Why I Am More Like A Bee Nowadays

I’ve come to understand myself the way one understands a bee in a quiet garden. Not through noise or spectacle, but through presence. A bee doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t justify its path. It simply moves from moment to moment, gathering what sweetness it can, contributing what it must and chooses to, disturbing nothing that doesn’t need disturbing. I finally recognise myself in that. These days, I go about my life in much the same way. I exist quietly. I choose calm over conflict. I no longer feel the need to explain to flies why honey is worth more than the things they settle for, or to put it more bluntly…why honey tastes sweeter than shite! Some minds are not ready for sweetness; some hearts are not tuned to gentleness. A bee wastes no time trying to convert them, and neither do I. There is a discipline in that restraint. A philosophy, even.

To know your own nature. To understand your own power. To choose not to use it unless necessary. But power doesn’t disappear simply because it’s rarely shown. I am still equipped to protect the hive if needed. One of my dogs has tragically been suffering with cancer for some time. Like me, Thora willl not give in though. After a short while of diagnosis, she looked and was on the brink of passing. Since then, I have stayed in the front room with the dogs. The reason for this is that I cannot bear the thought of her passing without Sam or I being there. She was put on steroids about 18 months ago and has flourished since, skipping about like a puppy and living her best life. She is littered with lumps, and we know she hasn’t got long, but she is not in pain and is happy (she told me). Anyway, I position myself in my wheelchair in front of the door leading to the rest of our bungalow, and as this door opens inwards there is no possibility of the door being opened by an intruder should they have broken in. I sleep ‘tooled up’ and ready to defend my queen.

One of the positive choices I have made in life is, that I won’t ever compete for airspace. If somebody talks over me, or louder, I simply stop talking and listen. In a group, which I rarely am these days, it is the norm for people to act like Squadron Commander Flash-Heart in Blackadder or Ace Rimmer from Red Dwarf and to dominate the energy of the scene, ensuring the central gravitation point for the conversation. People tend to think that what they have to say, is the most important thing for you to hear. Kind of like ‘if I want your opinion or point of view, I’ll give it to you!’ It is the consensus that what you are saying becomes irrelevant and therefore not listened to anyway. Most folk only listen to speak. Think about that. How many times do you have something in your mind that you want to say because of something else somebody has said to prompt you? If you are thinking of what you’re going to say, you are simply not listening (unless you are listening effectively, which is for another blog).

Anyway, back to my fuzzy little friends. A bee is a small lesson in how to live. It moves through the world with quiet intention, touching each moment lightly but leaving it better than it was. It seeks sweetness without greed, works without boasting, and carries its purpose not as a burden but as a birthright. A bee understands balance: It simply follows its nature, steady, present, and unbothered, trusting that the world will unfold as it should (I’ve been, due to my disability, provoked into learning to trust the journey). In its tiny body is a whole philosophy: that gentleness is not weakness, never mistake kindness for weakness. A bee is harmless until it isn’t. It asks for nothing except space to work, space to live, space to protect its own. Yet beneath that quiet exterior lies a truth and that is, touch the hive, threaten what matters, and the smallest creature becomes a force of consequence. I feel that truth in myself. It takes far more to provoke me now, but the instinct to defend, clean, sharp, and unwavering, stays intact. I often think, and sometimes say under my breath, don’t let the wheelchair fool you!

The late great Muhammad Ali had a famous mantra, and that was to ‘float like a butterfly, and sting like a bee’. I don’t float like a butterfly anymore, and I don’t pretend to. My movement through the world is heavier, more grounded, shaped by experience rather than elegance, and sadly confined to my trustee chariot. If anything, I roll through life, steady, deliberate, unhurried. But the sting, when needed, is still precise. Most of the time though, I am simply gathering my honey: the silent joys, the small victories, and the moments of grace that together make a life worth living. I leave the flies to their own choices. I leave the noise to those who need it. I carry on, as the bee does, with purpose and without apology. There is a peace in that. And a strength. A kind of wisdom that doesn’t need to be spoken to be understood.