I take it back. I would call it an obsession.
It may not be the real beginning, but as I remember it, so it is. A predatory walk through the bridled wilderness outside my childhood home. I was six or seven, and I wanted my papa to make me some lunch. This task I viewed as a game, as the grass grew tall enough in that jungle to shield my father from my view. Hide-and-Go-Seek without the shouting. I found him near the street and the Columbine, kneeling in the dirt. Pops agreed to fix me a peanut butter and mustard sandwich, and probably some apple slices with salt. Not only did I find my father, however. I also found a bee. With the bottom of my foot. For me, bee stings feel comparable to mosquito bites, and are quite possibly one of the only things on this planet I am not allergic to. However, no six-year-old is particularly good at dealing with bee sting. Especially one who's hungry and a big whiner anyway.
Most of the people I care for the most have atleast a bee anecdote in their bag. My mother spent several hours with a bee in her ear last fall. My mother's sister was stung by a bee in her teens and her leg swelled to three times it's original size. Miss Cross (who disproves the existence of karma) had a bee fly into her nose and get stuck there, where it continue to buzz until she could blow it out. Aby drank a bee with soda and got stung on the roof of his mouth. Ari is afraid of only three things in this world, and the third spot is reserved for bees and their angry waspy cousins. Atch, my favorite artista, was raised and subsists on the care of trees and bees. And on, and on. . .
Two out of every three haikus I write are about bees (including the best, #26). On the air, I talk about bees and bats. When I am in the midst of nervousness and love, my stomach is terrorized by bees, noisy and always threatening to sting. No butterflies in my digestive tract.
When I try to think of nothing, I always think of bees. Someday, as an ultimate symbolic event, bees will unexpectedly tumble from my mouth when I attempt to speak.
