Waiting for the Bees and Crocuses

One of the first of this year's bees.

Every year I wait for the bees and crocuses to come out. It's about the same time each spring, with the crocuses flowering first, and then the bees waking up or growing up or whatever it is that bees do to come to life on the warming planet. 

It's one of the few things that makes life still worth living.

I've been at this apartment for nearly 22 years. I planted my crocus bulbs 20 years ago. Some of them have survived for that long, although most of those I see these days are offspring of my original plantings.

It is, of course, a miracle to see these two different symbiotic creatures emerge at the same time. I know their emergence has evolved over millions of years and was originally a result of happenstance. Flowers randomly came about out of the quad trillions of random atoms and life forms lurking about the universe, and then bees came along to service them out the the same mish-mash of a time too long ago to understand.  

Why do they keep doing it?

In my short stay in the mish-mash I've come to understand that I will never know, that even asking the question why is an absurdity.

This is simply how things turned out. Despite the absurdity of it, it's one of the things that makes me an environmentalist. It makes me want to wake up on spring mornings.

It's a beautiful thing for an old man to wait for each spring, and I hope it lasts forever.