Ladybugs and Lacewings: a love story

I had started clearing the table after dinner and was taken aback when Jay got up and started to do likewise.  He followed me into the kitchen and saw the puzzled look on my face and gave me his sideways look back. 

“You don’t have to do that,” I said in answer to his unspoken question. “I got this.”

“I know I don’t have to,” he repeated in answer to my continual dismissal of his service. “I want to.”

A lump formed in my throat.  Again.  I knew he meant it.  And I knew he wouldn’t just dump them in the sink and flop on the couch to play games on his phone.  But I was surprised that after all the dishes were cleaned up and leftovers stored in the fridge, he also wiped down the stove and countertop.

The chore of clearing the table and wiping down the countertop belonged to my kids, but they had scattered like ladybugs flying away, and I didn’t have the emotional energy to hunt them down with a butterfly net and bring them back to do the job.
But Jay wasn’t flying away like my ladybugs.  He stayed and helped me like he kept telling me he would.

The same scene played out differently not that long ago:

“Let me help you with that,” my husband had said as I was getting up to clear the table.  It stopped me in my tracks, since he rarely ever offered to help me, and I had long quit asking.  I did not like the sighs or the slouch of shoulders if I requested the assistance of the man I had hoped would be my knight in shining armor.  No, I was not the nagging kind of wife so many husbands complained about; I was resigned to do everything myself rather than feeling like a burden.

“Thank you!” I beamed. “A man in the kitchen is sexy!”
My husband brought several plates and silverware to the sink and began rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher while I went back to the dining room to gather more dishes. But when I returned to set them on the counter, my assistant was gone. I should have known it wouldn’t last. Well, at least he had cleared his own place, and that was more than I could normally hope for.  He had flown from the scene like a ladybug, taunting me with false hope.

            Ladybugs, and men, are like cats.  They are finicky and only stay when they want to.  If you try to hold one, they fly away.  You think they are pretty and beneficial, but they will only help you on their own terms.  When they have gotten what they want, they will just take off without finishing the job.

* * *

After I’d been married for 10 years and had 3 kids and a house of my own, I was trying to grow a garden.  I'd been fighting aphids since I started.  Nothing was working.  I was told to buy ladybugs because they were a natural predator.  So I did.  I sprayed the cucumber vines with water and dumped the pretty red bugs all over the plant.  I did see them doing the job for a while, but the next day, the ladybugs were nearly all gone.  A couple days later, I didn't see any ladybugs at all.  And the aphid population was still growing.  I lost my cucumbers shortly thereafter.  When people tell me now that I should buy ladybugs, I tell them they just fly away.  Apparently they stay and eat the aphids in other people's gardens.  But not mine.

As I worked in the garden, I’d see a lone ladybug here or there, and I’d smile.  Maybe ladybugs weren't so bad if I accepted them on their own terms.  They’d come if they wanted to and bless me with their simple beauty and maybe get rid of a few nuisances.  As long as I didn't expect anything from them, they could still make me happy.

But I prefer green lacewings.  Their larvae is much more effective because they don’t have wings to fly away, and they eat more aphids than ladybugs do. The adult lacewings are just as beautiful as ladybugs.  They are delightfully subtle, ethereal insects with translucent wings and mint green bodies; they blend in with their leafy background and are often overlooked.  Every once in a while, I see one of them in my garden too, like a well-kept secret, blessing me with their rare presence.
But I didn’t know about lacewings until I was much older and well underway in gardening.  Of course, every little girl loves ladybugs, just like they love unicorns and  fairies.  I may have enjoyed playing with the boys when I was younger, but I always had a thing for ladybugs, just like any other girl. What I didn’t know was that boys and ladybugs had the same flighty characteristic I should have been wary of.

* * *

As a single mother of 3, I was always trying to find fun, free, and unique things to do with my kids.  I had invited Jay and his son to meet me and my kids downtown at Chalk-It-Up, an event like a block party of murals.  My boys had asked me if I would let them take their roller blades, and I thought it was a good idea as I was always happy when they were physically active outside instead of begging to play with a tech toy.  I was reminded of the time I had learned to roller blade when I was a teenager.
Mike and I were 15, and our religion forbade dating till age 16, but we spent every afternoon together playing sports, hiking, or hanging out at his house.  His family loved me, and I was the kind of person they termed “the girl next door.”
One afternoon, we were leaving his house on our way to the school so he could show me how to play roller hockey on the playground.  Actually, it was going to be my first experience rollerblading and I was nervous.  Rollerskating was one thing; rollerblading was relatively new at the time.

“I'm leaving," Mike called out to his older sister Liz who was in charge while his mom was out.

"Bring me back a surprise!" she called back jokingly.

"Dead or alive?" he teased back.

"Dead, or I'd have to kill it," she said.

Sometimes they were so weird.  So we set off for the blacktop where I embarrassingly fell a number of times but was able to hit the ball without looking too much like a fool.  Na, I'm pretty sure I looked like an idiot by the amused grin on Mike's face.  But it was all worth it when I found a nickle on the ground.  Silly, I know, but it trumped the chewed up pen cap Mike had picked up for Liz's souvenir.

On the way back to his house, however, there were two little girls with what looked like a lemonade stand.  But they weren't selling lemonade.  They were selling ladybugs for 5 cents each!  How cute!  Mike handed one of the girls the nickel I had found and he delicately carried the creature back home to Liz.

"I thought I said I wanted it dead," she said when she saw what Mike had brought her.  "But that's okay.  It's the thought that counts."  She smiled as the little ladybug crawled on her arm before flying away.

A few weeks later, I was in the apricot tree picking fruit.  There were always lots of ladybugs on apricots, and my mind wandered back to the time the girls were selling ladybugs on the street corner.  I went to the garage and dug through our stash of boxes until I found one of those little ring boxes.  I plucked a bunch of the ladybugs off the fruit and closed them up in the little box.  I was so excited about my clever gift that I abandoned my bowl of apricots and dashed around the block to Mike's house.  When he opened up the box, they all started to crawl out, but he managed to get most of them back in before they flew away.  A few days later, he showed me the container he’d put the remaining ones in with holes at the top and leaves and twigs.  I was touched he had taken care of the gift I’d given him.

* * *

I had come by Jay’s apartment on my way home from the dance studio, only expecting to stay for 10 minutes before I headed home to my kids.  He invited me into his room where I sat on his lap and told him about my day.  A common direction I give to my dance students is to “look up” instead of watching their feet, and this was one of the things in the story I was telling Jay that night.

            When I was finished, he told me “look up” and pointed towards the ceiling.  We had kind of a long-standing joke about the phrase, and I smiled, amused, but found he really did have something to show me up there. 

 “I found a ladybug in my room today and it’s still there.” 

“Is it still alive?” I asked.

“I think so,” he said.  “It was on the other side of the room earlier.”

I wondered how long it would last.  A month later, I was thinking about ladybugs and randomly asked him whatever happened to it.

            “I don’t know.  Maybe it died because it’s not there anymore.”

* * *

When I was 15 and had given Mike that box of ladybugs, I went out of town the next week with my parents.  Upon my return, I went straight over to Mike’s house to see if he wanted to go rollerblading.  As I walked up the path to his house, Nikki came out the front door.

            “Oh, hi Julie,” she said with a grin as she brushed past me in a hurry to get home.

I was surprised to see her, since Mike would often complain about her coming along with us when we’d go hiking or shoot baskets.  She was 2 years younger than me and I’d known her all growing up since she lived up the street from me and we went to church together.  She had the reputation of Scarlett O’hara, but I never gave it any mind, and, like Melanie Hamilton, I included her in my circle of friends.  Mike’s parents and mine had been on our case about all our alone time together (even though we never so much as held hands), so I had been inviting Nikki along on many of our excursions to quell their accusation of us dating.

I knocked on the door and Mike answered. 

“Hey, Julie,” he said flatly.  “My parents aren’t home and I have a lot of homework.”

Neither of those excuses ever stopped him from hanging out with me before.  I may not have been allowed to come inside when his parents were gone, but he would usually grab his shoes and come out to explore with me.

“I just saw Nikki…” I trailed off, and his eyes dropped to the ground.  Look up!

“Yeah, she was just dropping off some stuff.”

Something was wrong.  But Mike wasn’t the kind of guy who messed around.  And he had even joined in the smack talk about how sleazy Nikki was until I told him I didn’t want to hear that kind of thing about my friends. 

“Hey, how are those ladybugs?” I asked him, trying to break the awkward silence.

He perked up.  “Most of them died, but I found one today on the ceiling!”

He led me inside to show me, and sure enough, there was a lone ladybug stuck on his bedroom ceiling like a tack.

“I don’t think I have much luck keeping them alive,” Mike said. “I should give this last one back to you so he won’t die.”

            He pulled up a chair and reached up to pluck the insect from the ceiling.  But when he placed it in the palm of my outstretched hand, it dropped like a pebble.  Lifeless.  I didn’t say anything.  I just cupped my hand over it like I was trying to keep it from flying away and let him walk me back out of the house.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said without looking at me.  But I didn’t come over.  Something was missing.  The ladybugs were gone.

* * *

They say that ladybugs are lucky and having a ladybug land on you is supposed to be particularly lucky in some cultures. 

I was talking to Jay while we hiked and he stopped me.  “You have something in your hair.”  As he reached over to untangle a critter from the strands of my hair, I pictured a ladybug.  But it wasn’t.  It was a little green bug. 

I don’t think ladybugs are lucky.  It’s the little green bugs that hold the real fortune.

* * *

When Mike and I were 16 and finally allowed to date, we didn’t date each other.  I was trying to avoid being stuck between him and Nikki, and it had been about a month since I'd even spoken to him.  My friend Alex tended to wait for me by the back gate of the high school just so he could walk with me for 5 minutes before we came to his house where we parted.  I had said goodbye to him and was walking alone up the street for less than 2 minutes when I heard a "hello" at my side and jumped.  I don't know how he did it, but Mike used to catch up to me so silently that when he joined me, it was like he'd just appeared out of thin air. 

"Are you going to the Spring Fling?" he asked me.

"I wasn't planning on it," I replied.  Crap, he wasn't going to ask me to it, was he? I don't think I could say no, but I certainly don't think I could actually go with him.  Please say you are going with Nikki.

"Are you?" I asked to be polite.

"Me?" he asked.  "You know I don't dance."

Silence.  I never knew what to say to him anymore.  And he was never much for words.

"Stop a sec," he said.

"What?" I asked, stopping as he ordered.  This is weird.  Why was he walking with me anyway?

"You have a bug in your hair."  My body went rigid.  Ever since that morning in 7th grade when a bee got stuck in my hair during an outdoor assembly, I was scared of bugs getting stuck in my hair.  Not that I ever told anyone this, but it seemed like it happened a lot.  Maybe I should start using a different kind of shampoo.

            But when he plucked the critter from my locks, he showed me a ladybug!  As it flew away, I saw him smile.  My heart flip-flopped.  Ugh!  I hate that he could still have that affect on me!  Nothing more was said and we walked in comfortable silence until he saw me to my door. 

"Have fun at the dance," he said.

"I didn't say I was going."

"You should.  I know you like to dance."  He didn't ask me to the dance, thank goodness.  I didn't know why he even brought it up.  It turned out that Nikki had wanted him to take her, even though she wasn't 16 yet.  Her parents made exceptions for school dances, but his parents wouldn't let him take a 15-year-old, especially that one.

* * *

After 15 years of married life, I grew cynical of the trait of dependability.  I kept trying to believe in people and trust that they would do what they said they’d do.  But if I tried to count on someone, they would quit or break their promises.  Headed by my spouse, it seemed that there was no such thing as loyalty. We tend to think of loyalty as the absence of betrayal, but I am less concerned about the passive form of faithfulness than I am about the proactive habit of following through with commitments.  I began to think of people as ladybugs: they only stay when they want to, and if you try to hold one, or depend on one, they fly away. 

Jaded, I became determined not to ask for help, not to rely on anyone, and not to believe people when they said they’d do something.  After I separated from my husband and eventually divorced, I had no desire whatsoever to have a committed relationship, for I most certainly didn’t want to have that much trust vested in one individual.  I would take the lone ladybug, take him at face value without any expectations, and enjoy the fleeting sunshine till he flitted away.  This lighthearted, fun-loving, beautiful relationship I had with many ladybugs that swarmed me as I recalled the advice from a woman in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun: “When I was a little girl, I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I’d just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were all over me.” I felt like my 15-year-old self in the apricot tree, enjoying the attention but not caring one way or another if they flew away.

Then one day, a man walked into my studio for dance lessons.  He was a fast learner and very handsome, and, had I met him somewhere other than my place of employment, I might not have only viewed him as a client. He would have been a ladybug. 

In the dance world, it certainly helps your lead and follow skills to dance with many different people, but it is beneficial if you could practice with a consistent partner so you can learn and grow together.  That was never something I had, as it was hard enough to find people to teach for free, let alone stick around long enough to get anywhere.  The ladybugs just got what they wanted and flew away.  I had come to expect it.  Dance is not as important to other people as it is to me.

But the man who walked into my studio that day wasn’t a ladybug.  Jay was a lacewing, quietly dignified with casual playfulness and definite dependability. He quit dance lessons…to date me.  He kept dancing with me, but he has done so much more than that.      

With the drama following me from an unwanted suitor, with the turmoil from my divorce and the high strung emotions of my children, with my lack of adequate income, and with various injuries and illnesses…he still says to me “I’m not going anywhere.”

Little girls are thrilled with pretty ladybugs. But when they grow up, they fall in love with lacewings.

                                                                           *   *   *
Addendum:
           Several days before more birthday, we were cleaning up after baking and decorating a gingerbread house for Christmas.  It seemed that a moth had gotten in the house and was circling the light in the dining room.  But wait!  That wasn't a moth.  It ran into the light and then dropped into a spiraling circle onto the ground.  I thought it had killed itself, but it was only stunned.  I called Jay over to see the lacewing so he could finally see what one really looked like (although I'm sure he'd already looked it up online).  The lacewing's zap, drop, and recovery made me think how once again, this creature was a representation of the man I loved.  Each of us has a story of heartache and hardships.  It is how we respond to the trials that either builds our character or destroys it.  There are so many things about him that I love, and one of them is his resilience.