One interesting thing about the leaves falling from the trees in winter is seeing the nests that the squirrels and birds used to reside in. And also the old wasp nests.
I am still very phobic about wasps, but in wintertime I am at least assured that the cold has killed the little buggers off, and so seeing the grey teardrop-football in silhouette presents only a sudden jolt and then a thrill, as I safely look up at the strange creations made by mandibles from rotted wood.
Most of these are located high in the trees, well above the roads and sidewalks. They would have been shielded by all the leaves. Nobody would know these things where there. That’s how they survived until the first hard frost killed them. Eighteen months ago, I saw that wasps were making a nest out of a hole in the exterior brick of my house, and I took care of it immediately… by calling in an exterminator and telling them to take care of it immediately (they did).
But in these trees, these wasps lived above hundreds of humans who walked beneath them day after day, and we didn’t notice until the leaves fell. It’s strange to have your fears revealed, long after they stopped being something to be afraid of.
Except for a handful of posts, my blog has been basically silent since I learned that my mother had pancreatic cancer back on November 15. Though I have written, even on frivolous matters on Facebook, writing on the blog just hasn’t felt right for me. It feels too public a place for me to talk about my mother’s illness and subsequent, and yet it was too personal for me to talk about anything else. Blogs, I guess, still are different from your Facebook rants or your Tweets. Facebook rants disappear down the memory hole quickly, but blogs are forever, comparatively speaking. That’s why the eulogy had to go here.
I do hope to start writing on the blog again, though, and I think I will in the coming days. Some stuff may be frivolous, but it’s still a part of me.