A Bee Having Breakfast on a Carnival Ride

This morning I saw a bee having breakfast on a carnival ride. In my front yard, there is a wild patch that is in the process of becoming a pollinator garden. It’s not quite there yet, and I imagine it will always be heading somewhere new and never be quite done. Right now it’s a mix of wildflowers on purpose and wild weeds by happy accident. 

The bee was feeding on one of the on-purpose plants. Each small white flower appears at the top of a long and delicate stem. The weight of the flower causes the stem to droop slightly and the smallest breeze will set it to swaying. As the bee lands on the flower, it drops precariously toward the ground and then bounces up again. All the while, the bee hangs on and drinks the nectar. It bounces on that bloom for a few seconds and then buzzes over to the next flower and goes for another ride. 

I don’t why I love this so much. The easy answer is that it’s nature and it’s funny. But there is also something enticing about a life on a bouncy toy. Sure it makes you hold on a little tighter but what’s wrong with that? Life has slung me up and down a few times and when I look back, those times made me hold on closer to the people around me. It reminds me of the monologue from the movie “Parenthood” where the grandmother, who everyone thinks is totally out of it, tells the overwhelmed mom a silly story about a carnival. The grandma says that some people go to the fair and only ride the merry-go-round. “That’s okay for some people”, she says, “they are content to just ride quietly around and around. But I always liked the roller coaster.”  In life, we don’t always get to choose whether we get to go on the roller coaster or the merry-go-round. Many times we just get thrown on one or the other. But I think the key is looking for joy in whichever ride you are on at the moment.