Views from the dirt road behind our campsite
We murdered about 20 miller moths last night. It wasn’t my intention. I started by catching them cupped between my hands as they flapped about the window shades. First one, then two, then five, then they were shaking out of my quilt by the handful, then they were slipping out from behind the windows, then there were too many to bear.
Miller moths are utterly harmless, native to Colorado, just living their little moth lives. They seemingly appeared out of nowhere. One day there were no moths and the next there were moths in everything. We shook dozens out of the clothes hang drying outside, the soft fabric a respite from the sun and the wind I suppose. The spiders’ webs in the BLM bathrooms are filled with them now, their triangular bodies floating in the gossamer. They eat nectar at night and pose no threats to any of our belongings, but when three or four come bashing into my face as I’m trying to fall asleep, well, my patience for kindness snaps.
The miller moths have discovered our camper is a glorious refuge and is readily accessible through a small gap around the windows. So today, despite the 84-degree heat, all the windows stay shut to stop the invasion. An entomologist from Colorado State University tells an NPR reporter to “have a little compassion.” She says the moths are “lost and confused, just trying to get somewhere.” I sigh. Same.
At night, we can hear the bats squeaking, sucking up all the moths they can. “Work harder!” I shouted at them last night as I chucked another handful of moths out the window.
Once at youth group — when I still did things like go to youth group — a large grasshopper was terrorizing our bible study, flying into people’s hair, creating a commotion. I stood up and with no second thought, smashed the grasshopper with my shoe and threw its body out into the parking lot. The other kids cheered. “You know,” my youth pastor said to me as I stepped back inside, “Some people believe when we get to heaven, we’ll have to atone for every death we caused in our lifetimes before we’re let in. Even the lives of something as seemingly insignificant as a grasshopper.” I stared at him. “I’m not saying this to make you feel bad,” he said, “I’m just informing you.” But I’m pretty sure he was saying it to make me feel bad.
Last night, J smashed a small flock of moths with a rag and tossed their lifeless bodies into the desert dirt. “Sometimes you just gotta be food,” he said to no one in particular.
I wonder if the bats are worried about atoning for the thousands of moth lives they took before god allows them to fly into their glorious bat caves among the stars.
Time is oozing along, some days passing with rapid vivacity, others sliding away slowly into the night. It’s hard not to feel like I should be doing something. But our only goal with the camper was to save money, which we’re doing, which I only see the benefits of every other week when my paycheck trickles into my gasping bank account and I click the transfer to savings account button and picture a pale banker man in an itchy wool suit carrying stacks of my dollar bills from one dusty vault to another, nodding approvingly. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.
We’re getting a second chance at watching fall arrive, though it happens differently in the desert. It’s not the gradual yellowing of leaves and sudden chill in the night air. It’s a storm cell gaining traction along the horizon, it’s a sinus headache as the pressure drops, the distant Denver cell tower losing its connection to our meager hotspot more than 100 miles away. It’s the wind rocking the camper bringing the brief promise of cool, wet weather.
Our friends arrive in a week, and I’m eager to see familiar faces among familiar landscapes. We’ll bitch about the moths maybe and housing prices definitely and perhaps at least one person will say out loud, “It’s so good to have you back.”