Let me set the scene. It’s an incredibly rainy day, and like all rainy days, there is a stillness brought onto the world that even the city of Toronto is subject to. I am inside, there is a candle burning, and the breeze is cool. For all intents and purposes, this is a moment I could, in good faith, be calmed by. Somehow, I am not. I have been restless, I think, in my pursuit of my recent ambitions, and I have driven myself to a point in the pines, so to speak. I am always looking to the world to tell me something, and today the weather is telling me that no amount of rain or Leonard Cohen will coat my restlessness. Maybe I need to look at it more closely. 

Last week, I read an odd book (thanks, Goodreads, for the recommendation). This book is called How to Hold a Cockroach by Matt Maxwell. The premise is a gentle reminder about our fears and our sense of freedoms that I’ll get into more in a second, but first, I want to say the book is good in its messaging, but it is a tad redundant (just a warning). This is less of a criticism and more of a point to the replicated scenarios we encounter in our lives. Let me explain.

In the book, the protagonist encounters a cockroach and is immediately met with disgust. The character says, what the hell?, as many of us would if met by this type of visitor in our home. But like all good books, the cockroach is only a metaphor, and that metaphor is reshaped from chapter to chapter. 

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though. In the first chapter, when the cockroach is still just a cockroach, the boy is reminded of how he learned that the cockroach was something to both fear and be disgusted by. He recollects the memories where cockroaches were introduced to him this way, the situations which reinforced this understanding, and the way these truths have piled on themselves over time. 

As the book carries on, the cockroach is transformed. It becomes the boy, it becomes love, the past, the future, death and doing. It becomes everything, and the structure of each is the same. Somewhere along the line, the cockroach, which is now the boy, or love, the past, the future, death or doing has been made to seem disgusting or fearful or altogether bad. The cockroach demonstrates the way we’ve been warned by our stories, and the world appears consistent with what we’ve learned. 

It was Thomas King who said, The truth about stories is that’s all we are. We are comprised of our stories, and our interpretations of the world are too. We hold little fact as solidly as we do our stories. The cockroach is disgusting; we have reason to be afraid. King, who taught in the Department of English at the University of Guelph (among many roles and accolades), knows the value of stories; he says it is up to us what we do with them. 

So you might say, why are you talking about cockroaches and stories and rain and restlessness? and I’ll tell you it’s because I have yet to figure out both what the cockroach even is in my life, and what the story I’ve been telling about it is all about. I am restless for a reason, but why?

Now my cockroach could be that I had one too many coffees, or it could be an existential dread associated with the fear of dying. It could be a self-narrative, or it could be a lack of sleep. We’re working with a large range here. All I know is I’m at the reaction, the cockroach must be here, I just don’t know where.

I could tear apart my metaphorical room on this manhunt for the bug that makes me restless. I could lay traps. I could search the common areas, the things I know I’m afraid of, or resistant to already. I can turn out the lights, and I can use the flashlight on my phone.

Even as I consider this, I’m left with an even more important question than what or where the cockroach is. Because what the hell happens when I find it? Do I trap it, squish it, scream and cower? Do I move? Change rooms and pray cockroaches cannot arrive there? Can I learn from the feeling? Can I reframe it?

If the truth about stories is that’s all we are, and we know the capacity for stories to shape both identity and the expressions of the world, maybe the cockroach isn’t all that bad. That’s what Maxwell’s book is all about, after all.

Maybe what has been making me restless is worrying about what is making me restless. Maybe I need to let go of trying to figure it out. Maybe I’ve made a mistake, forgotten to wear my glasses and muddied it all up? Maybe it’s not even a cockroach. Even if it is, who said this is all bad, anyway? 

The book was really a lesson in the allocation of meaning and the way we can use meaning as a way of trapping ourselves in perceivable truths. It shows us the capacity for our beliefs to crystallize and seem more monolithic and unmovable than they are. Our stories are significant not because they are true but because we believe them to be. Belief is solid, but it doesn’t have to be. You see, when belief starts to waver, it’s not long before it begins to unravel anyway. It’s a shifty thing when you get to the root of it, but you have to get to the root of it. 

Okay, so I'm restless and it’s raining and I’ve convinced myself there is something I’m waiting for that is worth getting all worked up over. Something is coming, I think anxiously. Something is coming, I think excitedly. But there may not be a cockroach, and it’s probably not for me to find out, nor should I be working to develop any stronger feelings than the ambivalence that coexisting with any other bug should build. (Remember the cockroach is only a symbol). I can tell myself that where there is smoke, there is fire. A cockroach usually means more cockroaches. But I’m not sure of either, and I’m not sure that it’s worth worrying about anyway.

In short, I’m working on listening to the way my thoughts arrive just as much as I listen to the external world and my emotions. What am I telling myself? Is it actually true? If I think it is, who said so? Where is this coming from? Where did I learn it? Maybe there’s a cockroach, maybe there isn’t, and if there is, maybe it doesn't even matter. But it’s worth asking, exploring, and being more gentle than I would otherwise. It’s worth wondering why we feel the way we do, why we resist our fears so much and why it’s so important to us to commit to long-held truths even if they are not true anymore. 

So it’s raining and the world is still, and I am restless and maybe that’s fine too. Maybe Leonard Cohen can only soothe so much. Maybe the cockroach is telling me I need to sleep. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe that’s what has been bugging me all along. Maybe being bugged isn’t so bad after all.