The Whispering Universe

“There is no such thing as objectivity. We are all just interpreting signals from the universe and trying to make sense of them. Dim, shaky, weak, static-y little signals that only hint at the complexity of a universe we cannot begin to understand.”

Dr. Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan

For the past three or four days a grasshopper has been walking around on my window screen, right where I can seen him while I play on the computer. Today I figured out why. He’s dinning on my parsley plant and he doesn’t even have to leave the screen to do it. He just leans forward and grabs a snack when ever he’s not crawling away from a tiny spider that is following him around like love sick puppy dog. Maybe I'm wrong about the love sick part. Maybe the spider thinks he’s David and the grasshopper is Goliath and he wants to do battle to re-claim his rightful place as King of the Widow Screen. Or maybe he thinks the grasshopper is a carnival ride but the grasshopper won’t stop long enough for the spider to hitch a ride. Thank goodness the spider isn’t black or I’d be imagining her to be an evil widow looking for a new victim to kill. What ever is going on I wish they’d both find something else to do because I’ve spent entirely too much time trying to figure out why they’ve invaded my tiny patch of the universe.

Did you know that grasshoppers in Chinese culture are fertility symbols and are often kept as family pets? When I read that I said to my grasshopper, “Your timing sucks. You should have shown up before I went through menopause.” Maybe if I’d been a ‘parsley farmer’ back then I’d have a couple of kids, now, who’d feel obligated to help their dear old mother figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Nope, I refuse to believe my grasshopper is of Asian descent and instead I’m declaring him to be an ancient Greek symbol of immortality. “Live long and prosper,” I can almost hear my grasshopper sing. (Or was that Mr. Spock I hear? Oh, I'm so confused!) But I know one thing for sure, if “he” lays eggs in my parsley pot I’m going to barf. By not killing the Orthoptera I could be single-handily starting a locust invasion that ends up destroying crops and starving everyone in the western hemisphere.

The whispering universe: Yesterday at the farmer’s market one of the flower stall vendors reminded me of the exact moment when I knew I was truly, deeply in love with Don. It was close to Valentine’s Day ten months after we met. Michigan was in an unusual weather pattern and the day was very spring-like, the sun was shining bright and snow was melting fast. I had a flower stall at the mall and I was so busy I could barely keep up with sales. Don, who normally would have been busy with his snowplow business, was at loose ends with no snow to plow or trucks to repair, so he came down to the mall to check out my new set up. When he saw how busy I was he pitched right in helping customers pick out flowers, taking money and making the wait for service fun for all of us. He was a natural born, people-person. The young guy working at a flower stall yesterday had the same gift of gab and twinkle in his eyes that Don had that day so long ago. And that sparkle said both guys were having the time of their lives and if I’m not mistaken they were both unabashedly aware that they looked hot---as in desirable---selling flowers for the women at their sides. Yes I remember love, Grasshopper. It knocked on my door one day and I let it in.

One of the things I like about reading other people’s blogs is we get a peek at the inner workings of their thought processes, to compare them to our own and discover that most of us are very much a like. We each experience happy and sad memories that we visit when ever something in the universe queues them up. We are each trying to figure out how we relate to the world around us, to the changes that occur---the grasshoppers that invade our lives and demand that we pay attention to them, the loves we've lost. We each have dreams and hopes and regrets. And what I regret most right now is that I don’t have enough aluminum foil in the house to make myself a set of antennas like my grasshopper has. If I did, I might get better reception on the “dim, shaky, weak, static-y little signals” coming in from the universe. I'd truly like to know how my life fits together in the grander scheme of things. Isn’t that what most of us want, to feel we are a part of something bigger than ourselves? ©

“There are no extra pieces in the universe.

Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill,

And every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.”

Deepak Chopra