The book was sitting on my secretary’s desk for many weeks. She was no longer using the desk because of a leave of absence. I had never seen nor heard of the book: “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd. I enjoyed it thoroughly and more than a year later I found that a movie had been of it released in 2008—and there it was on STARZ, an add on to Prime video. The film was an excellent rendition of the book, which is not always the case when books are translated into film. The story which is a mixture of coming of age and family drama has a major focus on the wonderment of bee keeping.
Beyond the story line it reminded me of a documentary I saw on a flight I enjoyed a film called the “Last Beekeeper”, that described the plight of three southern American commercial beekeepers who struggle to keep their hives healthy in the face of dying off of the source of their living and the pollination they provide to almond trees in California. Although I always had an interest and fascination of bees I did not realize the complexity of their lives and their vast socialization processes. The sight of healthy bees helping their ill or injured hive-mates through their struggles seemed no different from humans and other animal species caring for ill or injured progeny.
As the owner or cohabitant of pet dogs, cats, fish and birds at some time of life, currently two indoor Abyssinian and two Ocicats share my house and two feral cats occupy its deck. Their shenanigans and expressions of affection fulfill much of my enjoyment of them: one of the Ocicats (the intrauterine sibling of the other) has the practice of walking up my body about 3 am, reaching my face and then licking it while purring. It is not as if I slather my face with tuna fish, but a genuine act of affection—he then bends his head so I can kiss it. I recognized recently that at least one if not more of my cats appears to like music. If I have my phone playing music Jinx, the heavily spotted Ocicat will do his walk up my body and then snuggle in to me—apparently listening to the music—but I might be reading too much into his actions. One of the older Abyssinian loves to sit on the baby grand piano when my wife is playing it—maybe it is the vibration, but I like to think it is the music.