Attitude

April 28, 2021

Unique. Being human is an odd state. Being alive is an odd state of affairs. Eating, breathing, drinking, reproducing, pooping… and talking, dreaming, thinking, planning, understanding, confusing things. Love. Hate. Anger. Disappointment. Impatience. Eagerness. Desire… I know a bit of being human (which I am), I do not know of, must equivocate on the state of being an animal or a plant. I am not the forest primeval. I wave not as grain. I swim no sea. I do not purr in the window or call out to a mate with a three tone chord from a secure tree limb. I am human. I think about things and suspect that the creatures, the flora do not.

Last week’s surprise snowfall did not seem to upset the little maple tree. Even though her branches were half-leaved with tender green, the maple shrugged off an unfortunate circumstance and soldiered on … soon as the snow melted. My cedars did not fare so well. There is a bit of sagginess to one branch, whose fate is not at all certain. Other green and newly growing things did escape the heavy whiteness…lucky souls. There are three Rhododendron plants near the door who chose not to flower ahead of the snow. Those gentle pink blooms chose today, instead and are quite happy, thank you. A very large bee is grateful. I saw him, humming about his work among the glories this morning. I was not nervous, he ignored me and I him. I was not stung and he was not smashed to the waiting, hungry clay by my hand.

I hear that man was born of clay and will return to such post-haste. Man was born by the miracle hand of some divine energy. Shaped and molded man stood up and walked across the Eden earth. The woman walked as well, it is said. Adam and Eve were the names of the two, handed down over centuries of tale-telling and inaccuracy. My suspicion is that the names were actually ‘Seven of Eight’ and ‘Eight of Eight’, there being mistakes made in the first versions. The last, most recent two were variations on a theme, one inny and one outy. They, also had mistakes in the wiring somewhere. This mistake caused an error that involved a snake and some fruit of a certain tree. The whole business was pretty sordid and had lasting repercussions. Poor snake has been unable to live the whole thing down.

Were these updated, yet flawed two – halves? like the queen bee and worker? Queen bee and drone? (I think of this, having recent witnessed the large bee at his tasks.) Are the fabled two of equal status? Our society puts one above the other in importance ranking because it (our society) stems mainly from the male (less labour intensive side) who wrote stuff down and made the rule book. (The male having time to do such things, while he was relaxing.) Still, who does the most work? The most important work? Does the worker bee rub the pollen off and provide the most needed essence to the colony? Does the queen rain down juices, elixirs that bind all and is therefore most essential? In the case of A and E, of whose body was the alleged rib truly drawn? The tale telling appears inaccurate. Our witness, in the here, in the now, in the human, is that what is called woman does all of the rib-sharing. Seems that could be called most important? In the known bee world, the queen does a vital, important work, the actual spraying of pheremones, the dancing hypnotically but the worker does the rest. So, in the buzzing world, it is She Bee who cooks the goose of additional metaphor and sets it on living’s table. It is She who endures and is Mother. Yet…without He Bee, where would She be?

All things have oddness of existence, somewhere and somehow. Life sprays from, is born of, seems most to be mother’s fault, mother’s production, mother’s baby. Yes. The busy he bee I see is not a complete, lazy innocent, however. In humans, the skinny neighbour who drinks in the backyard and simply drops the empty cans where they fall had no contributing role to play when the belly of missus swelled? The flower waits for Mother earth to turn her cheek toward the sun before it lives — even though the seed came from elsewhere. There is, amongst the stars and geese and birds and bees and humans and trees an odd balance. In the case of reproduction and fueling living, there are two sides. There is yin and there is yang. There is Mother Earth and Father Sun, there is Queen bee and Worker bee, there is yes and there is no, there is ‘Should I stay or Should I go?’ There is an even, or perfect, oddness.

I have a mother, today. It is the Mother of All Bad Attitudes. From this mother, all of today flows. Anger, resentment, fear, loathing… all flow from the Mother Of Bad Attitudes. Hmmm. Politics, being who I am, the little frustrations have all built up on a Covid Wave. There is also the other source/half of that wave, Father Time and his instigation. These two disparate folks contribute to the moment’s flow. Fortunately, once contributed to, the moment changes of it’s own. The moment moves. The moment is the child of Mother Earth and Father Time, of Queen and Worker Bee, of ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ but the moment is liquid. The moment is malleable. The moment is alive. If I step back from Mother Earth and Father Time, floating on moment…the whole picture is easier to understand, becomes perfect. I chillax, shrug off the late snowfall, buzz around the smart blooms and get on with it. There are two sides. A bad attitude wraps into a sixty-nine with a good attitude and the whole thing spins slow. Sometimes, sometimes not, then again.