The Dance

Today I was awakened to the presence of a love affair that has spanned the duration of my life, in which I have been an unwilling and unconscious partner, fated to be stuck in the throws of this love/hate relationship for the remainder of my days.

But first, I did what any sensible gal does on a beautiful Spring day in glorious weather that is long overdue; I laid in the sun. Well, I tried. Today went like this...

First, I committed a criminal act. I slept in and, in my selfish slumber, missed the waking hours of perfection. On a sunny day that promises to climb in the mid 70's, there's nothing better than the anticipation of warmth, the eagerness to be outside and under the largest star in the universe. I like to be up around 9, with coffee (or green tea these days) in hand while my senses wake themselves. By the time I have a bellyful of oats, fruit, and honey and have showered myself clean of puffy eyes and body odor, the world is usually ready for me and my lawn chair. But today, having forfeited my rights to a leisurely morning, I waived myself of the duty to shower and proceeded straight to the deck, hair wrapped in a scarf, face shiny with a thick coat of moisturizer.
First order of business, repaint my toenails. There I sat with my supplies neatly arranged on the patio table. I dabbed polish remover on a napkin and took a single swipe at my big toe. I had only smudged a negligible hole in last week's polish when he came.
He dons a yellow jacket that isn't fit to stretch, never meats to cover his bulbous black belly. Nature's representation of Fat Man in a Little Coat. Despite his bottom heavy build, he hovers mockingly, effortlessly. He hovers and waits. What is he waiting for? I do my best impression of Mona Lisa; stoic expression, showing no sign of amusement, but with eyes that follow. He hangs there, gives a shimmy, then SWOOSH! A bombastic divebomb executed with the collective sum of the world's bravado and machismo. I knock over my bottle of nail polish remover while frantically calling his name. I have affectionately dubbed him $@&*!. I yell for Sean to show my visitor the door, which looks an awful lot like a rolled up magazine in a lethal male fist. Sean comes out with one heroic arm raised, and away floats my visitor nonchalantly over the rooftop, as if possessed by the birds in flight. Sean's arm goes down, "You ok?" "I guess." It takes 45 minutes to complete the first coat of polish. $@&*! and I continue on with our dance between brushstrokes, valiant Sean continues to step in, defending my honor.

I'm not unfamiliar with this dance. It's fearful, it's combative, ritualistic, animalistic, hedonistic. It is performed with fervor masking cowardice. The foot extends in a motion to decline promenade, my partner darts and blocks my exit, my foot retracts as my head takes its umpteenth nod of capitulation and I fold in to myself, paralyzed. My partner bows and disappears until the next act. In the past this dance has included props. Before engaging in foot work I reach for a plastic racket whose frame is an electric shade of dayglo, and with thumb depressing a little black button I swing my prop through the air hoping to introduce it's electrifying presence to my partner. I am in warrior pose. Calling my bluff, $@&*! accepts my advances and makes a literal bee line toward my face. Not willing to tango with the shocking ribs of my own weaponry, I resign my place on the dance floor. The day is young. There will be zapping.

Why do I engage in this dance? Why do I humor the hostility of my daily visitor with the flailing acts of terror he so obviously aims to elicit? Simple. A few swollen abrasions on one of my tender appendages, costly days of feeling drugged and defeated by Benadryl, cursing while hovering over the toilet to evacuate my stomach in nauseous rage. $@&*! has a close relative, smaller, favoring a striped costume to the snug fitting jacket. This nasty redheaded stepchild has stung me three times too many, rendering me sick and utterly useless for a full 24 hour period. The honey bee is venomous and vengeful without provocation, I dare not learn what this larger, more menacing cousin is capable of.

To be fair, it isn't just $@&*! for whom I have danced. The wasp also once knew the nature of my quick step, but asserted early on that, despite his long needle sharp tail, he was more interested in getting to his nest than wasting his precious time on me. Confession: I poisoned the nest, which is craftily tucked in the splintered wooden frame of this precariously high and weathered deck on which I perch. I poisoned them, family by family, nest by nest, until one day I was without poison and forced to notice the truth of a wasp's routine; the respectful nature of their flight, the dignity in their hard days work. The wasp occasionally leaves home for work, and sometimes enjoys the sensation of being suspended in the wind between his shifts. He doesn't come too near and he doesn't care to dance; when I jump up he promptly hangs closer to the ragged edges of abode. The wasp and I share the wind and the sunshine. We have an understanding.

I have tried to reach the same plane of perception and acceptance with $@&*!. On many a warm day I have let that screen door slam with the express determination to look my visitor in the wings with earnest welcome. As expected, he comes and he hovers. First near my feet, a safe distance, one that makes me believe he senses my acceptance and is willing to approach with timidity. With my guard down I go about my task du jour, forcing a stubborn and deliberate calm to overcome trepidation. I relax in to this new relationship. On this day we won't dance. Ahh..... ZZZZZZZZZZZ! ZZZZZZZ!! ZZZ ZZ! I am attacked, assaulted, brought to reckoning by a pair of ferociously beating wings. $@&*!! $@&*!! I call his name. It is the white flag of acquiescence to his insect ears. We are at it again.

Today I woke up with resolve. After determining that today was to be spent outdoors, I planted that seed of willfulness and naivete in my mind that today he would not bother me, today I would lay perfectly still and be perfectly at peace. His buzz was to be my song. And, in one of my prouder moments, I have to say I accomplished that sense of peaceful security for exactly 19 minutes. I probably could have gone longer but the anaesthesia of sunlight was not enough. My scared inner child quickly turned to palpable irritation and it bubbled over without warning. "Sean that's it! THAT! IS! IT! Kill him! Kiiiiilllllllll him!" My voice has never taken on such malice. "I thought you were doing alright out there?" "KILLLLL!" "Alright." We were back on script. Sean came out wielding a magazine looking far more exasperated than militaristic. Clearly, this damsel's drama was wearing thin. I laid down and closed my eyes, this time I wouldn't retreat, I wanted to be there for his demise. I heard the lunging of Sean's weight and the cylindrical tool of eradication cutting the air, but I didn't hear a thud. Then I heard nothing. "He flew over the roof." "UGGGGGH!" Sean went inside but emerged five minutes later and began reading.

"Male eastern carpenter bees are curious and will investigate anyone, including humans, that comes near their nests. The curiosity is often interpreted as aggressiveness; however, the males are only aggressive to other male carpenter bees. They do not have stingers and cannot cause any real harm."

Huh? He goes on...

"They sometimes attempt to mate with other insects or small birds. An interesting trick to use to "move" a male carpenter bee out of the way is to pick up a small pebble (roughly the size of the bee), then toss it past the bee. They will attempt to chase it, distracting them for a few moments, long enough for a human to get by. However, since they cannot sting, and rarely accord any attention to humans, this is unnecessary."

He went on to read a passage about a carpenter bee's tendency to bore holes in wood to build their nests. They "tend to hover for hours on a sunny day." They sure do. I erupted in laughter. Fits of laughter. The kind that comes from so deep within that it stretches the diaphragm to explosive proportions. It hurts and causes you to choke, the kind that forces tears from your eyes. This dance, this ridiculous, clumsy, persistent, neurosis building dance that I have been suckered in to for 27 years is not the battle I perceived. Some dumb, bumbling creature looks at me with amorous curiosity, not bloodlust. It wants to mate with me on a good day, and protect its nest from me with stingerless imposition on a bad day. It will sooner extinguish me by boring the final hole in this rickety wood, sending me plummeting to a three story death, than it will inflict direct physical harm.

Even now, after having enjoyed dinner outside and armed with this knowledge, I flinch in its path. No longer troubled by the thought of imminent sickness, now I'm just thoroughly annoyed. Who wouldn't flinch at a giant flying insect that darts indiscriminately at your face or hangs within earshot boasting an ominous buzz? Now I look at my suitor, the carpenter bee, and I feel deep-seeded loathing. The years spent frightened and hiding at the pool, in the backyard, on a hike, getting sun. The stupidity of the creature; can't he smell that I'm the same non-threatening, non-bee species, unmatable blob of moving flesh that he just checked out ten seconds ago? Must he respond to my every insignificant gesture as a sign that I might want to have his bee babies? And isn't it just like a man to be off sizing up the potential when he has a perfectly devoted bee spouse dutifully collecting pollen somewhere in a little burrow of the deck? Sleazeball.

And then I am reminded that we are both creatures of suffering. Spring Fever has a grip on both us equally; it lures us from our homes, breaks the spell of hibernation, and casts a sun-induced trance. My bewitchment is expressed through hours and hours of turning in the sun, losing track of the minutes in favor of warmth and a healthy glow. But this poor dumb creature, this sad sap, listens to his biological voice and can only perform his dance. He dances for pleasure, for courtship, for bravado, for blind instinct. It is not my love song, it is not my disco. The carpenter bee's own Inferno, to zip and twirl and admire superfluously. Confusion and preoccupation for the unknown. Unrequited love. We will never dance the same way again.