Saturday, July 19, 2014

KARMA? NOW I BELIEVE

KARMA? NOW I BELIEVE T. Wieland Allen See, I’ve never had a problem believing that we reap what we sow, that what goes around comes around, and what you do to others they will do to you. But karma? Nah. Even though when I think about it, they are all the same thing. So if karma means that circumstances repeat themselves; then, yeah, I can attest to it as being real. Twelve years ago three of our grandsons from California were visiting us and the oldest of the visiting boys was getting ready to swing on a tire swing in the back yard. The tire swing was cleverly made to look like a horse. Grandpa had tied a heavy rope around it and tied the other end to a huge tree. We named the horse Prissy Sue. Prissy Sue was a thoroughbred, her craft festival papers proudly declared. Grandson Jarrett was going to mount the tire swing and have fun on the swing. As he put his hand into the mouth of the rubber horse to help him mount, he screamed “bloody murder,” as we used to say. There was a wasp’s nest in the mouth of the rubber horse and a wasp stung him on his hand. He wasn’t very old, so it was a real shock and the sting hurt the little guy badly. We immediately took him into the house and applied some of PawPaw’s Ointment to the area of the wasp sting. That was not a very good memory for Jarrett to have relating to his summers in Oklahoma. He was a trooper, though, about it. We were overly sympathetic about it since we were in charge of him and his brothers and felt like we had neglected our duties. I guess there was no karma necessary because we were compassionate toward Jarrett and his pain. Two years later our entire family was attending a family wedding in Sonoma, California. We were renting a big four bedroom house with three baths, a garage apartment, a giant kitchen, and a huge dining room which accommodated all ten of us. The living/den area, which the grandkids claimed as their own early on, had huge overstuffed chairs with ottomans which made into beds. All five of the grandkids had a ball playing in their own self adopted area. The house was an ideal place, very rural, with a large barn and many acres of land. The five grandkids explored the premises, loved being together, and enjoyed the rented house with its outbuildings. They became very adventuresome after they got over the fear that seven year old grandson Jesse instilled in them when he said he saw a bloody chainsaw in the old barn and he thought the chainsaw murderer was buried there. The youngest grandson, six year old Stephen, never ventured within 100 feet of the barn after that wild story. Their adventure on the second day that we were there was more memorable. Four of the five grandchildren came running into the house yelling and screaming that wasps were stinging Nathan, Sure enough, Nathan came busting into the door crying loudly, saying amid sobs that he had been stung many times. We treated him for eight wasp stings, gave him Benadryl and made him lay down and stay quiet for a while. After we quieted Nathan down, we asked the other four kids what had happened. They all talked at once and related an interesting story. It seems that the five of them were playing down by the pasture, standing behind the log fence bordering the pasture. We were told that there were some birds in the pasture close to the kids and Nathan bragged that he could hit one of the birds with a rock. The other kids included his cousin Jesse, his brothers Jarrett and Stephen, plus his cousin Lindsey, the only girl in the group. Of course they called him a liar and challenged him to try. According to all the kids, Nathan found a rock, threw the rock at a bird and, sure enough, downed the bird. According to them, all of a sudden out of nowhere a swam of wasps started toward them. The kids all took off running toward the house. What happened next was hard to believe, they said, but the grandchildren all agreed that it was true. They swore that the swarm of wasps flew right past the four of them and targeted Nathan as all five of them ran toward the house. Not one of the other kids was stung by the wasps, even though they were behind Nathan on the frantic run. The kids said that the wasps enveloped only Nathan and stung him. He was finally able to get away from them and run into the house with the other kids. The mystery was why the wasps targeted Nathan and only Nathan. He was the one who had thrown the rock and hit the bird. Maybe there is something about birds and wasps hanging together. Who knows? All five of the kids told the identical story. Fortunately, Nathan recovered from the eight wasp stings in time to enjoy the beautiful outdoor wedding the next day. I have told that story hundreds of times, even laughing along with other people at the image of poor Nathan running ahead of the other kids with the wasps chasing him and only him, even flying en mass past the other kids as if the wasps knew that Nathan had been the kid who had thrown the rock that knocked the bird to the ground. It was a funny image in our minds, kind of like a movie cartoon, and my telling the story has elicited many laughs from myself and other people at Nathan’s expense through the years. He didn’t seem to mind, seemed to kind of enjoy being the center of a funny story. So back to karma and my sudden belief in it. Ten years removed from Nathan’s experience with the wasps, the telling of the story came back to bite me, or maybe I should say “sting me.” I had been trimming my long hedge along the courtyard, enjoying every minute of it, looking forward to the end so I could stand back and admire the work I had done with my hedge trimmer and my new long pole chain saw which I use to cut the outer edge of the hedge that is too far for the hedge trimmer to reach. I was down to the last section of the hedge which is beneath a pergola which has Virginia creeper hanging from it, serving as a decorative vine. I love the Virginia creeper because it turns brilliant colors in the fall and the berries feed the birds in the fall and winter. In trimming the hedge I also have to trim the Virginia creeper so that it doesn’t hang all the way down but merely creeps along the top of the pergola structure. While trimming the last section of the Virginia creeper with the pole saw, getting ready to change equipment and trim the hedge, suddenly I felt a sharp sting in my upper arm. I grabbed my upper arm and a wasp flew off of my shirt. Suddenly there were two more wasps who came at me. One stung my other arm in two place. I started running to the house being chased by the wasps. Speaking of karma, while I was running to the house being chased by the wasps, I suddenly had the image in my mind of Nathan and his running ahead of the other kids while the wasps targeted him. It must have been terrifying for him. After reaching the house, running in and closing the door, I checked the places where I felt sharp pains and, sure enough, I had five wasp stings on my arms, two on one arm and three on the other arm. They hurt like crazy. I suddenly imagined how Nathan must have felt with eight stings on his little seven year old body. He was a tough kid to refrain from putting on more of a screaming scene than he did. Benadryl Topical Gel relieved my pain after a while and ice prevented the areas from swelling too much. PawPaw’s Salve finished the job, covering the bright red punctures with its greasy anticeptic properties. Karma? What goes around comes around? You reap what you sow? No doubt about it for me. The comments people make in jokingly saying, “It’s karma all over again,” fit this situation to a T. I had told Nathan’s story many times, laughing along with other people at the mental image of the wasps chasing him and bypassing the other grandchildren. Here I was ten years later being chased by wasps at my own house and also being stung. No doubt about it, it‘s karma. I took a long rest after making sure I wasn’t going into shock in case I was allergic to the wasp stings. Then I grabbed a can of wasp spray and took off for the courtyard where the chase had begun. I was loaded with arsenal and I was going to use it. Two wasps were flying around the before-mentioned area so I let loose long trails of the wasp spray, targeting the wasps. They were faster than the spray was, so they kept flying out of the area of the spray. My intent was to finish the job, only lacking one last section of the hedge, the one which obviously had the wasp nest somewhere in the Virginia creeper at the top of the pergola. I emptied the entire can of wasp and hornet spray on that small section of foliage. Just in case the wasps came back and wanted to play chase with me again and use me for their pin cushion, I put together a protective outfit. I donned my thickest down-filled ski jacket, figuring that if the wasps came back and wanted a better taste of me, even if they tried to sting me the jacket was so thick that their stingers wouldn’t make it down to my skin. I also put on a painter’s mask which covered my lower face. I found huge sunglasses of mine from the ’70s and wore them. I put on a small hat and then put a larger sun hat over that hat. There was no way those buggers were going to sting me again. I looked like one of the homeless people I see in cities wearing thick winter coats in the summertime. Maybe those coats are for protection from wasps and bees for the homeless people, too.

It worked for me. Don’t know if I looked so weird that the wasps were too busy laughing at my getup on a summer day to try to sting me or what, but I did make it through with finishing the job and cleaning up the clipped leaves without being stung again. Yes, it was karma all over again, as people jokingly say. I learned my lesson. Those wasps are persistent dudes. And, boy, are they fast. I must ask my grandson Nathan for forgiveness. He’s a precious young man and will forgive me willingly. I don’t want to run that race again with the wasps. Those dudes are fast. So karma is over. All is forgiven. Yes, even the wasps are forgiven. They were merely protecting their domicile. Buddha called it karma. Jesus said you reap what you sow. Maybe it is the same thing. I know one thing, those wasps are smart dudes. They knew who threw the rock and they knew who laughed about their chasing my grandson. They took their revenge out on both of us. Their brains must be bigger than the human brain. They learn faster and they never forget. I’m just glad loving grandsons always forgive easily, karma or no karma. Sometimes karma brings to mind good times with loved ones, so karma is not always bad. It cues us to write down the good times and the bad times, hoping we learn from the bad ones, and knowing that writing them down will help us treasure the good ones for years to come. Thanks to karma, or reaping what we sow, for bringing this loving occasion to mind, even though it came with stings of pain. They were worth it to bask in the heart warming memories of the unconditional love of grandchildren. Gramps was right, when people become grandparents they "turn just plumb goofy". We did. We became the goofiest of all. Maybe it was the over abundance of love that is shown to us. Whatever it is, I like being goofy. It's like being a kid again and you get to laugh all the time. Thanks, God, for the memories.

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