Wasps

Wasps, I pretty much hate ’em. I’m not talking about the modern day Karen (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) who would like to speak to a manager, but am talking about those little assholes with wings. Super sleek, no waist, a head and fat-ass stinger. They have none of the fuzziness of bees. They’re not cute and fat like a big bumble bee who fell asleep in a flower with pollen on its ass. Wasps are pure malice. Do they even help with pollination? People talk about the importance of honey bees, I don’t hear anyone saying we need to save the wasps. Where are they on the food chain? What would a world look like without them?

When I was younger, my brother and I stayed with a baby sitter named Mary. She had a husband named Hank (I think) and a son who was my brother’s age – his name was Joey. I don’t know how many years we went to her, maybe one or two. I know we stopped going when I went in to first grade. That’s when my family moved out of the apartment and in to a house. I vaguely remember that Mary lived near the hospital where my mother worked. I remember she would take me to the bus stop for school and meet me there at the end of the day. I remember they always had those mini cereal boxes. For whatever reason those cereal boxes were a source of fascination for me – I think it was the idea of having something that was just for me. I liked the private, exclusivity of them, and the choice of something different each day – they somehow seemed luxurious in their wastefulness – not like our dumb, big box of Cheerios. Today could be Honey Smacks, tomorrow Rice Krispies, the day after Raisin Bran (or back to Honey Smacks).

There was another woman that lived on Mary’s street. She also babysat kids. And I think there was a church where I went to bible school at the top of the street. In the summer, I think this woman had a week-long bible camp or something like that. There was a kid at the school named Blue Hinkle – or so I think that was his name. I thought the name was silly and hilarious. I made fun of him by calling him Blue Hinkle periwinkle. I think we got in to a fight. I could be making all of this up – though I distinctly remember arguing over the word periwinkle. It bugged him. At an early age, I learned how to tease from my brother and my father. I might have been a school-yard bully.

When Mary couldn’t watch us, we went to this other woman’s house. I didn’t like going there. It felt like we were left alone a lot. As I remember her, she was overweight, with dark black hair pulled back in a pony tail, sweaty, and wore a white tank tops. I think she smoked. I can remember a finished basement room with yellowish walls and small casement windows at adult head height. I think both Mary and this woman had above ground pools. This other babysitter had a swing set. The metal type with rusty a-frame legs that would lift a bit when you swung too high.

One afternoon my brother, and I think Joey, were on the swing not letting me have a turn. They were on a swing that had two seats that face each other. It was positioned next to one of the a-frame ends of the set. The cap of the crossbar on top of the frame was missing and as my brother and Joey swung more violently, jostling the entire set, wasps from inside the metal tube crossbar began to buzz around. Not only was I waiting for my turn, but I think I was pleading with them to stop shaking the swing set. Like lots of sibling relationships, wanting my brother to stop doing anything only encouraged more of it. I’m not sure what happened next. I think they finally let me have a turn, but both of them left in a cruel statement to say I could play, but not with them – a “here you go you big baby” type of statement. It is of course entirely possible that they didn’t leave at all and I just stood there on the side whining. What I do remember is that in a flash of a second I felt the lightening pinch of being stung. Twice in the stomach. What happened next was also a blur. I think we put some mud on it. Of course I blamed my brother. And to some degree blamed the wasps. Joey, not so much. 

This morning, like lots of mornings, I went for a long walk. I walked down along the river and across the pedestrian bridge over the Mississippi and in to Arkansas.  On the bridge, I observed standard etiquette keeping to the right as I walked. Every seven or eight feet a wasp or two would fly through the shadows of the grated railing next to me. They only seemed to be buzzing on my side of the bridge. I was hyper aware of their presence. I resisted the urge to shoo them away and would, from time to time, make my way toward the center of the walkway. As other walkers would approach from the other side, I’d move back to the right near the railing and the assholes with wings would resume their threats and taunts. I was convinced one would randomly sting me because it could. They would buzz in front of me and to the side. I’d feel a slight twinge of anger towards the other walkers for forcing me in to this precarious situation. As I walked, I tried not to pay attention to the wasps – an out of sight out of mind approach with limited success. No matter what my mindset was, sometimes they buzzed by my arm or in to my field of vision. 

I suppose there are people who can walk past wasps and see them as an amazing part of nature. I am not one those people. I don’t have flashbacks to that first encounter of random violence and trauma every time I pass a wasp, but today I chose to think about my dislike and distrust of wasps and those early encounters. The reality is, getting stung once was enough to teach me that wasps are unpredictable and will or can sting. 

Of course, I’m not just talking about wasps and wasp stings. If a small experience such as the one I had on a back yard swing set can stick with me (with varying degrees of accuracy in recollection) for forty some years, imagine how long the hurts from other people (partners, parents, people we’ve trusted) stick with us. Prior to going out for my walk, I ate breakfast and read a few articles, including one from Psychology Today on betrayal and post-traumatic stress. The author equates some of the symptoms and triggers associated with PTSD to those associated with traumatic physical pains (such as touching a hot stove, or spilling coffee, or getting stung by a wasp). He writes:

Just as sensing heat triggers the flinch in the burn victim’s hand, the reinstatement of intimacy, trust, love, or compassion can trigger the same kind of involuntary “flinch” — waves of negative emotions — after intimate betrayal. It is intimacy that led to betrayal, and the betrayed brain will likely associate pain with intimate exposure. Because feelings of intimacy are often vague, with a wide range of associated memories (from toddlerhood, all the way through your most recent experience), specific triggers of PTS responses are hard to pinpoint. But you can bet that in the months following intimate betrayal, the alarm will sound at the most inopportune time — during a warm embrace with a friend or in a moment of enjoyment with your children or in the midst of pleasant thoughts or enjoyable activities. Out of nowhere, the waves of negative emotions crash upon you. 

I suspect this isn’t just limited to intimate betrayal (or the type of betrayal we usually think of – cheating), but ties in to lots of the emotional baggage that many of us carry around… times in which trust was broken or violated. I’ve been thinking a lot about my past relationships – it’s a time of year that has both my wedding anniversary and the anniversary of when I first met the woman to whom I was recently engaged. I’ve been thinking about when I’ve been triggered and why, but also I’ve been thinking about how little I knew about what might have been triggers for my partners. What deep emotions were being brought up for them? To some degree, it’s not my job to get my partner to dig deep… and I wouldn’t want us to spend all of our time on such downer subjects as past trauma, but it is the type of intimacy that I crave – two people who are brave enough to go the hard way with each other and have enough trust to believe that neither of them would intentionally sting the other.