I want to be a Bee when I grow up

The honey bees are buzzing around my compost pile, gnawing at the watermelon rinds and mango skins. Their tiny mandibles are collecting food for their hive while I watch with awe. I wonder where they sleep, who they are feeding, and what the honey will taste like. The little golden bees make me exceedingly happy.

While the bees harvest, the robin chirps from the branches overhead. He takes breaks from singing to strip the few remaining dried fruits from  nearby bushes. I wonder if he is as curious about me as I am him. I toss a few mealworms out to draw him in, but the starlings gobble them up before the other birds can lift a wing to glide down.

I wish I had wings. I would join them. I would dive and flap and prance and sing. I wouldn’t worry about all the things that occupy my mind on spring days. My brain is cluttered with work responsibilities, disappointments, and stress over what I’ll wear tomorrow. My pants are angry because I haven’t been as disciplined with my diet. But if I were a robin or a bluejay, no one would call me fat or say I need less cholesterol. Because if they did, I would poop on their head.

I’ve been in a lot of meetings at work lately. It feels very unnatural. Yesterday, the people in our meeting were frustrated with the amount of sunlight coming through the window. The lever was broken so we had to call maintenance to fix the shade. It took two electricians to fix the wiring and bring the shade down. Everyone clapped and hurrahed when the last beacon of light was snuffed out. This is what corporate life turns one into: light-hating zombies who celebrate artificial bulbs and meaningless words projected from machines.

I’m an oddity. I know it. My co-workers know it. I’m cynical, salty and have crustier edges than a sailor. Some days it takes super-human strength to hold in all the comments I want to say about our business. There was a time when I felt comfortable sharing my thoughts and ideas to improve work conditions, but after the elimination of my job and my team, I’m much less inclined to say anything. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before they realize I’m irrelevant and add me to the list of unemployed wastrels.

Which has got me to wondering…what is my purpose there? If I’m not passionate about the business world and its endless chasing of “wallet share”, why do I participate in it? I don’t feel valued or appreciated—two things our leaders say are important for job satisfaction. They use slogans like, “you matter!” And then lay off hundreds of people. I used to care. I used to love going to work and helping people. I loved my team and the people I supported.

There is a Jon Foreman song I love called, “Terminal”. It has a poignant verse: “Some folks work in offices, one day at a time. They could live a hundred years but their souls already died. Don’t let your spirit die before your body does. It’s terminal.” The message of the song is clear: every day is precious and every life is precious. Be kind. Love your neighbor. Life is short. But this is not my daily lived experience. It is just me or do others feel this way?

I want to start a bee hive. The bees inspire me. I have started doing research and I recently saw a post in a bee group about the loss of his hive after a cold snap. All the bee community offered helpful hints for what could have caused the deaths of the bees. It wasn’t just the cold. But what really moved me was how the picture of the hive showed little bee butts hanging out of the combs. Several people discussed how when the temperature drops, the bees face inward and act as insulation for the heart of the hive. They shiver so hard as to keep the bees near the queen warm so that even if they die, the queen and nurse bees might live. I want to live in a colony like that. I want to be so enmeshed in my community that the people around me are willing to sacrifice their comfort or maybe even their lives for my own. And I want to do the same for them. We have something to learn from bees: every member of the colony has a purpose, from the drone to the nurse bee.

The corporate world doesn’t think this way. It never will. Even so, it feels wrong to criticize it when I’m still working in it. I’m thankful for my job and the luxuries it affords. But I’m really ready to start my farm, grow my own food and get some bee hives. Then, I’m going to stand in a field filled with wild blackberries and wildflowers and let the sun warm my face. And then artificial conference rooms with dark shades will be only an incandescent memory.