Vista 2

Here I am, back at my spot on the overhanging cliff.  I wasn’t planning on coming here right now – this is an impromptu visit and entry – so I don’t have my laptop, which I think is a better way to get acquainted with a natural setting.  So what, I’ll transcribe the entry onto my laptop later.

            Now just so happens to be around the same time of day as the previous time I was here.  4:30pm.  Sunny and beautiful.  Pittsburgh seems to shine like that.  Today I must be sitting a couple inches to the right, because through a chink in the branches in front of me I see a brilliant turquoise dome catching gleams of sunlight.

            Having read Nancy Gift’s book, A Weed by Any Other Name, I feel like I’ve taken on an ant’s eye view whenever I’m outside walking to class or sitting in the grass.  Right now, I’m noticing all the weeds around me on the lawn and in the surrounding brush. I can identify some, but most I don’t know the names for.  I wonder if they’re mentioned in her book.  Why didn’t she include pictures?  Drawings at least!  I would be able to identify this tangling gangly alien looking thing with the pretty flowers.  But I do see crabgrass, a yellow dandelion, and – ahh! a fluffy white dandelion about to blow away into a hundred pieces.  And clover.  Lots of clover.  Perhaps this explains all the bees circling my ankles.

            In Connecticut, I work in my town’s nature center, an amazing facility called Earthplace.  During the summer Earthplace runs a summer camp, which allows kids to get in touch with the natural world, through interaction with animals, lots of trail walks, experiments, arts and crafts, field trips, canoe trips, etc.  I love this place.  The camp director is an expert beekeeper and there are two hives on the property that she maintains throughout the year.  Bees are one of her passions, but she just so happens to be highly allergic.  We’re all prepared, of course, in case she’s stung.  There are a significant number of campers who show up at the start of camp every session armed with their Epi-Pen Jrs.

            The thought terrifies me though.  As Becky takes me on a tour of her hive, thousands of bees swarming around her head, her bare arms, her legs, my heart pounds.  You’re going to get stung for sure.  I want to grab her, snatch her back to safety.  But then she reemerges from the hive area, no stings, no swelling, no anaphylaxis.

            The next day, Becky invites the ten-year-old campers for a visit to her hive.  Are you crazy?  I don’t ask that.  Because what I realize is – these children need to learn not to fear things that are only threats if you make them threats.  A bee will sting you if you are provoking it.  Yes, sometimes a bee will sting you for no reason at all, and that sucks.  But cars crash, friendly dogs bite.  If you teach a child to fear bees, that snakes are evil, spiders are to be crushed under your shoe, then they will grow up with the wrong impression of nature – an ignorant and biased one.  Like Gift says in her book, children need to touch to learn.  Okay, so don’t touch the bees.  But getting up close is so cool.  And seeing that bee hive up close was really awesome. 

            I went off on a huge tangent here.  It’s getting a little chilly.  Clouds are passing over the sun, and golden rays are no longer reflecting off that turquoise dome.