The persistence of Bees

Sunday afternoon, the hubby and I decided to make use of the hotel's pool for a little refreshing dip. When we got there, I spotted a little European Honeybee struggling in the water. I hate to see any life extinguished for no real good reason, so I had the hubby scoop her out of the water. She fell back in the pool. Scooped her out again, and set her on the other side of the pool (it seems to me that bees follow a path, and anything in that path will not distract them from that particular orientation-- including our house, or a pool). The little bee sat on the concrete pool gate for a while, drying herself out, wiggling her wings, and generally recovering from her dip in the chlorinated water. She wasn't really doing great, and tried to fly too soon and fell the ground. I don't think that did her any good-- she lay there, twitchy and wiggly. We left before I saw if she actually made it or not.

The point I wanted to make isn't totally depressing, but a little sad, I guess. I was amazed at the persistence she showed-- no matter what, she just kept trying to make it. Even when the odds were against her, (she was NOT getting out of that pool without "divine intervention"-- i.e., someone to scoop her out). She also kept failing, however. Each "salvation"-- each time someone outside her helped her, she would bumble into another trap of some sort. I thought about God, (Goddess, or whatever else you want to call the great organizing principle of the universe) and how we sometimes pray to get out of situation one only to fall into yet another bad situation. And we think "why won't God (Buddha, Kuan Yin, Kali, Astarte) help us?" But we don't always realize maybe someone DID help us, but we just kept on the path we were on and fell into yet another dangerous place.

I mean, life, ultimately, is a tragedy. No one's getting out of this thing alive. You extend any story out far enough, and it gets sad. Triumph after triumph is only ONE ending-- we have other endings and fates in store for us.

But that's the sad part. The happy part is this-- we have to keep going and going and sometimes the help we get we don't see. We should, however, examine the paths we are on to see if maybe there is a "water hazard" ahead. Persistence is a good thing. If you fall on your back, use those wings to flip yourself over. Crawl out of the puddle of chlorine. Wiggle and dry those wings. But before you go flying off the high places, make sure those wings are ready. Heal first. Think. Eventually, there are flowers for any bee to visit.

(Feeling introspective much? Yes. Well I could have written about my day yesterday where the best thing I did was watch several hours of the Surreal Life 2. Nah. Let's just stick with the bee story).