There Will Be Bees

My friend who I don't know well enough, who lives in Tennessee, sent me this lovely sentiment over the internet: I hope the bees minister to you, she said. The perfect word. If only all ministers could be like bees. Or rather, I should say that I find bees minister more than ministers. The people who inspire me the most are those who go about doing what they love, making some form of beautiful thing, and do it happily without all the angst and tears that I am given to. This is why I love the bees, the singularity of their focus, the certainty of their instincts.

Anyway, yesterday everything was falling apart, I was angry and hard and adrift. Because I had no idea what else to do with my miserable self, I took my journal and my fumes out to the beehive, and I sat in the sun. I watched the girls land, carrying in their pollen and scurrying quickly out of sight. I watched them pause on the lip before taking fast flight, zooming up into the sky where I quickly lost track of them. And the bees ministered to me, yes, they did. Before I knew it my soul was soothed and everything was all right.

In some circles they speak of synchronicity as a sign that perhaps, for a moment, you are on a good path. I'll tell you this, I've seen plenty of wasps at picnics but the few times I've seen bees in the wild are so rare, I remember them clearly. A giant bumble in a lilac bush. A park bee on the clover. Now this week, the bees are finding me.

When cleaning out my grandma's apartment after her memorial service, we found this bee brooch among her jewelry. None of us had ever seen it before and didn't know it existed. It was gifted to me.

Taking a walk Tuesday afternoon, at a random time in a neighborhood that isn't mine, I suddenly heard a mighty hum and looked up to see hundreds of bees buzzing around this hive, which seems to have been exposed either by accident or by act of scummery. I felt bad for them, but they'll find a new home and it was fascinating to see the comb hanging from the tree, wild and feral like that.

 Then, on that same meandering, aimless walk, a few zigzagged blocks later I came upon this swarm. I have never seen anything like this my entire life, and then there were two in one hour. I suspect this might be the rest of the colony from the exposed hive above, though it's possible these bees were just feeling crowded and went to look for a new home. A more experienced beekeeper than me was called to come collect them. I saw yet another swarm on the drive home.

My Italian honeybees and their great Queen Carniolan toward the center there. Isn't she marvelous? There is honey in some of these cells, and a few larva, (I think that's one near the top left, tiny white worms) and down toward the bottom the orange cell holds bee bread, which is pollen that the bees have treated and packed into little loaves to be fed to babies.

A bee lands with her pollen sacks full, and I love how that bee on the left is looking right at me, well sort of. Her face is so cute but her eyes are on the sides of her head.

And then, of course, I saw Baby driving down Main Street, Longmont. Please don't notice my dirty dash. I was just so happy to know Sam and Dean are ok, that they've abandoned that Caboodle with the pony squeaky, and that Baby is back.

I don't know. All I know is that here is a clip explaining Baby, a humorous one at that.



All I know is I love you.

All I know is there will be honey. There will be stings, and there will be honey, and we will lose our way, but we will find it once again.

Thank you and goodnight.

-B

The Day We Didn't Move To L.A.

Yesterday my husband was all like, "Look, you have to decide if you really want to move to L.A or not".

To which I was like, "Stop judging me, bro! Why you always gotta be telling me to decide about L.A. when all I want is to enjoy this delicious panini?"

Then he was like, "No, seriously. Someone out there wants to interview me. In a job-type manner." I went all slack-jawed and then he said, "Now give me half of your panini".

This really interfered with my plans for the morning, which had been to write a blog and to read some Supernatural fan fiction (is there any other kind?). Who can enjoy a panini and fan fiction when you are contemplating your fate? To make matters worse, this morning I woke up to a house smelling of fish. This is what you get for eating healthy. You wake up and your kitchen thinks it's a brothel by the sea. "Houses never smell like fish in L.A," I told my husband. "Damnit, you used up all the stuff for paninis".

The problem is, what I really want is to move to Taos, live quiet, have a blue door, keep bees. No, wait. What I really want is to move to Paris, pay exorbitant amounts of money for a shabby apartment, buy dinner fresh from the market every day, stroll in the gardens, write in the cafes. BUT NO WAIT. What I really want is to follow the sun, take my girls to the beach, write scripts, try to sell them.

And also what I want is to stay here in Longmont, where it is cozy and safe.

You see? No wonder I am eating paninis at six in the morning, crying in my robe, asking my five-year-old "but why does the fish have to smell so fishy?". No wonder I do things like swear at librarians and google "Dean crying" online. (Try it)(The googling, not the swearing).

Here is what happened: I spent the morning reading Martha Beck and trying not to think about Los Angeles. I needed space to process. Meanwhile, my husband texted me every five minutes about Los Angeles. "Houses do to smell like fish in L.A," he said. "If you cook it right". We are different in this way. He is all like "Pros and Cons" and "To live in L.A., you might have to get the kind of job that pays money". Meanwhile I'm drinking tea and intoning, "My spirit guide is pretty quiet this morning". Just last week I told my sister that Britney Spears was my spirit animal. I don't think she believed me.

After a morning of panic, banana bread, Dean slash I'M NOT TELLING stories, more banana bread, it came down to this: the job didn't pay enough to live off of, not in the City of Dreams. "I have no intention of moving to L.A. and wearing Sam's Choice denim," I say, which isn't exactly true. Just yesterday I bought a Mossimo peasant blouse at Goodwill and didn't think twice. But you do get my drift.

Here's what I think. You can try to live your life like an arrow. One direction, one ultimate goal, your every movement focused and strong. I don't know where that gets you, but if Robin Hood: Prince of Theives is any indicator, it gets you stuck in a tree trunk or some woodsman's poxy shoulder. Me, I live my life like a peasant blouse at Goodwill.

Blowin' in the wind.

I am Vesuvius and this is the most ridiculous blog I have ever written.

Beekeeper

Today at work a man approached me and asked if we had any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook.

Is it a real cookbook? I asked.

No, he said. Or maybe any copies of The Book of Revenge?

Now here's the thing. Customers bring all manner of things through the queue, and I do not bat an eye. I pride myself on not batting an eye. I don't care if they're buying nudie mags, or books about sex with robots (true story), or the biographies of Glenn Beck or my arch nemesis Tim Tebow. I don't believe in censorship, and I don't believe it's my business what people choose to look at or read. I'm just happy they're buying it and not sneaking it into the men's restroom (often true story).

So when this gentlemen asked for these materials, I said, without any inflection: Is it about anarchy?

Because I was starting to get a feeling, but I honestly wasn't sure. Are we talking about bombs, or baking? Sometimes you just don't know.

This is when a co-worker chimed in and helped me. She told the aspiring Anarchist that we hadn't seen those books in in awhile. He thanked us and left, and a few minutes, while working with another customer, I replayed the conversation in my head and began to laugh hysterically.

"Is it a real cookbook?" I had asked him. What the hell was I thinking? What would they teach in the Anarchist's Cookbook? How to bake cookies without measuring precise cups of flour--because you know, down with the rules, and all that? Tips for using barbecue grills illegally? All the things a young anarchist needs to know about roasting a chicken without government interference? Don't measure out the vanilla extract, it might say. Just go ahead and pour in as much as you feel. Freedom from state! IS IT A REAL COOKBOOK, I asked him??


We have these customers, at Borders. One old farmer in a worn hat. It took me awhile to realize that he wasn't coming in for books on woodworking or metallurgy. He was coming in to have a chat. Once I wised up, I made a point of small talk. How's the table coming. How you handling the heat? You seen our new stuff on ship-in-a-bottle-building? He'd go away for an hour. Then he'd return.

We'd chat again.

I never asked if he had a wife. I don't think he did.

I worry about him, and the others like him. Widowers or old bachelors with no one at home. Borders is the only gig in town. Where are these folks going to go? Will someone remember to set aside the magazines on Will and Kate for the old ladies? The Linda Lael Miller McKettrick series that are supposed to be sent back? Will the people at the other stores know the difference between the need for a book, and the need for human connection?

Will the old men do their crosswords alone?

*********

I learned today that Mercury is in retrograde and really, that explains it all. Don't worry, my mom taught me how astrology is the devil's work, but here's the deal: You know how attached I am to my Gemini sign (married a Gemini. BFF is a Gemini. I always get along with Geminis, and you know we're the Twins, right?) and if you were a fly on our wall these last few weeks you'd have witnessed the effects of Mercury getting all down with its retro self for sure. Things are topsy-turvy. I spoke harshly to Mr. V THROUGH THE INTERNETS which I've never done before. We can blame the heat too, ok? Let's blame that. I know this much is true: I've been working out, I've been taking my B vitamins, I've been eating healthy and avoiding sweets and my stress levels are still through the roof.

Add to that the fact that my computer froze up twice today and we've got ourselves a case of Old School Mercury. No doubts about it.

Here is what I want: to keep bees. I can't think of a better thing on any level. Metaphorically, spiritually, environmentally. The honey bees are dying. If you start to cry apocalypse I will hold on to reason for awhile but eventually I will give in and fret. I don't want the honey bees to die. I don't want the world to end, because I'm a big fan of this place and call me crazy, but the apocalypse doesn't sound like a kickin' good time. There's a high chance of pestilence, and a low chance of Dean Winchester.

I like the community of the lives of bees. The female leadership. The precise, miraculous proportions of the hive, both in structure and population. It is mystical to me. How do the bees know? Bees do what they were made to do without asking why. Their yield is both beautiful and sweet. I think I could learn from the bees.

I would like to keep bees to help the earth. Because bees in the ancient world linked this world to the next. I would like to keep bees as a meditation for my soul. To learn to take something I've been afraid of in my life, and coax it sweet.

Did you know you have to talk to your bees? Neil Gaiman knows. Beekeepers say that if you don't tell the bees the news, they'll leave. They'll want to be informed of births or deaths. They want to know if you've fallen in love. There were earthquakes all over today and I can't help thinking that someone ought to alert the bees.

There are so many things we still don't know.

****

"I dreamt--marvelous error!--that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures."-Antonio Machado.

I don't know. I think that says it all.

Stop

Hi Friends stop

Mr. V and I had a plethora of asinine ideas in June stop

They include but were not limited to a visit to Elitch's on the hottest day of the year shopping for dresses on a puffy day trying 'something new' and moving on the third of July stop

You heard that right stop

We moved to a new home on the THIRD OF JULY stop

Sometimes I think my life with Mr. V is just going to be us making one asinine decision after another stop

I've decided I'm ok with that as long as we get to Paris stop

Qwest has done their best to foil my plans to join the 21st century and has prevailed for now stop

Please send chicory calico laudanum extra hooks and a man for the dog at your earliest convenience stop

In reference to you curious and I must say lurid and disturbing inquires I can only advise you to seek out an apothecary and heed the advice included herein stop

And for the love of god someone read Jared Padalecki's (@jarpad) feed on twitter and text me immediately with any and all updates stop

Don't get cute and actually stop send me the updates damnit and I'm going to say stop again now stop

Don't you stop stop

Send word immediately if you find my shower curtain stop

Love V

Stop

The Marvelous Ensemble and Magnificient Escape

In news that is of interest to my mom today:

Ayla is home sick because she and a classmate decided to re-enact some Chris Farley or Adam Sandler movie and by that, I mean that Abby puked. And then Ayla saw Abby's puke and then Ayla puked.

It worked. Busted them out of class so fast, you would have thought they were Dean and McQueen.*

"That must have been fun for your teacher," I said, and she giggled.

I didn't giggle when I remembered that I have two writing deadlines this week and one bag full of felt monkey puppets, all of which need two arms, two legs, one snout, and two body pieces, that I OH SO WISELY volunteered to cut out for Kindergarten.

Ayla is having a Despicable Me and MegaMind Marathon, and I am writing this blog instead of the stuff I get paid for, because I'm confused and I'm pretty sure Kate Middleton's going to hire someone to do the monkey puppets for me.

Maybe Camilla?

Indy has put together another delightful outfit consisting of brown velour pants, a bright yellow, silk ruffled skirt, a long hot pink tank top sticking out from underneath a long-sleeved white shirt with a pink cupcake bedazzled to the front, a headband, a flower clip, an Indian-inspired flowy scarf in hot pink, yellow, and orange that I bought after watching Slumdog Millionaire, during my brief Frieda Pinto stage (it lasted a day, Swedes cannot wear hot orange--it goes against our skin and hair palettes and also against our constitutions), one Claudia Kishi sock (red, white, and black),one neon green sock with a monkey and stars on it, and one leg warmer warn on one arm.

She is marvelous.

We are at Mom-ology today.

Thank you, and

I love you.

All of you.

Not just my mom.

*Somewhat obscure, nonsensical reference; sole purpose: amusement of the easily amused blogger with inflated sense of self.

Dress Your Fantasies In Oprah and Winchester

So you'll recall--or maybe you won't, just don't tell me you don't remember every word I've ever written on this blog or I'll likely uncontrollably sob. My ego, it's unusually fragile--that last week (hello, sentence structure) I went to Wal-mart for fake french crap and sleep meds.

What I didn't tell you is that the first bottle of Melatonin I picked up contained 100 tablets, each containing 1mg of Melatonin.

The second bottle I picked up contained 5mg tablets of Melatonin.

The third bottle? Each tablet packed 10mg of Melatonin. That's 10 times more than the first bottle, the bottle for humans and not for caffeinated elephants. (Isn't it? I don't do math).

I bought the 10mg pills.

I take two of them at 9:20 (twenty minutes before bedtime as instructed).

If I'm lucky, I doze off before midnight.

My name is Vesuvius, and I am impervious to sleep.


We're going to need another bathroom. I never looked into a mirror until I was thirteen (and boy was that a shock, to discover that not only did I bear little resemblance to D.J. Tanner but that HyperColor beige really was not my color), but my daughters are different and every morning, we're all three of us crammed in there with Indy shellacking her hair to her head and Ayla lining up every hairpin she can find in artistic, unexpected patterns in her locks and I'm wielding a curling iron, a cup of coffee, and a serious 6 am haze and this just is not going to work.

This morning I was fussing with concealer and indulging in a silly fantasy. You know, in my head. I won't tell you exactly where I was, in my head, but let's just say it was similar to imagining yourself on Oprah's couch or practicing your Oscar acceptance speech in the mirror.

Please note I am not admitting to having done either of those things. If you have had those fantasies, you are lame and pathetic, exactly like you always feared.

While I was NOT imagining myself on Oprah or kissing a golden-statue-bearing Colin Firth, I realized that not only were the goblins not removing their heads to bounce them on the ground, but they were both singing. To themselves. Ayla was singing in the shower, a rather unlikely and latent rendition of The Wiggles' "Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy", considering that we haven't listened to the Wiggles in years. And Indy--well, Indy was singing an improvised ballad by Rapunzel of "Tangled", spiced up with threats I will not repeat here because Indy is going to be a real person one day and it would embarrass her. I think.

Look, the main point of this blog is that I wanted to humiliate you for all those times you've imagined yourself telling Oprah, in peaceful and beatific tones, about how you overcame, say, your ant infestation, or your husband's nose whistling, or succeeded in your life long quest to roll the perfect cake ball. Also to shame you for the times you've fallen asleep scripting all the hilarious things you are going to say on Conan or in your guest spot on 30 Rock when your blog--I mean, uh, "spoken word poem or other thing I have never written"--is recognized for the comedic genius it is, which, I firmly repeat, I have also never done.

But in the spirit of O magazine and what I mistakenly imagine a blog is supposed to be, I would also like to have some sort of insight and it is this: I've been thinking a lot about happiness, and trying and failing to write about it, but I managed to remember something about it in the moment and not in retrospect today. If I had stayed in my head--where I was totally NOT saving the world with the Winchester brothers, wearing perky-butt jeans and packing serious sawed-off heat as 'the one who got away' from Dean--if I had stayed in that place that was so happy in my head, I would have missed all the happy that was going on now.

You know. Like, the real happy. Not the imaginary kind.


I have especially never imagined myself into the scene with the lederhosen.


I mean, I know it's been said before, but I've heard Eckhart Tolle, an exceedingly mild-mannered German, and he never said it like this.

He vould say is more like zis: Uff you spend all zee time imagining you are zee Vinchesteh's totally hot gehl-fwend, you vill miss all zee times your daughters sing inappwopwiate sings in zee showeh. Also, beige is really not youh coloh.

I am Vesuvius and I'm totally not still trying to look like D.J Tanner.

No Honey, That Sounds More Like Mel Gibson

We're driving home from school and the girls are excited because we've got double vanilla cupcakes at home with princess sprinkles, and tonight we're going to watch Despicable Me and daddy's got dinner in the oven. And one of these days I really am going to write a blog thanking the powers that be for seeing fit to bring a long line of men who cook into my life, one after the other. My life looks pretty much like the Saturday afternoon lineup on the Food Network.

And does that make me Nigella?



Of course it does.


We turn onto our street where two blocks down from our house is a police blockade. And standing in the middle of the road is a cop with a big gun--a really big gun. I don't know what to call it, I don't write books about guns (actually I do but I just call them 'rifles' and get on with it), but this is the gun that Agent Sydney Bristow would use if she was going to play at sniper for awhile. Or--well here:



The cop is holding Dean Winchester's gun. He's got it sort of at half mast, he doesn't hold it nearly as convincingly as the actors do, but still. I am driving home from Kin-dee-garten with Goldilocks and Little Red snugged up in pink cowgirl boots and mittens in the back seat and lo, we have driven into a scene from a Harrison Ford movie, and not one of the ones where he cracks a whip.

Little Red says, "Maybe those bad guys stole someone's kid" and I say "I'm pretty sure it has something to do with drugs" before wondering if 6 is really the appropriate age to give your child the 'drug dealers live up the street and mommy waves to them when she goes out to fetch the paper' talk. I mean honestly: What would Harrison do?

He would not leave without his daughter and his wife. Or his wife's suitcase. But that's just smarts.

Intrepidly I steer my mini-van past the blockade (blockade, four cop cars in the street, same diff) and I'm not really panicking or worried--I only do that over things like parenting or writing and not, as it turns out, nearby criminal activity. But we pull into our driveway and I can still see that gun from my porch and I think:

Maybe it is time to move out of Longmont.

I am Vesuvius and I never know if Nigella is talking about food or sex. But it doesn't matter.

Now I Will Me To Be A Bold Swimmer

I've been thinking a lot about the hero's journey these days.

I've never read Joseph Campbell, because Neil Gaiman scared me off of him without meaning to, but I'd like to think I know my fair share about heroes' journeys because let's face it. I am a sci-fi and fantasy geek and I always have been. She hid in secret for awhile, but she was always there.

I've been thinking about the hero's journey because a trial has come and I want to know if I can pass the test. Like the hero does.

Me and the heroes, we do ok for awhile. We deal with our little trials. Dust a vamp here, slay an orc there, use an expelliarmus before sitting down with a butter beer. We recognize we are looking for something and hey, we always knew there would be bumps a long the way.

But there was something on the horizon that we couldn't see coming, wasn't there? And so, for the heroes and for me, the stakes heighten. The little reavers we patted ourselves on the back for offing were never going to be the real trial. The world is so much larger than that.

So comes the point where the hero fully comprehends the task set before her. It is so much more difficult that she'd ever imagined. So massive and lurking and advanced. She knows that this time, the task is too large. The gods have required too much.

I felt like I hit the point where I can't carry on. I can't do it anymore. I fell off the horse and I can't muster the gumption to put my foot back in the stirrup.

The gods have asked too much.

(Because I don't want you worrying and imagining terrible ominous things, I want to stop 'coding', as I've been told I do, and just say it straight here: I was smacked with a depression that is a little bit seasonal and a little bit genetic. And I heard a new career wish in my heart that feels too crazy to be possible and too desperate to be ignored. Together, they leveled me. They melded into one massive creature that I would like to call, fondly, the Demon Cyvoldereaver Vampiremort Number Six.)

All those demons, all the monsters--they are the struggles we face in our own lives. Struggles to remain soft in this world that sometimes seems bright and brimming with possibility, but at others feels overwhelmingly large and cold and yes, ugly. They represent the struggle for us not to turn to stone. Not to live in eternal winter in our hearts. Our struggles to be kind, to remain open, to wonder, to explore, to just be alive in this world when often things aren't easy and there are never any guarantees.

The moment comes for every hero. And, as it turns out, for me. They see the task before them is too great. The battle can't be won. Survival relies on achieving the impossible. They feel weary and broken and that they can't go on.

They always do the same thing. Jesus, Harry Potter, Buffy, Starbuck, Cap'n and Zoe, Dean Winchester (Hi Kimmy!) Strider, Gandalf, all of them.

They spend a dark night in contemplation. They allow themselves a moment, an hour, a night of blackness and fear.

Then they come out guns blazing and fight the damn thing anyway.



Fight even though they know they can't win. Fight even though too much has been asked, too much is required.

I'm trying not to get too 'everyone's a hero in their own way' on you here. But we love the stories because they show us the things that we, too, might be capable of achieving. We don't slay demons or dragons or cylons, but the things we do face, are, I believe, much harder.

The heroes realize this truth: The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.*

Survival here requires more than training and practice with magic or a sword. It requires us to dig things up from the bottoms of our souls and our selves, things that hurt as they grow--when they're not refusing to grow at all.

It was time for me to go down to my depths and I felt like I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep going. It's been too hard. I felt broken. I felt a hardening inside me. I was too weary to fight, and I couldn't see my tribe.

The hardest thing in his world is to live in it. Monsters are slayed with a weapon, in a moment. That was never the real battle.

The real battle is the one within ourselves. To be of good faith. To let that little thing with feathers keep singing in your heart, even when sometimes you think hope is so stupid you'd rather strangle it than hear it chirp again.



I have a soul manifesto and it is this: I am on a journey. I have not arrived, and I respect that journey, with all its trials and all its dim lanterns and all its tangled, diverging paths. I respect the search. I believe one harmonic soul benefits the whole universe, like ripples in a pond. I will take hope and faith and love wherever I find them, and for those I will not stop searching. I will encourage the journey of every soul toward its own liberation. I don't want to be firm. I don't want to be stone. Here I will do my best to be open and tender. It hurts. It's what heroes do--the thing that scares them. The thing that is too much.

And I always wanted to be one.

See? My guns are blazing.

I am Vesuvius and I'm a big damn hero, I just decided.

*The quote is from Buffy. I believe it was written by the BDH Joss Whedon.

When It Rains

So: the day we got the new ac adapter delivered, our keyboard decided it didn't really want to type the letters 't', 'y', or backspace. Or do any capitals or punctuation. I secretly suspect Mr. V spilled beer on the keyboard, but we are not going to talk about that here.

Needless to say, a new computer is not in the cards (oh I laughed so hard I cried over that idea. Except I skipped the laughing part?).

It's fine, really, that I can't blog because thanks to a friend my life has been hijacked by the show Supernatural.


I am a little embarrassed to put this picture on my blog.

It should mean something to you when I tell you that I'm finding the third season to be alarmingly sexist and I'm watching the show anyway.


The sexism disturbs me. If the women aren't helpless and panicking, they are straight up demons. You heard me. The devil is a busty chick and she wants to ruin your road trip with your brother. It's like these writers aren't aware of the fact that their audience has to be about 99% female.

Seriously. How many men do they imagine are watching this show about two strapping young lads with the looks of George Clooney and Ryan Reynold's love child and the chemistry of a regency romance novel duke and red-headed hoyden before they hook up?

(If you are a male and you love Supernatural, first of all: We love you. Second of all, you are probably a bit of a sensitive guy, and that's really lovely and don't be ashamed. And third, I'd be willing to bet that you were one of those guys rooting for Pacey when all your bros were feeling Dawson. Yes?)

I'm hoping to be able to buy a new laptop in. . . um, March. When we get our tax return. Right now I'm blogging from the library and I just can't get over here without the girls more than once a week at most. Maybe in the meantime I can post some funny pictures of cats in microwaves? Oh wait, that one was absurdly unfunny. I'll try and think of something.

I just needed to let you know that I love you. And I am going for a little while, but I'm like a hero on a sci-fi show who's been sent to hell. Or heaven.

I come back.

I am Vesuvius and I want to ruin your road trip with your brother.