An excerpt from my *hopeful* book

It’s summer. Hot and sticky, and I am lying in the yard because both the kiddos are napping, and I want the sun to touch some of the less-loved parts of my body. But, as it turns out, bees love all the parts of my body. And this time of year, while August drones on into September, they spend extra time collecting their booty and bothering us while we sun ours.

I am lying here feeling myself grow less comfortable and more anxious, when I think of Rudy.

Rudy is our Brittany spaniel. A copper and white, middle-aged and mid-sized creature. Our fuzz baby. Rudy exists assuming all his passions are purposeful. A hunting dog, a squirrel patrol, a crumb-cleaner, a deer chaser, a car announcer. He lives life completely comfortable with in his own skin, like all dogs do.

When Rudy is hot, he takes a swim in the pond; when he’s tired, he lies with his muzzle to the ground, feet splayed to one side as he snoozes. When Rudy’s hungry he’s especially present, gobbling up his food in less than three minutes. All day he runs and swims and hunts any living, fur-clothed thing until he’s tired or hungry or needs to go. He laps at water wherever he finds it, lies in the sun if he wants to be warm or pants in the shade to cool off. He forces unsuspecting souls into endless hours of fetch and comes to receive a scratch on the back whenever he has an itch.

Also, Rudy eats bees.

Bees really bother me. Maybe because they’re an insect, and most humans don’t like most insects, but more likely because of their pointy butts and the unsuspecting way I’ve been stung several times in my life. It’s not like I’m swatting at them or drop-kicking their hive when they get me, so, naturally, I think they’re all little b-words.

But when they’re buzzing around my pup, he turns his head like one might lazily shoo a fly, and then, he chomps the air. If he can catch it, he eats the bee. I don’t know if it buzzes in his mouth or stings him while he swallows or if his acrid breath kills the thing on impact, but he survives, and the bee does not. Sometimes, he even seems to hunt them, standing up from a nap to scan the air and chomp, chomp, jitter. He got one. It’s really, really weird.

One year, there was a terrible tribe of yellow jackets humming around in the yard, and I suspected they had a hive somewhere close by. I looked up the specific coloring, and discovered it was the type that is especially cruel and will actually chase humans down (Lord help us) and attack, stinging over and over. Instructing my people to avoid that portion of the yard, I started wondering how we were going to eradicate this problem.

The next morning, I cautiously walked to the area I’d seen them occupying to discover a large, deep hole. A Rudy-hole. He’d completely dug up their underground tunnels, exposing them to the hot summer sun, and I never saw another yellow jacket in our yard again.

Today, lying in the sun. I think of Rudy.  I try to be Rudy. He wouldn’t get up or move because of some tiny stinger buzzing by his ears. He would stay lying in the sun, occasionally chomping the air. Maybe he’d change position to get a better angle to eat them, but he certainly wouldn’t stop resting unless he wanted to.

And even though he rolls in feces and occasionally eats something long-rotted, he’s not just an idiot, he’s brave too. Yes, his bravery stems from stupidity, but I think most bravery looks a little stupid at first.

I think this isn’t such a bad way to live. Brave enough to keep existing in a world full of bees and viruses and even death. Brave enough to laugh and cry when both feel ridiculous.

Today, I will keep lying in the prickly grass, with the sun burning the crepe-y-looking skin on my stomach and not care who sees. I will show my kids that amidst a world of strangers, stingers, sickness, even death, I can still sleep in the heat of the day, bees all around me, this upside-down world still spinning.