Over the years I’ve blogged about things that annoy me or disgust me.  When we lived on island, I shared about roaches and centipedes and spiders and probably other crawlies I encountered.  Now that we are back in Wyoming, I can attest to the fact that a rain forest has lots of little creatures, but I can also claim with certainty that not one of them there is as annoying, or repulsive, or completely creepy compared to a miller.

Not everyone has met a miller.  They don’t live in the Caribbean, nor California, or Texas.  Just Wyoming and some of Colorado.  Lucky us.  For those of you fortunate enough not to know, they are a kind of moth, about the size of a quarter.  They don’t bite, they don’t eat clothes.  What they do, however is far worse. 

For the past month, before we go to bed I walk around our trailer with a fly swatter in my hand, hunting the little menaces.  I never find one, they are too sneaky for that.  Then, I get into bed, tuck myself happily beside Karl and just get into the book I’m reading.  Now since Karl usually is playing a game or reading on his Kindle, they don’t bother him.  Me? I have a nightlight above my head that enables me to read, so of course, I’m the miller target. One at a time for the next twenty or thirty minutes, our bedtime routine is interrupted again and again as from out of nowhere comes the familiar thump and flutter of a miller.  He’ll dive frenetically through our bedroom, running into the ceiling and walls and then suddenly dive bomb my head.  Each delights in trying to get as close to my face as they can as they bounce around in their dastardly frenzy, running into walls and circling lights.  And.  Every where they touch, they leave this gross black dust that flies off their powdery, wicked little wings.   With each attack, we both get up, grab flyswatters and whack walls and ceilings (and once in a while each other) in a silly dance until one of us manages to flatten the stupid miller.  Then Karl retrieves the body – not me! – and we get back into bed.  Settle in.  Snuggle up.  Repeat.   The next morning, I have to wash the dark, dusty smears from walls and ceilings.  Yuck.

I try to be faithful and to Rejoice in the Lord always. I am thankful for butterflies, I can even understand the ecosystem’s need for flies and maggots, I can appreciate spiders since they eat other bugs. But really, Lord? Millers?

Why is it that beauty is so fleeting and ugly so durable? For example: yesterday, clouds built up in the west.  Grey and menacing, they threatened and grew all through the hours of the afternoon and early evening heralding storms.  Then, just at sunset for no more than ten minutes, the sky put on a show of colors that included a rainbow in addition to pinks and oranges and a tinge of red. Stunning, awesome.  Another example: since we bought our house, I’ve been watching two poppy plants slowly stick their heads above the snow, then unfurl their fuzzy leaves.  It’s taken a month for the plant’s buds to form and swell and finally open.  But the flowers, gorgeous and happy, last no more than a day or two before the petals wither and fall off.  Clearly, transitory beauty is part of nature. 

I think I could be alright with how quickly beauty comes and goes if ugly acted the same way.  Instead, ugly lingers. Ugly holds on, persists. Weeds and storm clouds enjoy longevity.  Angry or mean words resonate in our memories much longer and louder than complements and kindnesses.  Laughter fades but pain endures.  Good choices we make are often overshadowed by the consequences of the bad. Being mired by ugly just doesn’t seem fair. 

Okay – before this blog starts being too cliché and you start hearing Julie Andrews singing “My favorite Things” in the background, I’ll wrap it up. Here’s my final thought: Since it seems to be fact that beauty doesn’t last long, then wouldn’t it be grand if we all decided to make a concerted effort to create and share beautiful more often throughout our days?  Then, even though each individual moment wouldn’t last long, there’d be more of them. Net gain!

I’m not blogging today. I’m not blogging today because I’ve been writing for the last five hours and my fingers are tired. My tired fingers and I are really excited, though, because I’ve just today, within the last half hour, finished my next novel! Yup. Done. Well, not really. The story is complete with beginning, middle and end. But. It needs editing. Lots of editing. Tuned and sanded, smoothed, and polished. And a title. I’ve got some ideas but no title yet. All of this isn’t hampering my little celebration for the day. The draft is done. Yay!

In my childhood, right and wrong were starkly delineated. Black and white.  In my parent’s home, there was no middle ground, and when I tried to introduce a grey point, my mother’s answer was inevitable, “What’s right is right, no matter how bad it hurts.”

I don’t recall her ever explaining what she meant, I just knew.  Doing the right thing wasn’t always easy or enjoyable or what I wanted, but it was the only valid path because it was right. My life made sense, it was safe. (This isn’t to say that I didn’t make mistakes and wrong choices, I certainly did, and I was often in trouble and on the outs with my mom, but I always knew why.)

Because of their unwavering belief of absolutes, my childhood was actually very simple.  Two choices, no more. 

Life now is so much more complicated. Our world doesn’t operate on a two-choice system. Diversions in the path aren’t simple forks. Choices abound, and each choice is advertised as a viable alternative – no matter how destructive or counter intuitive.  When people like me (who subscribe to a belief system that still embraces the two-choice philosophy), share our thoughts, we are dismissed as outdated and out of touch at best, and often labeled as haters even when the underlying emotion isn’t hate but fear, shock, or confusion instead. 

I long for the simplicity my parents’ outlook provided me.   And honestly, I think others do also.  It seems to me, in observing our world’s current state, that multi-forked paths have led us not into the city of enlightenment or villages of increased satisfaction but instead we’ve become lost in soggy marshes of uncertainty and mired in deeper and deeper despair. We’ve turned to all kinds of destructive and attention-getting tactics to combat our increased anguish.  But to no avail. We blame religion, gun ownership, drugs, political parties, our government – we blame and we blame.  Maybe all we need to do is bring back the concept of right and wrong, then make the right choices.  Maybe the answer is as simple as the words a timid housewife taught me so many years ago. What is right is right, no matter how bad it hurts.