The Bee Was Always There

There was a time when I ran from bees.

Every summer, while lifeguarding, families would bring watermelon to the pool. It never took long before the bees found it. The moment one started buzzing nearby, I was gone. I wasn't interested in standing still long enough to find out whether it meant me any harm.

If someone had told me then that one day I'd quietly follow a bumblebee through my own garden just to watch where it landed, I wouldn't have believed them.

Funny how time changes us.

When Zachary and I bought our first home, the front yard wasn't much of a garden.

It was mostly rock.

Decorative gravel.

Very little soil.

It looked finished, but it didn't feel alive.

A few weeks after we moved in, something unexpected happened.

Hollyhocks began pushing through the cracks.

At first there were only a few.

Growing from places they had no business growing.

We decided to water them.

Mostly out of curiosity.

Then they grew.

And grew.

Every week they seemed a little taller.

Every bloom brought another bee.

What began as a handful of forgotten flowers has become seven towering hollyhocks that now rise above our porch, some of the tallest on our block.

Sometimes I wonder if they were waiting for someone to notice them.

I like to think those hollyhocks planted our garden long before we did.

They changed the way I looked at the yard.

Then they changed the way I looked at my home.

And eventually, they changed the way I looked at the world.

My love of growing things started indoors.

One pothos became another.

One cutting became several.

Before long every windowsill held something green.

The fish tank became a place for roots to grow.

Then the garden outside slowly began to grow too.

Tomatoes.

Herbs.

Flowers.

Vegetables.

Every season teaching me something the last one couldn't.

Gardening has taught me something I don't think I could have learned any other way.

Almost everything worth growing spends most of its life looking like nothing is happening.

Roots grow long before flowers bloom.

Seeds disappear before they emerge.

The healthiest plants are often the ones that ask us to wait the longest.

Nature has never apologized for moving slowly.

I've started wondering why I expect that of myself.

The older I get, the more I believe attention is one of the greatest forms of gratitude.

To notice the bee before it disappears into another blossom.

To notice the first tomato turning red.

To notice the dogs asleep in the afternoon sun.

To notice that the pothos has quietly grown another foot across the room.

To notice that the person sitting across the table has slowly become your safest place.

None of these moments ask to be photographed.

None of them ask to be shared.

They only ask to be seen.

Perhaps that's why I began keeping this ledger.

Not because I wanted to preserve life perfectly.

But because I wanted to become someone who lived it more fully.

Someone who didn't measure a day only by what was accomplished.

Someone who remembered that watching can be just as meaningful as doing.

There is a quiet kind of peace that comes from realizing the world doesn't need our constant attention to continue being beautiful.

The bee doesn't know I'm watching.

The flower doesn't bloom for an audience.

The seasons arrive whether anyone notices them or not.

And yet...

I think life becomes richer when we do.

If someone asked me what my favorite hobby is, I could probably make a list.

Reading.

Gardening.

Cooking.

Writing.

Swimming.

Building a home.

But the truth is much simpler than that.

My favorite thing is watching the earth live.

Watching seeds become meals.

Watching homes become lived in.

Watching books slowly shape the way I think.

Watching the seasons quietly rearrange the landscape.

Watching people I love become more themselves with each passing year.

None of it happens quickly.

Perhaps that's why it matters.

This little bee will likely visit hundreds of flowers today.

The hollyhocks will bloom for only a little while longer before autumn asks them to rest.

The garden will change.

The seasons always do.

But for one quiet moment, I stopped long enough to notice.

Years ago, I would have run from the bee.

Today, I find myself grateful that it stayed long enough for me to see it.

And somehow...

that feels like enough.