On The Edge Of Bees
4-20-18
We have a large patch of yellow African daisies in the middle of our bi-level yard. They have creeped past their border control and began popping up all over the adjacent lawn. I sat on a stone the other day near the pond and watched the honey bees light each flower near my feet. Landing gently they would gather up the pollen on their legs and then move to the next flower down the line. Another bee would follow in seconds and it seemed to scent track the pattern of preferred blooms, hitting the same yellow pistons of the previous beehive buddy. The hive in fact is up on a higher landing of our yard, fondly referred to as the Back40.
We’ve talked about removing the African Daisies. We’ve mulled over removing the dead portion of the avocado tree where the bees have made their nest. But all in all we respect and honor the bees so mostly we are just mindful of our cohabitation.
Dogs and toddlers are less mindful. And this not so shaggy dog story is about our little love Bitzy who thought it a good idea to bite down on a bee over by the lemon tree as the redneck was gearing up to make lemonade with dinner.
Biphasic anaphylactic shock. It’s a big term for the trauma we all went through. Each of us digesting, investigating and processing her symptoms as we Google Androided our way to affirm she needed emergency medical intervention. To the utter dismay of the medical team at the 24 hour animal hospital who couldn’t figure why we didn’t bring her in an hour plus earlier as they were also informing us that she would be $pending the night.
Truth is … It’s the middle of a rest-less nightmare and the emptiness in this bed seems so deeply sad that even the light snores from beside me can’t assure me that everything will be alright in the light of day when we can pick her up again and bring her home.
Home. Where we live on the edge of bees. With a known little pup who loves to chase lizards for hours on end. Lizards who sometimes live next to wild flowers were working drones are meeting their quota and sometimes that snap at that which moves turns into biting off more than we’ve been through.
“Hey, I’ve got one! Mom is this worse than the time that _____fill__in____the____blank___.”
If I told you my kids played this game for over a half hour after arriving back from the vet Bitzless, I would not be exaggerating. If I told you the redneck’s contributions to the merrymaking as his chainsaw traumas came tumbling down or when I started to cry retelling how happy she was just hours ago that the redneck put our porch swing together down by the pool and she was sure he’d done it just for her ….
Yeah, still makes me cry.
But it’s 5:55 a.m. and 55° more or less or so it seemed until I saw it was only 5:25 and that seemed far less serendipitous yet I would still weave it into my stream of consequences and make my way to the next blog bloom down the rhyme.
Darn, I just missed 5:30 and 53° THAT would have made up for mistaking 5:55 … But alas I’m off my game. One fur baby down and a house of sleeping loved ones.
It’s going to be okay, the voice whisper’s in my aching head. No not now I realize. Because now we know our little bliss Bitz is allergic to bees and even as we live in a honey bee world wide crisis … There’s ample opportunity in our natural habitat to encounter a bumble in the brabble or step upon a failing worker who’s even dead body contains a terminal stinger.
How do we feel safe … In the knowing we are never safe as we balance life on the edge of dis-ease.
Ultimately this is what we each have learned to do in our own not so unique ways and memes. We self-medicate, or otherwise eradicate the thought of our own fragile existence. Or we meditate on the nature of our subsistence as we come closer to surrender but not quite letting go of the tether
And sadly realizing that even as 5:55 arrives it has still dropped to only 53° and will never be the auspicious moment we anticipated .. however 5:53 and 53° feels like a sufficient prize for long winded mental wanderings. Because ultimately it takes so little to make me happy.
And truth is we either see the subtle signs that whisper we are not alone in this field of daisies or we sleep thru our daze forgetting the true nature of that which we are. I am that. Thankful and more awake than my aching head would have hoped for. Having an hour for hygge before calling the 24hr animal hospital to check on our ward. Hoping that today is less eventful and that I can perhaps enjoy some time on that porchswing.
56° and 5:56! That will have to be a win!
To bee or not too many bees. This is what I have woken to for this day and so I’ll work with it once again and always.
p.s. (4-25-18) Bitz came home and continues to regain strength and courage each day, if not also feeling a bit small and scared as she contemplates what life looks like post bee. For now, it appears she prefers livin on the edge of someone who makes her feel safe.
