I’M ALWAYS FINDING little flying crickets in our house, hopping near the front door, trying in vain to escape. What a horrible sense of direction this species must have to keep showing up on the wrong side of the door all the time.
It’s good karma to free insects. It’s not that you’ll get some reward when you die if you usher an angry horsefly through the crack in your car window with gentleness — the karma is immediate. Hot meets cold, and the cycle is extinguished. You direct a disoriented cicada toward the exit, sanity reigns, and in that moment of release both creatures are liberated. So when I find a flying cricket, I catch it and bring it outside. It’s usually so frantic from flying into windowpanes all I have to do is hold my hand open, and it jumps onto my palm. It’s like it knows I’m its only chance for getting out alive.
Ladybugs aren’t as intuitive. One time a ladybug hitched a ride on a bunch of cilantro from the grocery store to our kitchen. I found her rafting on a cilantro leaf floating in the sink. When I tried to catch her she started running away, buzzing crooked wet wings. I didn’t hold it against her. I just snipped the stalk with a pair of scissors and carried it outside, ladybug and all.