. The pests reminded me the challenges ahead would be many, from statistics to writing papers in accordance with APA guidelines, and beyond. I left my familiar existence, and even if the familiar is squashing us, we cling to it for the reassurance it provides. It is a bait and switch though, a deception that tethers us to stagnation and provokes fear of change. I have felt this trepidation and doubt before, each time I traveled abroad to paint and write, explore and be a person in the world away from my trappings and identity as a mother and caretaker. I never regretted my decision to venture out, the benefits I reaped have far outweighed the cost or recrimination I encountered. The constellation of dear friends who have enriched my life and the life of my family, the paintings painted and words written, and vistas seen have made my life magical. Moving to Austin is yet another journey, one that exceeds the usual duration of a month, and clicking beetles or not, I am confident it will alter my life in ways I cannot imagine, more for the better than worse. So move over clicking flying beetles, I have a closet full of shoes and an exterminator who has seen the likes of you before.