Incubation

Friday, April 24 Day 39 of Quito’s COVID Lockdown. 

Day 7 of Insect Egg Incubation.

This is our 6th Shabbat in quarantine. Already we are forming new rituals. Every Friday night we family tele celebrate cross continentally. We hook up Zoom and connect three separate households. My daughter harbored with my brother and sister-in-law in Maryland and my husband’s sister and her wife who dial in from just outside of D.C. In the late afternoon, through the screen of my Iphone, I make challah with my daughter and chat with my brother in his kitchen.

In this time of our metamorphosis, a gazillion itty bitty caterpillars have been born on our windowpane held in place by my makeshift incubator. Just in time for Shabbat! I watch them amazed as they scoot along the pane with the quiet city and volcano behind them.

That night I dream that my house has been invaded by hundreds of huge, fat caterpillars. They crawl on the beams, climb up the stairs, pour out of the closets, march in trains out from under the living room rug. In the dream, I see their mother—a beautiful triangular moth with brown patterns on her wings, fancy red fern antenna and elegant feet, and fluffy red, white and black stripes down her body. She is extraordinary and I am comforted that these fat marching caterpillars overtaking my home are on their way to this new brilliant state of being.