A Field Guide to Compassion
Written By Catherine Newman
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I feel so many things: proud of this boy's bravery; a diffuse sense of worry, even though there's no suggestion that Ben is about to clutch at his throat in an allergic fit of anaphylaxis; a tender, guilty gratitude that this big kid is here again, in my arms, allowing himself to be mildly fussed over; and outrage, or more precisely rage, toward the attacker who has made my son's elbow look like something out of a catalog of country hams. But Ben? He's just feeling curious. At his urging, we get out the field guide so he can identify his little wingy nemesis — which turns out to be the terrible, common honeybee.
Thanks to a combination of our many nature outings and Ben's ongoing obsession with classification, this book is getting a lot of use this summer. And the insect world has become not just a nature study for us, but also a kind of emotional laboratory. Our dealings with bugs and critters allow us to experiment with a range of feelings that are precisely human: regret, fear, disgust, and grief. Above all else, perhaps, is compassion. There's the morning when Ben spots a slug sliming its way along a tree root and runs for his bug catcher — "even though it's not actually a bug, of course." The slug is coaxed inside the mesh cage, named (Sluggy — what else?), offered shreds of lichen (snack or interior decoration, as the slug sees fit), and admired. In five seconds, he goes from pest to pet, and his eating the delphiniums is forgiven as we marvel over his many talents, his sluggish joie de vivre.
