Goodbye Big Trees

I’ve long had the habit of talking to the bees. It was something I’d been looking forward to during my time in California. Originally, I was supposed to return to the Big Trees in January, but my mother had some health issues and I needed to stay in Chicago until mid-March. Thus, my time at Big Trees was cut short by months.

It was a cold winter in California though, so I didn’t miss much. My poor husband came back in early February and endured five weeks of rain, 70 mph winds, 8 inches of snow, a leaking tiny home, and a broken heater. By the time I arrived, I’d hoped the winter would have passed but that wasn’t the case. It wouldn’t be until mid-April before it became warm enough for me to sit beside the bees and contemplate life, and even today it’s too chilly to do so. Bees are inactive when it’s cold out—like me, they prefer to bask in the sun.

Yesterday though, was a beautiful day, and as such, I was able to chat with my buzzing friends, the sunlight pouring over us, as they zoomed in and out of their hive. The grass that now grows over my goats’ grave swayed in the breeze and a pair of quail walked past, taking no note of me, as if I were invisible. I heard them coo to one another, prattling about their day. My gaze settled upon the meadow, and I closed my eyes, pretending I was on my back deck, trying to remember the life I lost in the fire.

I recalled standing in the kitchen on a similar sunny day in May over a decade ago, a buzz filling the air. Running out to the back porch, I discovered the bees had formed a beard as long as Gandalf’s out of the hive and down their little front porch. A hum like no other pulsed and echoed across the deck. I held my coffee and watched in awe. Nearby, the goats—Bartimus and Abigail—munched the meadow grass, bleating gently while backing away from the hive, yet watching the bees with their alien, horizontal slit eyes. Suddenly, the air above us filled with little black specks as thousands of bees scattered in all directions. The hum was amazing, something I’d never experienced before, yet something so ancient, my heart recognized it. The bees were swarming. The goats and I remained still, my own jaw dropped, theirs moving rhythmically while they chewed their cud, as we watched the bees form a black bee-tornado and twirl away from us, shimmying between the 200 ft tall trees, and disappearing from sight.

This was the first time I’d seen them swarm and over the years, I would witness at least six more. In the house I lost, the hive was right off the back porch, so I could hear their springtime ritual as it began and go running out to watch. This year, I’m living on the property again and checked every morning since the spring equinox, hoping to see it when it happened, but I missed it. My tiny home is too far from the hive for me to hear the sounds of their immanent departure. As I sat in the sun yesterday, recalling my old life, my heart ached and I cried. I miss the sounds of the bees and the goats in my kitchen. I miss the goats. I miss that life.

Grief is a strange thing, just when you think you’ve mastered the new normal, nostalgia for what you’ve lost takes over. Even stranger though, is that I love the life I now have. How can I be so happy and blessed yet so sad at the same time? No one would ever choose to have their home burned to the ground, to lose so much in such a short time, and yet, I love my life on the other side. I love living in my tiny home. I love having less stuff. I love living half my year in Chicago near Lake Michigan. I love traveling between them—America is a beautiful country to explore. None of this would have happened if my house hadn’t burned. Yet still, I loved that life I had, a life I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to.

In a less than a week, we head to Chicago for the summer, and I’ve decided to take the time to say goodbye to the land. It’s been a wonderful, productive visit. I’m grateful to the Big Trees, the birds, the flowers, the bees, and even the rains for sharing their beauty with me. During this return trip, I finished a novel, published a new memoir, weeded, gardened, chatted with the bees, applied several biodynamic preparations, connected with the fairies and other kind gentry of the land, hugged the Big Trees that are left, mourned the ones we lost in the winter storms, visited the ocean, hiked the beach with a friend, saw my favorite musicians play, danced at a friend’s birthday, hosted our first gathering as well as our first overnight guests since the fire, went to San Francisco to see a band at the Fillmore, ate at several favorite restaurants, attended a few dinner parties, and visited a friend in Petaluma. I tried to see as many people as possible, but not all schedules aligned. So to those I did get to see—thanks for the good times, and for those that didn’t work out, I’ll see you this fall.

I had the honor of being on a talk show this morning to discuss my memoir, Wildfire: Losing Everything, Gaining the World (you can check it out here if you’re interested). I was amazed at how much easier it is to discuss the fire, as well as the good things that have come out of it. Yet as much as I’ve healed I’m still always a tinge sorrowful, and it dawned on me yesterday when sitting with the bees that this melancholy isn’t all bad. We live in a world that demands happiness and seeks out the removal of anything that might cause discomfort. I’m not sure that’s a good thing because darkness is a part of life. Some would say it’s the richest part of life, full of mystery and power. It’s not that you can’t know joy without pain, it’s that you can’t live on earth without change and change is often painful.

To know sorrow is to have known life. Dwelling in a place of peace doesn’t mean an absence of pain. It means an acceptance of “what is” and often, “what is” is filled with opportunities you never knew existed. Change is the only way a story happens. Change is the catalyst for adventure. As I get older, I become more comfortable with my sadness. I no longer wonder if something is wrong when grief, pain, or regret washes over me. It’s not a failure or a curse if I want to cry while at the same time laugh. I love my current life and I long for the way it used to be. It’s not either/or.

Goodbye Big Trees and the bees. I’ll see you in a few months.