This stowaway was perched on my windshield about 6 inches from the top, right in my field of view. I was convinced that this bug would take a short ride and jump ship – I could not have been more mistaken.
My initial jaunt from my apartment is a hilly windy road, so certainly this little guy would be blasted off my beautiful Priscilla once I reach such breakneck speeds as 20 mph. No. This little guy held on. Side note: how in the hell do bugs create their own foot glue and hold on to surfaces like glass and tile, and even climb walls. Brilliant.
I reached my first stoplight not having broken 25 mph, and he was still there (for the sake of this story, that bug was a he). I sat at the stoplight wondering how long he would last: another mile? Two? Half way? After all, only longer more challenging roads lay ahead. The light turned green and a short (roughly 100 yards) jaunt before my next light (which is always red btw). He made it.
I began the next stretch of road, this stretch more challenging: about 4 miles of non-stop residential roads with top speeds reaching 40 mph. I thought for sure he would give up and fly off the windshield. After 4 miles of winding roads with hills at 40 mph, I reached the next stop sign. He remained. After three prolonged stops, a pattern of behavior was emerging: at a stop sign, he would begin to let loose of his grasp of my windshield and roam a bit, but once the wind picked up from my forward travel, he would face into the wind and hunker down, and hold on for dear life.
I began the next leg, another 2 mile stretch through residential areas with speeds reaching 40 miles per hour, before reaching a more main road. At the next stop sign, he remained, having survived the strong winds a bug would experience traveling at 40 mph. I noticed something about this bug while driving: his long antennae would bend back strongly in the wind and his legs would struggle, waving as gusts of wind passed. This particular stop sign exists at a road that is too damn busy, meaning, it sometimes takes up to 5 minutes before a break in traffic emerges that you can merge into. When my gap in traffic emerged, I jumped on it (as I always do) and merged with traffic. This stretch of road, while only about 2 miles long, has a top speed of 55 mph. When I reached top speed, I watched the bug hold on for dear life, which it did. At the next stop, a traffic light, I was certain this bug would take flight and move on. I hoped he would, because the next stretch or road is about 10 miles long with speeds reaching 60 mph, so the effort required for this bug would far exceed anything endured thus far. But as the light turned green, once again, he faced into the wind and hunkered down. I was really impressed by the effort being made by this little creature.
As I reached a top speed of 60 mph, I began to gain a sense on concern, this little bug was surly going to experience pain as strong blasts of wind whipped past. Surely, a gust would reach this guy that would exceed his ability to hold on, his grasp would be exceeded and he would blow off the truck in a torrent of turbulent air that is cascading over my truck.
I reached the first break in speed, a roundabout which required me to slow down to about 15 mph. Surely he would evacuate now, after miles of strong winds. But no. He held on and kept going. This became a fascination now, wondering why he didn’t leave and wondering what compelled this bug to hold on. Another stretch of long road with speeds reaching 60 mph lay ahead. Mile after mile, turn after turn, speeds pummeled this bug who faced into the wind and held on. Finally, I reached a stretch of road a mile long with a long line of traffic that led to a 4-way-stop, with plenty of time to wave the white flag and move on. But now, he wandered the windshield exploring his surroundings until I reached the stop sign, and began my next stretch of road which once again, was a few miles long with speeds of 60 mph. Once again, he faced into the wind and held on.
We reach the next juncture, and after this long journey of being beaten down by fierce turbulent winds, I wondered how much more this little guy could take. And once more, I feared for him, for even though the journey had been tough, the worst stretch or road yet laid ahead: a 6 mile stretch where speeds reached 65 to 70 mph. When a gap in traffic emerged, once again I surged forward accelerating in speed and reaching a top speed of 65 mph, this time, my fear for the challenging conditions reaching a pinnacle – how could this bug possible endure these turbulent winds??
Then it happened. The winds were so strong, that one of his legs bent back in a way that could have only meant it broke, it was an angle too unusual to be normal. My heart sunk. I felt a sense of horror, I felt responsible. If it were not for my speed, perhaps this bug would not be losing a leg. And I just can’t cause another living creature pain. I can’t. I can’t even kill a spider, I shoe it into a cup and let it loose outside. Causing another living organism pain is just unacceptable for me. As soon as I saw this fate for the bug, a leg being ripped backwards in a way that surely was to its’ end, I searched frantically for the first place to pull off the road, which was a left turn lane about a mile down the road. For about 60 agonizing seconds, I watched this leg flail unnaturally in the wind until I could peel off and swap the bug off my truck. By God if this bug was not going to exit my windshield of its own accord, I would swat it off to prevent it from enduring any more of this leg crushing wind. So, I did. I grabbed a piece paper and swatted him from my windshield.
After having swatted the bug from my windshield, I began the final length of my journey to work. I arrived at work wondering what happened to this bug, and as I exited my truck, there he was, right there on my windshield, much to my dismay. He had survived, the entire journey. And what surprised me even more, was he walked toward me on my windshield and faced me, his leg seemed to work perfectly. We starred at each other for about a minute before I departed my truck for work, after all, it was 8:02, and I officially began my day at 8. I didn’t really want to leave, I wanted to see what happened to this bug, but alas, I had to go. I walked away amazed that the bug made the entire journey.
But the journey of this bug had a profound impact on me. He not only endured a long torturous journey, wrought with high winds, a leg bending unnaturally backyard, and being swatted by a rolled up paper, but he also found himself in a new place. It made me think about times in our lives when we are unexpectedly thrust into a new life, never to know the life we once knew. After all, in bug miles, this bug just made the million-miler club. A bug, as far as I know, could never make the journey of 25 miles. I have to believe that bugs, without human intervention, probably live their lives in a relatively small area, perhaps in an area of a few miles.
This bug was just hopping around, exploring its’ environment, and ended up on my windshield, just minutes, even seconds, before I arrived, taking it on a journey that would forever change the life of this bug. This bug was probably born, and lived in and around my apartment complex in Tigard; now, it finds itself near Dairy Creek in Hillsboro, never to see Tigard again. Never to know the places where it searched for food, or water.
I found myself relating to this bugs journey. At one time or another, we all find that without a moment’s notice, we are thrust into challenging conditions, and changes in our life, ones that whether we are prepared for it or not, thrust us into a new life, one where we are never to know the life of our past again. We all move to new places across the country or the world, or lose a loved one, or start school at a new school, or begin a new job, and are faced with a new set of unfamiliar conditions – at times, with no notice or time to mentally prepare.
My life has had many of these “flights of the butterfly.” At 22, I left California, my parent’s home, my friends, familiar roads, familiar restaurants, familiar life, to pursue a degree in Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, Oklahoma. I spent two and a half years there, learning new roads, meeting new people, experiencing a new school, and chasing storms across the Plains, at times feeling like I was taking my life into my own hands.
While in Oklahoma, I moved to Texas to work for FEMA, arriving on the day of my move at a house where I had booked a room for rent, only to learn the room had been rented and I had not been informed, and there I stood on the porch of a house, with a car full of my life, with nowhere to go, hundreds of miles from home. The next summer, I took an internship in Monterrey, CA, and three weeks before moving, my assignment was changed to Bay St. Louis, MS (thanks Navy!). I could not find a place to live, so I drove there, all day, arriving at midnight, with no place to stay, and once again, with a car full of my life, wondering what to do, and no place to go.
Most recently, I divorced my wife, and in three weeks’ time, made the decision to move to Oregon, pack up my life, and drive five days across county to arrive in Beaverton, OR, with a room for rent in a man’s apartment whom I’d never met (he is now one of my best friends). I didn't have a job, seven thousand dollars in savings, and wondering, what to do. Like this bug, I had made a long journey, found myself in an unfamiliar place, and had the perseverance and courage to survive.
We all do that. We all, at one point or another in our lives, find ourselves thrust into an unfamiliar environment, and a set of new conditions, and subsequently realize that we can never again return to the life we knew just moments ago. It’s an inevitable fact of life, we can’t hide from it, we can’t “plan” our lives enough to escape moments when our lives change forever at a moment’s notice. All we can do is find ourselves at the end of that long arduous journey, face the circumstances that led us there (the bug and me at the truck), take it all in, and begin anew, and for a moment, pay reverence for the growth that we will only later appreciate.
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