Today I am Writing: On Fruit Flies

I am sharing my cottage recently with a few very curious fruit flies.

It started with the garbage can, some rotting food left in there for just a bit too long. When I opened the lid and was hit in the face with a flurry of activity, I realized it was time for said bag o'garbage to go outside.  But not before the little fruities found their way into other spaces in my home.

I've found they like the shower, and the weird plant that secretes a weirdly sweet substance when it is in full bloom.

And I've also found that I actually do not mind them.

I think of comments I've heard others make, about the Dratted Fruit Fly.  I wonder though: what I hear lying ripe at the base of those comments is a sense of shame, that the flies are there because the house is dirty. The "how do I get rid of them?!" is indignation, that something so tiny could challenge personal cleanliness.

Living in a cottage that is practically in the wild will teach you some things. It will teach you that not every bug is sent to kill, and not every fruit fly is sent to contaminate. It will teach you the wonder of nature, how amazing it is that this little creature can literally go from babe to adult in one week's time, how beautiful it is that life can actually be created in a place where death is actively occurring.

Here in this cottage, we share the space. We're all God's creatures, and we're all finding life in the places we are dying.

Amen? Amen.