Ask All The Worms I Know!

Somehow, somewhere, I stopped being afraid of bugs and insects. One of my favourite parts of the day is when I see a little creature crawling through my living room, and I hustle to find a piece of paper to guide it back home. This isn't always a smooth process. Sometimes I'm nervous, but most times they are. They don't find it easy to trust. That's when my voice lowers to a hush, and I whisper, "I won't hurt you, I promise. Ask all the worms I know."

And then I let it go back into the wild, where they're likely to escape again, and we start the entire process all over again. The reason I find this little ritual fascinating is that, a year or two ago, I couldn't look at a millipede, worm or caterpillar, without cringing or grabbing the closest weapon available (see: broomstick). What changed?

I'll tell you... I simply got to know them. For the past few years, our yard has been infiltrated by an army of these tiny red millipedes every spring. They are everywhere, slithering through the gaps beneath our doors with quiet determination. At first, I would shriek and grab a broom to chuck them away.

Then, it happened. I was grabbing a piece of paper to pick up a hairy worm (yep, that is the official scientific name), and I found myself in awe at how vulnerable it looked as it shuffled against the sheet. I realised I had never actually looked at them so closely before... From this angle, they weren't so much as threatening as fascinating. It changed my outlook on insects completely.

The sheet of paper became my new go-to method of putting out crawling intruders – millipedes, rain worms and the like. As I continued with this practice, my fear ebbed away. I realised that fear is simply a lack of knowledge amplified by our assumptions. We find the unknown, or things outside of the norm, threatening. This might be a biological instinct we developed through evolution, to protect us from threats and predators. We can, however, be rewired to think differently. 

Imagine my own surprise when I dissuaded my sister from killing a bug by throwing it out in a sealed container. I walked to the bin, retrieved it and got the little guy out. That's me... Friend to the Animals™

Who would've thought?

But loving worms has also taught me a lot about people. It got me thinking about a poem by Nikki Giovanni, Allowables. In it, she recounts an encounter she had with a little, papery spider that she killed... even though it posed no threat to her. She did it almost on instinct – all because she was afraid. Nikki concludes the poem by saying, I don't think I am allowed to kill something because I am frightened. That line had a profound impact on me, mostly because it could be applied to human beings as well. How many times have people died needlessly, just because human beings acted on an irrational fear of the unknown?

Whoever coined the term phobia to include the strong dislike of a group of people was onto something. Perhaps if we understood and treated racism, not as a moral failing, but the misjudgements one can make of a group while observing it from the outside. 

I'll give you an example. When I was in high school, a close friend of mine, Thabie, and I were having a conversation. Thabie is a very animated and passionate person. In this conversation, she was sharing some grievances she had with a mutual friend, while I listened patiently. We were in the hallway at school, and she stood in front of me while I leaned against the wall. Just as Thabie raised her hands in a dramatic gesture, someone came flying down the hall to pull us apart. That someone was our deputy principal. 

We stood there shocked as he intoned, "Leave the girl alone!" The tension seeped out of us as we realised the misunderstanding. I frantically explained that we weren't fighting. "She's just telling me a story!" It certainly didn't occur to us how our exchange appeared on the outside. She told stories the way all the women in my family did, reconstructing events so vividly, it almost felt as if you were there. In this instance, she was recounting a heated back and forth with incredible detail. While I considered her mannerisms passionate, funny and dramatic, others could perceive them as aggressive or threatening. This isn't a critique against the deputy principal – he apologised profusely for his mistake. Thabie is now a teacher at the same school... So he's essentially her boss, in the funny way these things go. 

But the moment stayed with me, not just because it was funny – it helped me to understand something. The only difference between my response to Thabie's tone and body language and the principal's, was my intimate knowledge of her. If a stranger had cornered me against the wall and thrown up their hands, I would have been appropriately terrified. But because I knew her, the way she laughed and ate, and fussed over everyone – I felt safe with her.

I think of how often racial and social divides have been caused by judging someone's culture through the lens of your own. For instance, a culture that prizes dignity and honour, would be less inclined to show great displays of emotion. They would instead value meekness and quiet. Now place them within a culture that prizes community and self-expression. They would consider that environment to be... Disorderly, disruptive or imposing. The latter culture on the other hand, might consider the new party's silence and restraint as judgemental, disengaged, untrustworthy.

Conversely, if you placed an individual from the second culture into an environment like the first, their familiarity and openness would be considered impolite, attention-grabbing and perhaps inconsiderate. If the root of hatred is fear, then the root of fear is a lack of knowledge and understanding. If both individuals were to observe their environments closely, they may begin to understand that what they previously perceived as threats were just cultural differences. 

Given time, they may come to appreciate these differences, and more importantly, look beyond them. One of the best ways to dismantle the misconceptions and judgements we carry is to find the ways in which we are united.

As I mentioned, our yard is absolutely crawling with these critters. There's a strong likelihood they creep in undetected at night while I'm sleeping or preoccupied with a task. I've found myself wondering why I've never accidentally stepped on one when I walked through the living room at night. 

Just a few nights ago, my question was answered. I was, ashamedly, using my phone while it was still plugged in, hoping to get it fully charged before bed. I was about to stand and pull it out of the charger, when I saw a huuuge millipede skirting around my path and hurrying away. It seemed to have an awareness of where I was, and wanted to get the hell out of there. Thus, the reason I'd never sat on or trampled one in the dark was their earnest doing. They wanted to avoid me as much as I wanted to avoid them, so we were alike in that way. I felt the last of my fear dissolve away. I didn't want to cause them pain, and they were just trying to stay out of my way and survive as best as they could. 

And that concludes the last of my astute observations inspired by my worm friends.

I do wonder what they think of me!