paper-work, wasp-work, care-work

I went on a working visit to a meditation centre. I worked in the cafe, serving sweet treats, teas and coffees.

There were three wasp hives in the building. They were left there - as the first rule of the building is no killing.

In the cafe we would let the visitors know that there were a lot of wasps outside, advising they might want to sit inside away from them. People usually sat outside - it was sunny. There was a sense that they would not be disturbed by the wasps - they had been meditating, and could practice their skills on noticing the wasps rather than being irritated by them.

Within ten minutes people would usually come back inside - bothered by the wasps, that had tested their limits.

It used to be a children’s home before it became a meditation centre - I had lived there as a teenager.

I thought a lot about the residues within the building from the time it was a children’s home - about how being there in it’s new form as a meditation centre spoke to my memories as a teenager there.

I thought about the wasps being a bit like kids in the care system - the way that we brushed up against peoples limits. The way that people thought that they would not be disturbed or bothered by us - that they could flex their skills of care - and then the edges were found and they would not be dealing - their patience over-tested.

I thought about sweets - about the draw of sugar. Someone I lived with there when it was a children’s home said that it was like sweets were used to shut us up.

I thought of us buzzing around the building - our nervous systems on edge - our bodies buzzing with stress. I thought of what it was like the residue of being treated as a pest.

I collected dead wasps off the window sills and from the corners of rooms. I thought about ways to care for them. I thought about how care is learnt and practiced in the care system - how messy it is, and how dehumanising sometimes too - to be processed in distancing ways.

I thought about the residue of wasp in me - and the process of building new homes. I looked at the wasps - I looked at the paper-work - I looked at ways that I practice care now.

Wasp, I tried

I tried to say goodbye to you today -

I tried to tie up some knots and roll your body away - from mine -

I tried to skirt around your edges -

avoiding your sting

- you left -

I tried to trim the corridors and smoke you out -

I tried to bypass all your haunting

- fill up all the holes -

I tried to tell myself my sticky fingers wouldn’t stop me finding homes.

I tried to let the others know -

I tried to let the others out -

they tried to warn me in their swarms and all I did was squirm - as you drown in fizzy drinks

- they did

sticky us -

extinguishing the rising humm -

but just like I came back to where it started - clinging on

you chased the sweeter words around -

then I left you by the kitchen door

- I forgot to say goodbye -

until I picked you off the window sill -

to touch your other sides.

I look at the dead wasps...

I am always amazed by them...

sometimes I don’t know if I confuse a wasp with a bee...

sometimes I’m not sure how well I can tell the difference between them...

some people ask if I am not afraid of getting stung by the dead wasps -

sometimes the frozen pose of the wasps make my insides curl -

sometimes the separated parts of wasps take my breath away -

I always cry when I look at the wasps.

“In the spring, queen wasps wake from hibernation and start to build their nest, laying eggs and raising their first brood of daughters. These worker wasps cannot produce fertilised eggs, so spend their time helping their mother to expand the nest and raise more young.

One of their main jobs is searching for soft-bodied invertebrates to feed the developing larvae. Bizarrely, adult wasps cannot digest the food they catch because their gut is so constricted by their thin ‘wasp waists’. Instead the workers chew up the prey and feed it to the larvae. In return, the larvae produce a sugar-rich spit that the workers can drink.” _{Sussex Wildlife Trust, 2026}

Thinking about travelling from one place to the next - the straight lines marked out by the grids of institutional procedures....and the meandering of the wasp - of messy bodies - of messy stories…- what traces these courses when stories and relationships are inconsistent?

I tried to track a line in an alleyway - unrolling paper to mark a course. Pulled between the lines of structure and the rupture of lines as unruly and impulsive. Getting caught by different streams - I move both ways at the same time. Travelling and untravelling.

I think of institutional documents as the stuff of straightness and linearness - working from the top down - taking the body away with them.

Paperwork in the care system tells stories of young people guarded by conditions of care - conditional care - conditioning care into stories that define a person in relation to an institution.

The motion of unraveling and ravelling - movement supporting transitions, positions, perspective and change.

Paper-wasps

“Paper wasps are a type of social vespid wasps. The term is typically used to refer to members of the vespid subfamily Polistinae, though it often colloquially includes members of the subfamilies Vespinae (hornets and yellowjackets) and Stenogastrinae, which also make nests out of paper.

Paper wasp nests are characterised by open combs with down pointing cells.

The wasps gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct nests that appear made out of grey or brown papery material that is very similar to handmade paper.

Wasps tend to have a reputation for aggressive behaviour. Paper wasps generally only attack if they or their nests are disturbed.

Paper wasps can sting, though most stings occur because of surprise. Either by accidentally disturbing a whole nest or not noticing a solitary wasp out foraging for food.

Wasps are often attracted to typical summer events with lots of food, especially sugary soft drinks and other items like melted ice cream, melted juice pops, etc. They can also be attracted to perfumes or flowery-smelling lotions and soaps.

If possible, you could avoid the area where paper wasps are nesting and cordon off the area to wait out the wasps until cold weather comes.” -_{Wikipedia, 2026}

Attempts at hiding
- disguising
- in-between places -
folded into corners
- between the beams
- floors -
edges -
ranges of mobility -
- mirroring -
surviving -
- keeping alive dead things
- from time to time

“The colony will go on expanding throughout the summer until the queen decides to produce males and new queens. After these ‘reproductives’ have left the nest, the old queen stops laying. This means the workers no longer have access to larvae. Instead, they live on the sugar produced by rotting fruit. This can be a problem because fermenting fruit contains alcohol, so wasps can become intoxicated and rather irritating.

They are also attracted to the abundance of sweet foods that humans provide. To a starving wasp, a jam sandwich or a can of coke is just too tempting to avoid. For this reason, wasps are generally only a nuisance in late summer. Remember that these drunken workers don’t have long to live, and as soon as the winter weather sets in the entire colony will die, leaving only the new queens to hibernate through to next year.” _{Sussex Wildlife Trust, 2026}

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