I live with my ants

We only had ants at the other house a few times, always after heavy rainy periods. But when they came, they came in armies. At first I thought their mission was simply the capture of errant crumbs and I cleaned obsessively and used charming home remedies to intercept their intelligence. But I came to realize that these were hardened soldiers; they marched in disciplined files and their real objective was to overrun me. Peppermint oil wasn't going to do it. I needed to get aggressive and take the whole nest out. Nasty, yes, but I was up for it.

The word "eusocial" combines the Greek prefix for good with the word social. Humans, who of course came up with the word, are "good social," as are honey bees, and, yeah, ants. Organisms that are eusocial express the highest level of sociality. They engage in complex behavior like group decision making, cooperative care of the young, and division of labor. And beings that are eusocial—good social—are able to do all kinds of things, including, ironically, wage war.

The ants in my new house aren't eusocial and they don't wage much of anything. They're loners who stroll around seemingly pointlessly. They're not triggered by rain either. They're there in droughts. They're there in the winter. They're just there. Not a lot of them, just one here, one there. But they are always there, traipsing across the kitchen table, scurrying over my yoga mat. They don't really bother me, which is good because I wouldn't know how to fight them if they did. Maybe I'm too much like them, not anti-social, but no longer eusocial either. I do remember it, though, working well with others, having purpose, finding the drive to go on the offensive. I just feel different now. I see that life's path is more squiggly than straight. And that being unaccompanied can actually feel safe and comfortable.

Whenever one of these tiny souls tickles across my arm or ends up in the cereal bowl, I wonder, is she also buffeted by heart ache? Unmoored by the pandemic? Or just made a bad decision and got lost?

Oh, there's one now, meandering across the laptop screen. There are no comrades in sight. It's just the two of us here, together but alone. Alone but together.