see the big picture

I’m okay at this already but I definitely need reminders.

You belong among the wildflowers, you belong somewhere you feel free…
-Tom Petty, Wildflowers

When I was a young man, I was a beekeeper/fireman not far from the place of my birth. At that point in my life, being a beekeeper/fireman not too far from home was just fine by me.

I used to come home from a long overnight shift at the fire department, make a cup of coffee, then wander out into the still wet green grass of my side pasture. A bee-yard is a quiet place in the morning. A place to quietly visit, reflect, and marvel at the miraculous nature of the daily drama that is preparing to unfold. I used to lay on my belly in the sweetgrass, and just watch the entrance to the sleeping beehives. The sun would rise in the east, cast the warming light of day on the entrance to the hive, and something would stir. Six little legs would shuffle out onto the launch pad, woozy…waking. The body attached to them would flex a pair of flight wings which glistened with an iridescent brilliance in the sun for just a moment. Then she would lift off and fly away to work.

Sitting quietly and watching for just another moment would reveal the remainder of the extended family of the hive stumbling out onto the platform, gaining strength from the sun, and following a similar course…leaving home in search of something that they were unsure to find.

But find they did. In what could be as little as a matter of minutes, a single bee would return home and land on the platform. The members of the hive that stayed behind would come out onto the platform and watch as she who returned danced in a small circle, spreading the message of the wonders of the world that she was discovering in places far and near. The hive listened, and responded by following her where she led them.

Although my apiary never actually turned a profit (or anything near it) I didn’t care. I was happy just watching the bees. After my ordinary morning ritual, I would rise from my watching place amongst the leaves of grass and head into my bee barn, gathering my hive smoker and preparing to tend the working combs before it was too warm. I would wander back out into the bee-yard, singing quietly to the residents of the hives as I lifted off the covers to make sure everything was okay inside. When they were hungry and there wasn’t enough food available, I fed them. When they were sick I did my best to make them healthy. When they were angry or too hot I made sure that they had cool water to drink. In sum, I cared for them not because I really thought I was going to get too much in return, or even turn a profit, but because it made me genuinely happy to embrace something that I loved. Helping them lead happy and productive lives made me happy, too. The greatest disguise that profundity often chooses to don is simplicity. The bees taught me that.

Nowadays large and important decisions loom just on the horizon. The next big decision always seems larger than that which came before, and too often I think we fail to remember perspective. I am an older man now, far removed from my days spent in the sweetgrass watching the beehives. Here between the snowbanks, I think about the immediacy with which I am constantly being pressured to make decisions about my career and what comes next. Sometimes I worry.

Yet, I need not worry. I remember the simple things about my life which always used to make me happiest. Having something to love and invest myself in…bees or otherwise, makes as much sense today as it did years ago. The difference now is that I realize what was always missing…patience. Degrees, haste, and hurry to acquire more credibility obscured the fact that if I were simply patient and content with who I was and what I was doing, I’d have been much happier for a longer period of time.

When I was young I was a beekeeper. Older now, the bees are something quite different than they were before, and that’s just fine by me. While the rest of the world is in a rush to acquire more baggage I’ll quietly smile…content in the knowledge that life’s greatest secret is its simplest. Sometimes we find the simple path, but sometimes it finds us…

Resolutions are easier when they are broad and simple, I suspect. Here are mine.

(4. Don’t spend New Years Eve with anybody whose company I wouldn’t enjoy on some random Tuesday in November. Seek out the people I care about and don’t let geography act as an impediment to being with them ever again.)

3. Decide this year once and for all if I’m going to finish this PhD immediately, or go do work that I enjoy and finish the degree when I get around to it. I am more than another piece of paper.

2. Avoid letting the Michigan negativity shape me, continue looking for the best in people, and remind them of it often.

1. Be happy with how it all turns out.

Easy, really.

I have lived in the same place for about a year. My desk at home faces directly out a double window. (This is often a bad thing.)

Every day last winter when it snowed, a little woman in a long black coat who walked with tiny shuffle steps would walk with her dog down the (newly paved and houseless) street I sometimes aimlessly stare at. Writing about history and reading languages being a solitary endeavor on the whole, I spent a lot of time at my desk and actually came to look forward to her shuffling down the street. In her black coat she looked like a little galleon ship on an adventure in a stark white sea. Sometimes it made me daydream about other times and places.

The snow came home to Michigan in earnest a couple of weeks ago, and it has been snowing here off and on ever since. Like clockwork, the little old lady reappeared in her big black coat, walking the same little dog with the same little shuffle steps down the street.

Then, today, something happened that I thought was horribly bad. I was typing away on yet another paper about a subject of marginal interest to anyone but me, and I happened to see the woman walking out in the street. What grabbed my attention, however, was the fact that she went ankles over elbows and collapsed in a heap out in the snow. I sat at my desk in horror for a moment as I watched her flailing around in the snow, her dog licking her face. I threw on my loafers and ran across the field to see if I could help her. What I found, however, surprised me. Instead of a sad and brittle little old lady who may have just broken a hip, I heard the laughter of a once young girl coming out of a body that was anything but young. She was telling her dog that she loved him…and the flailing?

She was making a snow angel.

I asked her if she needed help, and she did let me help her up, but was full of humor, life, and laughter. She thanked me, and then told me that I ought to consider falling down in the snow sometime too.

Again I am reminded that peace and beauty are where we find them, and that’s not always somewhere very far away at all.

it’s genetic. i’m just not a big-picture person.

Today in Kenya, a little girl just like my Rachel is walking down the street alone looking through trash bins hoping to find something to eat. A young mother just like me is choosing to abandon her baby because it has a better chance to live without her than it ever would in her care. Today in Sierra Leone a small boy like my Isaiah is suffering with the memories of brutality and war that even a grown man should not have to face. I just saw a clip of an interview somewhere in Rwanda. The journalist asked a group of people how many of them had a full meal that day. Not one person could raise their hand. Then he asked who among them had lost someone to AIDS. Every hand went up. Why does God allow it?

Rachel was given a project for the first week of school in order for the class to get to know each other. Each student was told to bring in 5 objects that describe themselves. This is what she chose:
1. Her talking calculator, because it has her insulin ratios on the back and she wants to show off how she can do algebra.
2. An apple, because she loves healthy food and cooking.
3. The bright red lipstick I gave her to play with because she loves make-up and fashion. (Quite the opposite of her mother)
4. Her Brainquest cards to show that she loves learning.
5. Her bible because she loves God and going to church. She even bookmarked last week’s bible verse to read to the class. (not sure that’s allowed)
I am so proud of her! It’s not hard to be Supermom with a kid like her.

...and the painted ponies go up and down

on the carousel of life

I think it’s a Virgo trait that I focus so intently on details I tend to lose sight of the big picture. This is true in so many areas of my life. It especially applies to my kids. I have to remind myself that 20 years from now, nobody will remember whether the house was clean last night, but they will remember that I stopped everything to read a book or play a game with them.

hee hee

Webster and his colleagues have documented how cows within a herd form smaller friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows and can bear grudges for months or years.

_Dairy cow herds can also be intensely sexual. Webster describes how the cows become excited when one of the herd comes into heat and start trying to mount her. “Cows look calm, but really they are gay nymphomaniacs,” he said. _