tiny wings

I’ve befriended a bee that has been following me around my garden.

While I picked weeds and watered thing, this bulbous bee tottered about. I first found him on my way out the back door sitting on the first paver. I could have easily stepped on him and thank goodness I didn’t. Why wasn’t he up flying about, dancing from flower to flower collecting pollen. Tis the season to play amongst the petals. I bent down, observed him, assumed he was tuckered out, and went on my way. Something stuck in my mind about this bee, it looked off.

I found him again near my makeshift potting station. There he was in the liriope monkeying around on the blades of grass. He looked like he was having fun climbing about, so I left him be, again. There was something off, something different about this bee. He was a mysterious ground bee, maybe he was raised by centipedes or ants. Where was his family?

Today, my watch told me to get up and move, so I walked downstairs to where I knew some weeds were gaining force and pulled. Bare handed, I picked clovers and small oak tree saplings from the ground while rain awakened mosquitos feasted on my sweet flesh. I picked quicker as the little flying vampires attacked me. Having enough of them I rushed over to the tall slumping sack of garden refuse and saw my bee friend again. Still and somber, at the top of the paper opening. He made it through the crazy storm and I am sure he was tuckered out.

I stopped longer this time and looked at him. He didn’t fly, couldn’t fly, not because he didn’t have wings but because the wings he has were just not enough to carry his amazing body about, therefore he was a ground bee. I found a paper towel and coaxed him onto it with the thought, “My dude needs to get to Juju’s (my daughter’s) wild flower garden.” I scooped him up and here we sit waiting for the sun.

I type this message while he rests atop a plastic mason jar lid that has a sugar water soaked paper towel in it. When the sun comes out a bit, I will take him down to the wildflower garden and attempt to put him on one of the flowers to resume his bee-utiful life.

Many life lessons

To be a helper

I help when I see a need. I care when I feel like I have something to give. Being a helper is a practice I choose to undertake when the world presents me with an opportunity to do something. I must though have a boundary to the help I give because I will get burned out and resentful if I make the help transactional.

To slow down

I often feel forced to move at the speed of commerce and productivity. Beyond the man made culture I find myself in, the natural world moves slowly and in cycles. It doesn’t rush even if it’s flow is rapid. Moving slower allows me to enjoy more and take in more.

We are ALL different, we all have “small wings”

Between each of us are differences that set us apart. Some of these differences makes us struggle a bit more than others in the culture we inhabit. How we observe these differences is important to our self esteem and how we live in communities. To judge, ridicule, and shame or to care for, support, and celebrate – what do we do about our differences and those of others?