What I Learned from Sitting on an Anthill

I sit beneath the shade of a tree, pen and paper in hand.  Dozens of ants crawl in and out of their little holes in the dirt, across the gnarled roots of the tree, up my leg, onto my paper.  I casually brush them away and focus on what is happening around me in the common area...

There is a constant buzz of human activity amidst the courtyard, though no one stays here for long.  Students with backpacks in tow are on a mission.  They walk quickly down the sidewalks that cut across the grassy field.  Other students are not in such a hurry, their feet shuffling along slowly, keys jingling as they twirl their hokie passports around and around their finger.  Doors can be heard slamming shut frequently as people come and go from the dorms that enclose this green area.

Two boys of short, shrimpy stature walk side by side, heads face down, staring awkwardly at the ground as they stroll along and murmur a few words of polite conversation.  Freshmen.

A few yards away from these boys a skateboard speeds down the sidewalk.  Its rider is tall, buff, with an achieved air of perfectly practiced non-chalance as he attempts to do various flips and tricks on his board.  He meets no one's gaze as he rolls past them, darting in and out of people, his cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  He finally halts to a stop in front of a group of other similar looking guys, kicks his board up, and pauses to talk.  One of the boys from this group has a strong, confident voice that carries across the courtyard.  His shaggy hair flips out from beneath his backwards cap.  Although it is late afternoon and he stands mostly in the shadows, he must have an acute sensetivity to the sun since he feels he must still wear dark sunglasses that block people from reading his facial expressions.  His arms are folded across his chest and his feet are spread apart, planted firmly on the ground in a confident, assured stance.  He leads the conversation for the rest of the group.

In the grassy field next to the skaters, three boys with lacrosse sticks in hand are casually batting the ball back and forth.  Their friendly banter travels across the field: 

"Oooh!  That bounced right in!" "I know, right?" (laughter)

(ball goes flying into a tree) "My bad."

(five minutes later) "Dude, I went to West End today..."

Scattered across the common area, people sit alone talking on their cell phones.   Animated chatter emerges from a girl in bright pink gym shorts sitting on the steps in front of her dorm.  On the opposite side of the field, a guy sits on a picnic table bench.  His body language speaks differently than the bubbly girl's.  He is hunched over, arms resting on knees, chin in hand.  He looks down as he speaks in low tones into his cell phone.

While all this is going on, people are constantly cutting through the courtyard-- some are determined to get to their destination and do not look up as they hurry by.  Others look up at the sky, over at the lacrosse players, down at their feet, over at me.  Uh oh.  Now one of the lacrosse players has spotted me beneath my tree as well.  He turns to look at me every now and then.  Even the concerned guy on the cell phone has shifted positions on his bench and now faces me directly.  I suppose I am growing less and less inconspicuous.  It's time for me to collect my notes and move on.

I stand up from the ground and brush the dirt off the seat of my shorts.  I gaze once again at all the little holes in the dirt that the ants have been crawling in and out of.  I haven't noticed any one colony of ants here-- just a bunch of individuals crawling along by themselves, some really tiny ones, some of the larger ant variety.  Each does their own thing, seemingly unaware of the others' existence; yet they are all coexisting, sharing the same shelter from the same shady tree.  At first glance, they may seem as if they are all loners, just part of their individual colonies-- but this separated seemingly non-community is in fact a community in itself.