She probably wasn't aware

by TCat

1 she didn't know that she didn't know.

2 the moon was close to full and the hermit crabs were already out, chewing loudly on the garbage, the food scraps left at the compost pile, chewing in a way such that you could hear their tiny bites, their claws scampering over orange peels and coconut shells, all against the backdrop sound of waves, softly approaching then retreating.

3 the sun had set; the air was still, the sand flies were out looking for fresh blood- ours- and there was laughter as our group advanced down the path with Mario, who, in barefeet, plunged ahead, pointing out this type of bird, that type of tree, pointing his headlamp at this and that, and then explaining that these fist-sized hermit crabs were born, young and small in ocean but lived most their life on land and that on land they changed shells multiple times, and that this was done in a group exchange.

4 I asked-- but how does that work, when you need to swap houses, how does one crab make that clear to another, after all you can't hang a realty sign out the doorway and that's when Mario paused, and then he said that he'd never seen the swap firsthand, so I retorted- they must feel really vulnerable switching from one residence to another.

5 and soon after that is when I heard what I hoped I wouldn't hear:

--crack--

(we had been walking in mostly darkness) and she said

oh I hope I didn't step on one.

6 she probably wasn't aware, that is, she was unaware that she was unaware, and yet I wonder: how does one become aware so that you can stop the things that you know could and can happen, for ourselves, for others; for how much control do we actually have?

6S

TCat writes from Portland, Oregon where she looks out the window and into the world and wonders, particularly of recent, how and who is turning those gears in all their intricate, interlocking parts—who is pulling the strings?