Golden Days

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Do you know the scent of jasmine?

Not that sickly sweet, heavy perfume that air fresheners and candles call jasmine, but the light, flowery fragrance of spring in the tropics that defines true jasmine. Certainly it's strong, but it's also fresh and soft, not cloying and stifling like the artificial wannabes. As I ride my bike around the city, that fragrance pervades everything, and I think that the ambrosia of the Olympian gods must surely have smelled like this.

The poppies, the orange-colored California Golden Poppies, are also in radiant bloom right now in more abundance than I have ever seen them, delicately tossing their happy faces in the breeze beneath the more subdued and stately tea roses that seem to have appeared full-grown in front yards all over town.

I never cease to be amazed at how much a pleasant landscape lifts my spirits. And yes, I am in a good mood. I realized that quite unexpectedly last week. I am happy.

I'm not quite sure why. Oh, I could give you reasons. The flowers and mild temperatures are one. Did you know there is rain in our forecast for this evening? I know that means very little to those of you in more moderate climates, but for us, this is a big deal. We haven't had rain since early February and didn't expect any until October. It isn't supposed to be much, but OH HOW EXCITING it is! The realization that the fiscal outlook for Darling Wife and I is not quite as bleak for this summer as it has been in years past also adds to my pleasure. Or maybe it's that the school semester is winding down, and for the first time in a decade I am not stressed by that. I do have quite a bit of work, but it's all manageable, and its impending hiatus is pleasant to think on. What is more, my father and step-mother will be visiting us in a couple of months for the first time ever, and it's possible that another friend may drop in for a few days next month. These visits promise contact outside of our own domestic sphere as well as some nice tourist activities beyond the boundaries of our central valley home. What's more, we have plans to visit Boston briefly at the end of June when we travel to the northeast for my nephew's high school graduation. I can't tell you how much I long to see the cramped old metropolis! And finally Fergus continues to amaze us by how cute and well-behaved he is. He adores our company so much that he hangs his head in sadness when it's time for him to leave us at bedtime, but he always goes without fuss or difficulty. He has never once chewed up a shoe or piece of furniture, and he went for a long walk with us yesterday with a jaunty trot and hardly a pause to sniff a shrub that surprised and delighted us both. He is truly a joy, better than either of us could ever have hoped for.

But all of these reasons, and the many more I could give, don't quite explain why I am in such high form. But I guess I really shouldn't search for reasons. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts.

they're gone

Have you ever seen that scene toward the end of Fried Green Tomatoes in which Kathy Bates's character discovers Jessica Tandy's character sitting on her suitcase in front of a vacant lot where her home used to be?

If you have, then you can picture what I must have looked like when, walking home from work this afternoon, I saw a bare spot where "my" bee colony had been only a few days ago. The only evidence of its existence were some twigs lying on the ground with the torn remnants of honeycombs clinging to their surfaces.

At first, I thought the high winds we had last night and this morning might have blown the hive down. I searched frantically in the grass and bushes for its crushed remains, but there were none to be found.

Then my eyes lit on the smooth stub of the tree branch where the limb containing the cluster had been cut away. The clean whiteness at the site of amputation seemed so casual... so matter-of-fact.

When I reported the presence of the colony back in the fall, I expected this to happen. I thought the campus community would rush to remove this threat to the safety of students, faculty, and staff. But when my report was greeted with disinterest and nonchalance, I assumed the bees were safe in their new home, at least from the campus authorities. And as the fall gave way to winter and then spring, you know how much I came to regard the bees, stubbornly clinging to survival under the harshest conditions and despite all odds. I should have known that it was merely bureaucratic slowness and academic insouciance that preserved their meager lives for a few paltry months of struggle instead of any strength of will or determination on the part of the bees, their famed busyness availing nothing in the face of the constant, inevitability of red-tape bound progress that would eventually catch them up.

I would like to think that some eager bee-keeper scooped up the little colony and gave it a nice warm home in a box in his back yard, but I know too much of the ways of the world to trust to that shallow hope.

Is it silly to feel so strongly over a bunch of bugs? Especially when I violently destroyed several members of the same species when they invaded my home via the chimney on Monday of this very week? Is it hypocritical and ridiculous? I think maybe it is. But as I stood, staring at the emptiness where for so many weeks there was buzzing life, I cannot help but feel a profound sense of loss.

Hanging On

They are alive... Or at least some of them are... Or rather, the community survives.


I take comfort from that. The "expert" was wrong. They weren't frozen, or starved, or eaten.


But what about the individuals, the ones whose bodies I witnessed curled up on the ground among the grass. Do they matter as long as the hive lives on? I think the bees, if they could say anything, would say not. It's not like they had individual lives separate from the hive.


Still, a note of sadness creeps into my joy at their continued, stubborn hold on life and a university tree.

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.

I hear the call of the Red-shouldered Hawk most days as I ride to work in the morning. On occasion I see her, gliding gracefully across the heavens, and I think how beautiful, how noble she is. More than once, I have seen her engage in battle with my own enemy, the crow. Crows are troublesome and messy creatures that will have no other soul at peace while they have air in their breast to cry out with a tumultuous uproar. They swoop and harass the hawk as she goes on her way struggling to find food for herself and her young or as she sits in a treetop taking a much deserved rest from the hunt. But she does not allow these raucous creatures to trouble her. She dives and tacks with skill and nonchalance. What a fine beast she is, I think, as I ride along, observing the aerial drama.

When suddenly it occurs to me that she is a predator, a cold blooded killer that ends the life of others so that hers might continue a little while longer. Why is it that we think raptors so admirable and respectable, while we disdain and belittle the skulking animals that are their prey? Is it because of the skulking? Do we think that mice and rabbits like to scrabble around in underbrush and dark corners, that they are just naturally happiest wallowing in the poorest and most degrading existence while the raptor soars through the sky in unbounded freedom? Or is it possible that these more humble creatures long, as we do, for more than their lot but are are forced to slink in the shadows to avoid the sharp talons and ripping beaks of those we hold in such esteem? Can a rabbit be noble, can a mole?