Bees and Knees

So I'm thinking about bees. I just saw the movie, 'The Secret Life of Bees', which adapts a truly meaningful book into a truly meaningful visual event. I don't like to use the word 'film' because it sounds sort of high-brow and self-important (on the part of the 'visual event', not me). Besides, the word 'movie' had already occurred in the sentence and EVERYBODY knows that using the same word twice is unacceptable and makes one appear to be a moron. Oops. I think I just did that.

I'm really not thinking about bees. Bees are simply a metaphor in the movie for dealing with our own scars and learning to love. To love ourselves, specifically and others, generally. Because we've all got them--scars I mean, not necessarily bees.

Of course the movie is about women, because let's face it, my dear trophy wives, women know how to love. And love powerfully. Maybe sometimes so powerfully that we can hurt ourselves in the process (I could use the word 'sting' to extend the metaphor, but no thanks). And the story encompasses the idea that our wounds can be healed through the power of that love.

I have lots of scars, literally and figuratively. One hot August day, my friend Annette was "pumping" me on her bike, which means I was riding on the handle bars. It's seems dumb that as kids we so routinely did stupid things and survived. But that day was unfortunate as we crashed and I was sent sprawling into the gravel on the side of the road. My knee was a mess and I hobbled--barely--back to the house where, in my mother's absence, my brother washed the injury a bit and wrapped it in gauze. Mostly so I didn't have to look at it, I think.

I remember my beautiful, powerful mother coming home hours later. She lay me in a tub of warm water to soak the bloody bandages from my knee, so gentle. When she saw the tangled mess of skin and road debris, tears sprang to her eyes as she realized that I was in pain. It was the same mother--the same tears--years later that lay beside me in a hospital room as I was hemmorhaging and flung her arm out. Crying to the doctor she demanded, "take my blood and give it to her. Take all of it if you need to." It was the same mother that stroked my hair every night while reminding me that I had the ability to become anything I wanted in this world.

When you see the movie, think about a powerful woman in your life. And think about how to BE one of those women (unless of course, you are a man. In that case, consider changes in your life that could help you be a powerful man.)

But remember, it's love that is empowering.

On forth, trophy wives!