The ant nest consisted of white plaster with a glass plate on top. My father had made it himself, a flat slab of plaster with about five chambers and some tunnels carved out. He had cast it long before I was born and studied his ants for years. Sometimes, the colony would die, and then we would need to find a new queen who could establish a new colony. We were allowed to watch the ants as they carried the pupae around and seemed to feel everything with their little feet. There was a tube on the side where we could add water and give them food. My mother said, "Don't give too much water!" Otherwise, the entire plaster tile would flood, and the ants would drown.
Reflecting on those moments, I now understand how my father's unique ability to zoom in shaped my perspective. His intense focus, a trait that served him well as a scientist, also became a gift in his mobility-impaired state. He transformed his immediate surroundings into a vast kingdom. This skill felt like he could open a universe within a universe. His intense observation and presence revealed worlds within worlds, a perspective that always intrigued me.
Picture this: seated next to a wooden post in an alpine meadow, my father could entertain himself for weeks. He observed the ichneumon wasp with a captivating intensity. Armed with his trusty folding chair and camera, he was ready to capture the next big buzz in a reality show starring one very focused wasp and one very dedicated audience. My father would note whether the wasp was at the entrance, getting in or coming out, and taking pictures, a seemingly simple act that required the right time for the light to shine into the hole and for the wasp to move not too fast to get the picture sharp. It was a quiet amusement, a paradise for a curious scientist.
When we returned home, my mother would bring her own V8 films and my father's camera rolls to the photo lab. After a few weeks, the developed photos arrived. My parents then placed them in white plastic frames made explicitly for easy photo swapping, featuring frosted glass in the front. Over time, the frames turned yellow. These were expensive colour prints, more significant than the standard A4 size back then, which was remarkable considering how frugal my parents were. Each photo was meaningful, filled with mystery, stories, experiences, and memories of vacations and nature.
Insightful and marvelously vivid