Preying for peace

It's hard to stay angry while protecting a preying mantis. I discovered this yesterday while sitting on a bench in the middle of campus.

Why was I on the bench? 

Because I'd been working in the cold library all day and I needed to warm up. 

Because my phone was dead and the bench was halfway between the library and the building where I'd left my phone charger.

Because I'd encountered another petty problem threatening to thwart my heroic quest toward living a normal life in my own house with my own family and my own bed.

Because I was angry. 

So I went outside and sat, alone, breathing deeply.

Nothing much going on. Cicadas humming, birds chipping, IT guy hustling equipment across campus.

But then one bird--a female cardinal--hopped down on the pavers right in front of me and starting poking at something that looked like a small brownish leaf, until the leaf moved in a way that suggested volition.

It was a preying mantis, a small brown one, extending its wings to bulk itself up. How could such a tiny, delicate creature fight off a bird so much bigger?

But it did. The cardinal scooted into a nearby bush and the mantis stood wobbling, almost invisible against the pavers.

Someone is bound to step on that mantis right after it has fought off death by cardinal, I thought. But not on my watch!

So I sat and watched for foot traffic, scarce at first. Then a colleague from the geology department led a group of students up to a garden plot nearby and started introducing students to gneiss and quartzite and a chunk of the Canadian shield and explained how these rocks had arrived in the nonglaciated part of Ohio, and when he was done, he led his class right past my bench.

Watch for the preying mantis, I said. Watch for the praying mantis, he told his students. We don't want to hurt a preying mantis. No one asked why, but the last student lingered to take a photo with his phone. (I would have done the same if my phone hadn't been dead.)

Later another colleague stopped by the bench. Watch for the preying mantis, I said. By then the mantis had turned around and seemed to be looking directly at me, though who's to say how a mantis perceives the world or what it makes of a big lump of human being sitting on a bench. I asked my colleague to take a photo and send it to me, but the minute she handed me her phone, the mantis dashed away toward the bushes far more quickly than I could have imagined. It hit the dirt and became all but invisible.

Still alive, though. Maybe it got chomped by a predator ten minutes after I stepped down as its protector, but I'd served my purpose. It was still breathing and so was I, and best of all, I wasn't angry. 

Would peace fill my life if I protected a mantis daily? 

Sadly, I'm unlikely to find the answer.