Whither Take It Easy?

(This is from here.)

Before I forget: there's a story I've been meaning to mention.  Last week I was on my way to a meeting, a meeting I hope I can tell you about one day soon, & I noticed a big black ant in my car.  These ants occasionally find their way into my house, I'm always swatting them away in the kitchen.

Now, even though I am a vegan, I am ambivalent about insects.  I don't feel much closeness to them, except maybe bees, & besides I'm scared of scary insects, & have stomped them out of fear without remorse.  & so, in general, I am not as sad about a dead ant as I might be about a chipmunk which my dog Pauline (my beautiful murderer!) has killed in the backyard.

& yet, as I was driving to this meeting, just me & this ant, I started to feel very, very sad about her.  She was very far away from her anthill (or whatever social ant situation she lived in), & it seemed to me that, even if the ant stayed in the car until I got home, she might not be able to find her way back.  In fact, when I pulled in to the place where I had the meeting, the ant had disappeared into a vent on the dashboard.

Truth is, I had forgotten all about the little thing by the time the meeting was over, & I had to go run some errands.  The windows were open & I was singing along to something when the little ant crawled out onto the door right next to me, took a wrong turn, & flew out the window into the warm summer day.

She probably didn't die - insects are awful sturdy - but she was now impossibly far from home.  & that made me sad.  It was a feeling that I couldn't shake for the rest of the day.  I don't feel any real emotion when I step on a bug, but something about the little ant finding itself so very far from home got to me.  What's up with that?

What does this have to do with today's theme, which is "take it easy"?  Oh who knows.  Just be aware, it's on from 4-6 pm today on 88.1 fm WRFL & online at wrfl dot fm.  Like usual.  I hope you'll listen.

Special note to ants: stay out of the car!