Not long ago and before the colder weather came, I sat in a chair in the sun and watched a bee landing again and again on the yellow mum nearest me. I could almost hear the bee’s purring buzz as it hunted for nectar. I began a poem in my head…
I see a bee on the yellow mum.
Is the bee’s life halfway done?
I imagine my own life halfway gone
As I watch the bee move on and on…
I think often, now that I’m forty, about being at the halfway point of my life. I could be at the nine-tenths mark for all I know. I would be sad to leave so soon because I’m not done collecting the sweetness from all that blooms around me. Like the bee, I have work and more work.
It is not complicated work. It is trimming the ends of green beans to lightly steam them for tonight’s veggie tray and for the kids’ school lunches. When I can find good green beans in the store, I am happy. I buy two or three packages, and each time I am happy to have them in my cart, in my shopping bag, in my fridge.
When it’s time to cook, I retrieve a package, undo the zipper, and pull small handfuls of the fresh beans onto my lime-colored cutting board, green on green. I line them up, thankful to have fingers with dexterity, thankful for a sharp knife. The ends go to the chickens and the beans go in the steamer basket. As I trim, I think of how this simple task is limited to my life on earth. I have performed this green bean ritual many times already, yet each time I fill the steamer and set the timer, the buzzer marks one less time I will do this work.
I notice feeling happy and sad in my heart. I get to prepare green beans, but I won’t always get to do this. My kids won’t need school lunches. I won’t make veggie trays ad nauseam. There will be less and less chopping over time until one day, the knife will be laid to rest.
The knife, for now, has many years left in it, as I hope I do too. I want to get up in the morning and have green beans to trim and steam. I want to have lunches to pack and veggie trays to assemble. I want to add green beans to the grocery list and look for them on the shelf at the store. I want to experience disappointment when the green beans aren’t worth buying and joy when they are. I want to chop intentionally and mindfully and give the chickens the scrap ends, realizing there are no scrap ends in this life. Everything counts.
Every green bean I eat, and every bee I see, they count. They make me look at my life, and they help me live it while I’m still here.