This Post Is A Mistake

Just now I have mixed blood orange sorbetto with San Pelligrino Limonata and tequila.

Tequila and I have a good relationship. Look, it needs to be said.

Mr. V and I are watching this

and laughing 'til we cry.

Happy Friday.

Where I'm Going: Part II

Yesterday my sister called me to say a swarm of bees had arrived in her lilac bush and two hours later, she had hived that swarm.

I spent a good portion of today defending my own hive like a toothless man on a front porch, a spray bottle of syrup in one hand and a broom in the other, slaying yellow jackets and ants while dark thunderclouds approached from the west, the wind thick with the sweet scent of early summer. I have made myself a bee vigilante, and it will drive me crazy if I let it. I could, theoretically, sit there for ten hours a day, defending the hive.

At some point, I have to trust the bees.

The post I wrote yesterday rattled around in my brain all afternoon and evening. I went in to it intending to do one thing, and by the end of it I think I'd done another. I was unsettled and bothered, (but not in a good way). The line between sharing a story in a helpful way, and sharing it in an indulgent way, is a thin one and I'm still learning to walk it. I'll mess up, sometimes. I hope you'll know my intentions are good.

I tried to banish my bothers from my brain as I sang Indy to sleep, leaving off the last word of every line of "Sweet Baby James", which we sing "Sweet Baby Indy", and allowing her to fill it in. In Indy's version, the cowgirl thinks about "horseys" and glasses of beer, and closes her eyes as the doggies "are tired". (Ayla's version involves a young zombie who likes to eat brains, and begs the listener "please just don't eat baby James"). When I was finished, she put her hands on my cheeks and smashed her lips to mine in a full, lusty kiss. Indy, I said, when she pulled away. You haven't done that in a few years. You used to do that all the time. I spent the next five minutes being kissed in such manner by Indy and then Ayla. I'll tell you here, but don't repeat it: Indy is the better kisser.

The bees are beginning to die off and being replaced by the second generation. All this work they do, not for themselves, but for future generations of bees to survive a winter and into a spring they won't live to see. If I wanted to, I could get morose about the bees. But I've decided not to. The bees do as they were born to, and so must I.

Two weeks ago I wrote in my journal: I must learn to approach writing like the bees--not go into it until absolutely necessary, then work without all this worry, or desperation, or wondering why. 

This is how I want to live my life. I want to put good energy into my children, and let that good energy come back to me. I want to make honey with the faith that someone in the future will need it. I want to let go what needs to go and embrace what needs to come. I want to sail my seasons bravely, knowing that in each moment, we are laying the groundwork for what's coming next.

So we might as well make it sweet.

Saturday Edition: Notes From The Hive

 Last weekend it was time to check the bees and make sure Queen Carnie was laying eggs. If she wasn't, I would have had to replace her. Otherwise, when the summer Italians start to die off in a few short weeks (about three, I think), there would be no new bees to replace them and keep the colony alive.

I was nervous going in. Not afraid of the bees, but afraid of hurting them. I was especially afraid of making a clumsy new beekeeper mistake and committing regicide. It seems that I tend to screw up my face just the slightest bit when I'm intent on something? No wonder people always seem afraid of me at Starbucks. But don't worry about me, when Mr. V repeated for the seventh time, "Britt, stop making that FACE," I thought it was cute. I swear to god, isn't that what every woman yearns to hear? Honey, I love you. Just try to look more. . . human.

There's the face. Honestly, I think it's flattering. Bet you thought I'd been photoshopped, haha, suckers! This was their newest comb. In the last week they've drawn it all the way down and started another. They're holding on to each other on the side there, it's called festooning. It's how they build the wax and has something to do with wax glands and their wings? Don't ask me, I know about two things, and those things are Captain Tightpants and cake pops. Also Lady Porn but honestly, people. My blog is neither the time nor the place. Quit asking.

 Here they are on another bar that was almost full. Mr. V had no protective gear on and was unafraid. The bees couldn't have cared less that we arrived uninvited and started snapping pictures of their home. They just went on doing their thing while I composed sonnets and got maudlin over their beauty.

I was too damn amateur to notice it at the time, but this bar here is filled almost entirely with honey. The darker cluster there in the middle is the bee bread.

I don't really want to tell you this, but since it might help other beekeepers, I will. We had a minor emergency. We found Queen Carnie on the last bar I looked at, which was the bar closest to the entrance. When I was holding up the bar something felt off about the balance, like the bees had built this comb differently. We held it up for about a minute, watching Carnie to see if she'd lay an egg for us. Then the comb just dropped off. It fell right off the bar and onto the ground. I said words. I said many words quickly and in a row and basically sounded like I was being arrested on COPS. Quickly Mr. V got a cup--I couldn't pick up bees because I'd picked up the comb, which had crumpled in my hand and left sticky honey all over my gloves--and Carnie walked right in, all imperial and pissed. She scolded us good with that stately walk. We put the cup in the hive and Carnie marched right out and back to the comb. I felt terrible. There was bee bread and some larva and honey in the comb and nothing I could do to save it. I don't know what I could have done differently other than replaced the bar the moment I noticed it was weighted unevenly. It's possible it would have fallen off anyway, into the hive. I don't know. I felt terrible. But the bees moved on.

 Ok Mr.V, here is my best attempt at stop making that face.

Towards the end the bees started doing this weird thing. I don't know, I worry they may be hanging out with some neighborhood riff-raff and are learning unsavory behavior. Several bees landed on the entrance, stuck their butts up in the air (shameless!), and began to beat their wings so rapidly they could only be seen in a blur. It made a loud buzz. I don't know what they were up to and I was too busy trying to get ready for my glamour shots to care.

Today I had sort of a panic. I was giving the girls some syrup when I noticed there were far fewer bees on each comb. I worried that Carnie had swarmed, meaning she and most of the hive decided they'd had enough of this fish-bowl life with the damn paparazzi showing up every weekend and decided to go find some cooler digs, something maybe with hard wood floors or a mountain view. So I went in to look for my queen. I didn't find her the first time I went through all the bars and thought I had a kingdom without a ruler. Then I went through each bar again and found her, laying away. I'm hoping I noticed fewer bees because 1) There are more bars of comb now for them to cover, and 2) more bees are out foraging, since they're getting older. Bees forage in the last 1-3 weeks of their lives and work themselves literally to death. I had a few very old bees on my comb, they look like little old ladies, their yellow turned to white with old age. I also had a few dark bees that I first thought were oldies, but now I wonder if they're my baby Carnies? I'm too new at this to know for sure and also all I really cared about was my lip gloss, which had smudged and how the hell was I going to touch it up through my veil?

What you're seeing here is a lot of capped brood and if you look closely you can see some black bees mixed in with my yellows. I'm gonna miss these Italians when they're gone. I'm hoping to keep an Italian colony next year, when I'm an expert at all this.

That's what's new with the bees. Before we go, I'd like to address those of you who seemed to think having Tina Fey put her hand through my mail slot and wave it around is a funny joke: Tina Fey putting her hand through your mail slot is very real, and those of us dealing with it (me) need your support and not your judgement. Just think how you would feel. You could try and tape the slot shut but Tina's wily. She'll cut through it.

Love from the hive,
B


PS YOU FOOLS:

One more thing: My sister's fun friends, Jan and Kellee, and their husbands came up to Mr. V's brewery and my own Mr. V gave them a tour. Jan takes great pictures and is fit to be a blogger, unlike yours truly. She's funny too, but before you give her too much credit, just remember: she doesn't have to deal with Fey. Here's her fun post about Mr. V's place of employment, where he rides skateboards and drinks beer with all the other hipsters, all the live-long day. I swear. (Mr. V is in the black tee with the green "Old Chub" splooge on it. Is that a dirty word? I didn't mean it that way.

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

Milk and Honey

Things That Are Contagious:

1) Bees

Our landlord came over the other day with some college guys to aerate the lawn and get flustered because we use our back gate as a gate (apparently the hinged, swinging gate was intended to be more of a wall). A thought occurred to me and I said "You're not going to fertilize, are you?" The bees weren't there yet, but I know now that chemicals are killing off the bees and I didn't want them on my lawn. The landlord ignored me but the college boys took pity on me, a young and attractive and buxom housewife (just go with me, here, ok? It's been a week) and said they didn't have to, no. The landlord was mad that crab grass had overrun the front yard, which honestly confused me: what the hell were we supposed to do about it? I may not know anything about lawn care. Anyway, he argued that he'd have to put chemicals on the front yard, Noah and I exchanged heated words in our kitchen, Noah went back out to firmly ask the Lord of Land not to unleash a chemical holocaust upon our lawn, and he grudgingly acquiesced.

Since I posted about the bees on Tuesday, lots of people have emailed or texted or pulled me aside to ask about the bees and almost all of them tell me that they want to keep bees, too. I think this is wonderful. I have a dream of a beehive in every backyard and honey in every home. It occurred to me that if everyone did keep bees, maybe everyone, even the Chem Green fanatics, would finally see the dangers of pesticides and herbicides (a good sign that something is bad is if it has the root word 'cide' in it) and Round Up and stand up to their Lords of Land and HOA's, and maybe the bees and the cows and goats would thrive, the flowers would grow, and we would recreate the land of milk and honey.

2) Doubt

I felt bad after I posted about my doubtful slump last week. I had put something out there that wasn't helpful to others. Later that week, Blood Sister A and I had a conversation along the same demoralized lines of that blog, and I only know that it got us nowhere. I have hopeful thoughts to write, but I'm not ready to, yet. For now, suffice it to say I have doubts about the usefulness of doubts. All they've done is knocked me into a slump, which may be part of the natural rhythms of life, but it isn't best practices to encourage these doubts, or to voice them, or maybe to even hear them. I've done a lot of work the last few years at stopping certain negative tracks that I am given to playing on repeat in my mind, and I think these doubts may need to be added to the list of things my mind say that aren't true.

 I'm sorry if my doubt caused similar doubts in you. I want to try to offer more encouragement and hope. Maybe everyone can try, and maybe, like the bees, we can support one another's work and create a new community for artists, a happy hive. One that doesn't rate our work on how much money it can earn, press it can drum up, or copies it can sell. Maybe we can create a new place that has room and love for everyone's gifts, and maybe we can forge new ground. Milk and honey for the bees and for our souls. Let's do this together. Ok?

3)Bad Moods

Noah came home from work this morning while I was getting the girls ready for school. His shift started at 3 am, he was home to make some lunch before eight in the morning. I was not my best self. If I was Oprah, Gale would be shouting that I had lost my pleasing personality (really I love this coping strategy of theirs). Noah was in a good mood, but I was stressed and useless and feeling pathetic. I don't see my husband much these days, and my moodiness lasted the entirety of his visit. The opportunity to have a moment of peace and love, of complicity between us, was lost.

I have dreamed a hopeful vision for the bees, and for the artists who really, are so much like the bees, working and working all our lives to produce scant spoons of precious golden honey, so let me dream a vision for my husband and I: we can get ourselves out of this rut, this stretched-thin place. We can have Saturday mornings together again, and picnics in the sun. I will pack blankets and chocolate cake into the trunk and when my husband leaves before dawn and returns to me, sleepy and messy-haired in the morning light, offering a simple espresso, or a fresh-mown lawn or a breakfast of cantaloupe, I will sigh content and together, we will adore.

But, I swear it guys, one day we're going to do this in Paris.

So, J'adore.

PS: Let's be facebook friends, ok? I deleted my high school principal (weird) and I want to add you. Out with the old, in with the new.

https://www.facebook.com/b.e.tuttle

(if there's a better way to link to my facebook profile, I don't know it).

(After posting, this quote found me:


Doubt Not, Go Forward--If though doubt'st, The Beasts will tear thee piecemeal. ~ Tennyson)

Bee More Cool

On Friday afternoon, I picked up this lovely package of three to four thousand Italian honey bees. They'd had a long journey, driven out from California, where a centuries old family-run farm raises bees and separates them into these packages for beekeepers. The bees are huddled around a coffee can of sugar syrup, and also around their queen, who is in her own little queen cage, hanging from the top. She can't reach the syrup, but--don't worry! The bees will feed her and keep her cool.

I was so excited to get them into their hive that I baffled the girls' teachers by pulling them out of school an hour early because "the bees are here". The girls were fascinated and not too scared. Here's Indy, spraying the bees with a mist of sugar water. It calms them down and gives them something to do. By the time I got the bees home, they were resounding a pretty loud hum. After being misted, they went quiet and busied themselves, happily cleaning the sugar syrup off one another.

And here's me, so proud of these little beauties! Beekeepers call these Italian babies (package bees are young bees) "the blondes", because they are so lovely and yellow. More on that in a minute.

I was determined to do the whole thing without a veil, because I'm hardcore (don't say 'or stupid').  So here I go, prying the sugar can out and getting ready to shake the girls into their new home.

Well. The moment I got that feed can out, there were bees everywhere, even though I'd blocked the entrance. They were buzzing quite loudly. Since I had done this before, you know, never, I wasn't sure if I was hearing industrious buzzing or "We would like to kill you now" buzzing. I like to think they just didn't know me yet. Also I want to add that it is difficult to grasp the meaning of FOUR THOUSAND bees until they are buzzing about your head and covering your back. So I went and donned my veil. Later I would realize that one bee was in my veil with me. But she didn't mind.

 Here I am shaking the bees into the hive. You just take the package and knock it once on the ground so the bees fall to the bottom. Then you turn it upside down and shake them out, Florence style (somebody stop me). They fall out like raisins. They are very docile at this point.

But alas! Before you can shake out the bees, you must remove the queen. Here she is surrounded by bees in her cage. Although my babies are Italians, the queen is a Carniolan. Carniolan bees are better suited for our climate. They cut back on brood-rearing in the early fall, so there are fewer bees that have to be fed over winter. Italian bees do better in warmer climes and raise brood late into the fall. They're not impossible to keep here, but more difficult for a novice such as myself. Unfortunately, the Carniolans lack the pretty yellow color. They are dark grayish-black. In a month or so, all my blonde beauties will die off (summer bees live about six weeks only) and and I'll have a hive of Carniolans. Like any mother, I worry that I might love my prettier babies more. (Don't tell the Carnies).

This is what a hive full of four thousand bees looks like. The ziploc in there is a syrup feeder. It's a good idea to feed new bees because they don't even have any comb drawn yet, let alone bee bread (a sort of enzyme-treated pollen) or honey.

The queen cage, with Queen Carnie. Sorry you can't see her, husband had a camera, no veil, and might have been feeling too edgy for a close-up.

The girls checking out the queen. That is sugar syrup spilled down my trousers, lest you think I wet myself in terror. One bee landed on the spot and hung out happily for awhile.

The queen's cage comes with a cork in the bottom. I popped the cork out and replaced it with a marshmallow, then hung it in the hive between two top bars. This ensures that the queen won't fly off, and makes the bees less likely to abscond, as they won't leave their queen. (Such loyalists!)

On Sunday, the second day after installing the package, I went in to remove the queen cage. I used my veil and it's a good thing, as the bees covered my arms and back and were in no hurry to leave (when I was done, I had to sit in the yard for about ten minutes, waiting for them to buzz back to the hive.) The bees had eaten the marshmallow and freed their queen. I was shocked to see they'd already begun drawing comb on three bars. Sadly, they had started attaching comb to the queen cage and I knocked a hand-sized portion of it down when I removed the cage. I felt terrible. The bees had worked so hard for that beautiful comb. Luckily Ayla was there to remind me that this was my first time, and it was ok to make mistakes. 

 Aren't they gorgeous? Yesterday afternoon I was watching the hive and noticed the bees were coming in with bright yellow and orange pollen packed in their pollen baskets, little compartments on their back legs. The pollen looks like cheery saddlebags.

I'm so proud of them. And I haven't been stung once. All beekeepers get stung eventually, but honey bees really are very gentle as long as they aren't experiencing a nectar or honey dearth.

Love from the hive,
-B

Bee Theory

I have this theory that keeping bees can heal depression.

Like the daffodils I bought myself yesterday deep in the evening, at the close of the day.

I believe that if we let it, nature can heal itself.

And if we let it, nature can heal us.

"Who would have thought that my shriveled heart

could have recovered greenesse?" ~ George Herbert

Art by Nicoletta Ceccoli

Honey From My Failures

At night I lie awake and think of the bees. I see them in my brain, in my belly, in my heart. Scurrying around and working their magic, gathering tiny bits of things we can't see, and together, working them over time into miraculous honey. I feel I am pregnant with bees. Like anyone on a new endeavor,a couple awaiting a baby, an artist collecting new inspiration, I am softer. Vulnerable in sweet places. I am brought easily to tears.

In November, I began to dream of the bees because they felt like a thing that could be done. Challenging, yes, but not an endeavor that relied on elusive approval. I was so frustrated, in November. So sure that all my work was for naught. I was made crazy by the nature of the publishing industry--that one may produce work, may even produce very good work for years and years, but all of that matters for nothing if you can't charm an agent. If you don't bewitch a publisher. If they don't look at you and see dollar signs, your work is rated not worthy.


I was drawn to the bees because they don't rate one's worth.

They don't question why, these girls. They emerge from their cells and minutes after their birth, get to work. They know exactly what to do, they never question their own instincts and in obeying them, accomplish marvelous feats. They labor tirelessly, these summer bees who will live just four weeks or so. They produce one-twelfth of one teaspoon of honey, and eventually they fly away to die. All of this to ensure the survival of future generations that they will never see.

I knew I had to help the bees. I knew somehow they would heal me.

And now this: after deciding to keep the bees, I realized that I could not place my happiness is other people's hands.

Nor stand around, hoping for approval. Toss my hair at agents, do my dance for publishers, no thank you. It made me miserable. It negated all the joy that came from the writing itself.

The delight at the prospect of keeping the bees showed me the delight in the possibility of self-publishing my book.

And so, I decided to do just that.

Because what matters is not approval, or attention, or money, or fame, but creating something and sharing it with others. What matters is connection.

Making this decision has set me free. I don't spend my days worrying what other people think. I let go of my ridiculous need to be the best at something, to prove myself to others. I sit down and write and it is what it was meant to be: a interaction between myself and a collective unconscious, a divine creator, a celebration of pure joy.

(You know, when writing goes well it goes very, very well and when it goes badly, we watch Oprah).


Life is sweet. The bees taught me this.

All I taste is honey.

***************


I have so many links to share today. Please take what you like and leave what you don't.

1)The title of this post was taken from the gorgeous poem by Antonio Machado.

2) Again, Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on creativity. I think this is invaluable to artists of any persuasion. And I cry every time I watch it.



3) Here is a link to the Beyond Pesticides website. These folks are working very hard to ban things that harm us and the bees. The U.S. still allows the use of many pesticides that have been banned in other countries (who have since seen their bee numbers increase). Some of these pesticides are even banned in the countries that make them and sell them to us. The pesticides still exist because corporations make billions off of them every year. Here you can sign a petition asking the EPA to ban the bee-killing clothiaidin.

4) This excerpt from Dan Savage on This American Life really moved me this week. In it, Dan describes being raised by his very Catholic mother, and his complex relationship with the church as an adult. The talk is very funny, and very touching. It was an excellent piece. (And it includes a good (and good natured)Lutheran joke, for all my Lutheran readers)

5) I am so excited about Miss Representation, a film that has finally taken all the frustrations with media representations of girls and women that I tend to grow inarticulate and frustrated over, and worked them eloquently into a movie that looks both educating and change-inspiring.

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Wintering

I saw a book, resting on a nightstand in another blogger's photograph, and I bought it immediately, that day, on the spot. I knew I had to have it.

And on Sunday morning, lying in bed, I discovered that Sylvia Plath kept bees over the summer and winter before she died. She wrote five poems about them. I discovered this while my husband sat in the white light of the morning kitchen, drinking coffee and reading about the things he reads about. Sports I suspect, though I know he likes world news and movie blogs too. Please don't mistake them with celebrity blogs, which he cares nothing for and neither, much, do I.

Last week in bee class the instructor showed us picture after picture of the process of setting up her first hive, harvesting her first honey. Pictures of herself, her husband, her fellow beekeeper friend holding up comb frames and smokers and golden jars of honey, and in every frame every person had Elphaba-green skin. The bees were yellow and black, the hives were white, the honey was gold, and the people were green. The first shot was of the friend only, smiling her in her bee suit but afflicted by a terrible verdigris. I waited for the instructor to explain, but she did not, and I thought maybe her friend's skin really was quite kelly, and it was therefore impolite to talk about it. She clicked through then, the power point, photo after photo of Wicked Beekeepers of the West, green hands on hives and forest-smiling faces and nobody said a thing about it. But of course, neither did I.

I drive my husband crazy, I forget everything. He tolerates my forgetfulness teasingly, or bemusedly, or distractedly. I lose the keys, I lose the forms, I lose my cell phone, the remote, the scissors, the tape, the earrings, the shoes, I even lose the coffee pot. (We found it in the fridge. We found the milk in the pantry). It's like I'm a romantic comedy heroine, except forgetful rather than clumsy and I don't wear high heels. "You are out of control," he says teasingly. "You are stressing me out." And I tell him, imagine what it's like to BE me, rather than simply be fated to put up with me.

Here is what it's like to be me: I am not like this in real life. I am not shy, exactly, but I am reserved. I despise small talk and ask questions that are too personal, too soon. I forget everything, including the story you told me, unless I wrote it down, which I probably did. I am easily overwhelmed. I make social appointments and dread honoring them. I'm not funny until you've known me a really long time. I get exhausted and pass out after half a glass of wine, I am therefore a failure at parties. I dread loud environments, I can't raise my voice, unless at my children. I am distracted. When you pause and search for a word I provide it for you, which annoys you and I try to stop, but I can't. Often I know where the story is going after the first sentence, and by the time you've finished it I've lost my energy to give the proper reaction. I can't admit when I'm wrong.

I am sorry.

I want to live everywhere, all at once. Los Angeles, Taos, and Paris currently highest on my list. This sends my husband looking for jobs in each city, except Paris, to which he replies that I must be the one to get a job in Paris. He does not like the French (he does not know the French).But like Sylvia, I am wintering. Winter is for women, Sylvia writes. She is talking about the bees; in the winter they seal out the males, the drones, who don't make honey but consume great amounts of it, who would eat them out of house and home.

Winter is a thing to be survived, it demands female energy, quietude, patience, and peace. So says Sylvia, or so say I. Here I am, dear January, I am fallow. O'Keefe spent long periods fallow, so I read, long periods of gathering, of stillness, of waiting, and so do I. The muse, like spring, like honey and hurry and drone cells, drowsy cells, green grass, vital energies, always return.

What is it Oprah says? This I know for sure.

Keep The Bees

I haven't blogged in a week because I've been too busy eating pizza. Potato-kale-gruyere pizza. Oyster mushroom pizza. Chorizo and roasted red pepper pizza. Clam, garlic, and pecorino pizza. My husband became a brewer and brews me lovely beers, but it's his pizza dough that has wooed me true.


Mr. V had the week off, so we fixed up around the house and spent mornings with our coffee and old movies. (The kids, they go to school, it's a major miracle.) Later, I took him on our first trip (together) to Ikea. I felt personally responsible for the fact that it was crowded. It wasn't crowded the first time I went. I didn't like the ladies in their high boots and blow-outs trailing me too closely behind. I felt like a younger version of ourselves, making up a registry and discussing drawers and brackets, and then Mr. V got impatient toward the end and started following me around too closely, watching me while I looked at prints.

But I didn't mind, because he came home and spent two hours putting together a new tv stand.

We took the girls for ice cream, and to play in the low-hanging sun the day before the snow came. Then the snow came, and we drank more coffee, and bundled under blankets, and stayed warm.

And ate cookies.

I guess It was a week of dreams, and (miracle!) there was also time to attend the bee class. Where I learn about bees, and they are so beautiful. (Two things that make me cry: the "Mama Mia!" number in the "Mama Mia!" movie, and the sight of honeycomb). I came home and Mr. V and I, together, schemed about sweet yellow clover and hive tools and honey supers.

I am drunk with love for the bees.

So, Vesuvius, how do you do? You might ask me this.

And I would tell you, here?

We're doing just fine.

I am Vesuvius and I cry when the peasant woman throws the sticks off her back and joins the dancing.

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.