BALTIMORE
12/12 and 12/15
NEW HAVEN
12/19 to 12/22
Crane flies metamorphose like any butterfly: egg, larva, pupa, sky.
As larvae, they live near water. They feed on rotting plant matter in the soil of the bank. They chew the wet ground into oblivion, releasing it once it becomes small enough for soil microbes to finish off. They consume and excrete, tiny engines of decomposition in the fecund earth. A crane fly larva, the leatherjacket, may live like this for as long as three years.
Then, in the lazy heat of late August, they burst forth from their pupa and emerge as crane flies. There may be thousands at a time fleeing the ground.
They have ten days to find a mate, lay all their eggs, and die.
It's a frenzy; adult crane flies don’t eat, they don’t even have mouths to try. All they have is the energy that was carefully stored by their larval body; there against the clock they meet.
The mating rituals are clumsy and gorgeous. Male crane flies will link legs to form a lace-like cloud in midair, hoping to catch the attention of a mate. Their long bodies join and break, an infinite kaleidoscope of legs and wings. Twigs and glass.
The female will go on to lay as many as four hundred eggs in a single day. And then, once their work is through, the entire surviving remains of the generation may seem to die nearly at once, littering the ground, strewn.
When I find myself caught in cycles I am a larva. My shame is wet and rotting; I churn it through my body, breaking it down in the hope that when it becomes so small that I can no longer see it, it may become the burden of the ground. But there is always more work to be done. What looks like forever is a square foot of ground and my routine is rote and sunken. That’s what I can’t stomach; take me to the sky.
I envy the crane fly for being born not once but three times. I do my best when I know something new is coming. They used to think a metamorphosing insect’s brain turned to soup in the pupa. In this theory the old body would die. The pupa would completely digest its carcass in order to form the new adult insect, retaining nothing of what it was before. But it’s not true- they started shocking butterflies, and we learned that they remember pain. The nervous system remains, and some things don’t change.
There’s a heaven in taking flight and throwing a body to the wind. There’s something to the hurried frenzy of it all. Yes, it says, you never have to come back down. You’re floating to the ceiling light, fucking on the window screen, running a body until it quits. You are sky and legs, built to tumble, silent and so free.
But there is no mouth to feed that kind of pleasure.
I am told when you dream of an airplane that it denotes the spiritual realm; it’s unnatural for us to be above it all. When I dream I’m on a plane it always ends crashing back to earth. I’m bruised but never harmed, just returned, shocked and terrified. I always think the flight will last, never ready for the landing. I think of the crane fly caught in my window screen, flying until it wasn’t. I think of the littered ground.
I imagine myself as the crane fly and I am looking at the ground for the first time from the sky- I see the fertile earth, the milkweed and the water plantain. I see the beaver and the trout. I see the river bank where the eggs are lain and the earth is broken. I see the river run. I wonder why I spent all those years looking up.
The crane fly is a moment, ten days in a long life of dirt and toil. What is it to let the mundane be enough? To savor the slow decay and my place in it, to settle into the years. To keep the show running just for the sake of it. To know that I may serve that which I can’t see.
In the end, a larva doesn’t leave behind a body, it is risen. I cannot earn or demand the sky.
The crane fly is to be born when you least expect it. It’s finding yourself on the plane. It’s remembering pain. It’s continuing the cycle, crashing to the ground, grinning ear to ear.
How sweet it is to be returned.
As you may have guessed, I will only be tattooing crane flies in these locations, and minimally as I am just doing a few small guest spots this winter. They will be freehanded with you the day of your appointment, with as many specifics discussed beforehand as needed. As always, this is a collaborative design process- while we are working within a limited motif, you can consider form, size, and placement fair game.
Booking and all other information can be found via the links below.
Thank you. I am so glad to be back in this way.
-Jude