EYE CONTACT

EYE CONTACT

During the summer of 2011, a very large female preying mantis took up residence next to our front steps. For several weeks she was a fixture in the leaves of a plant next to the railing. She was a formidable looking creature who didn’t seem to be in any way afraid of us, and her lack of fear was in evidence on that day that this photograph was taken.

The kids had managed to catch her. Now, this wasn’t exactly any big feat – firstly, the kids are avid and skillful bug catchers, and secondly, the mantis, with her aforementioned fearlessness, hadn’t been hiding in the bushes, but had instead been sitting proudly and confidently on top of them. Anyway, there was much excitement and a perceived need for documentation, so out came the camera.

A mantis is a big bug with big eyes, an insect that moves with seeming purpose and intent, and it would be all too easy to attribute to it a set of human motives. The scientist in me knows better than to anthropomorphize the mantis in this photograph, knows that it is impossible for me to know what was going on in her mind, knows that the gesture in her right foreleg was just a result of her balance shifting as she seemed to calculate whether she could step from Ingrid’s hand to her face, knows that I can’t fathom her thoughts as her eyes gauged that space.

Yet even so there is eye contact between the two of them, and while I can’t know the mantis’ mind I do have a fairly good idea of my daughter’s. Whether the mantis perceived a fellow being looking with kindness across the space between them is an open question that can never be answered. But I can be certain that when Ingrid looked across that space, she saw the eyes of a fellow being looking back at her, experienced a greeting and a friendship made, felt a spark of recognition and a sense of empathy. And maybe that’s enough.