Writing last night’s post reminded me why I blog in the first place. Yes, it was long, and probably didn’t make much sense to anyone but myself, but all of the thought and questioning required in transforming my abstract thoughts into written form helps me understand the issue at question better – I feel a lot less “lost in it all” now than before I sat down for an hour and wrote about it.

On a completely different schedule, living in Arizona for 4 years made me forget how much I detest daylight savings time.  My body didn’t adjust to the time change at all, and now that we’ve sprung ahead, being up “late” now means 3 AM instead of 2 AM, and now it’s 6:30 PM and I feel like dinner should still be a long way off.  Stupid northern farmers. DST is useless!

One good thing about it, though, is that it’s one more sign that spring will finally be here in 11 days. That doesn’t mean much in Colorado, and I expect at least 2 more substantial snowstorms, but the sunnier, the better.

Today I saw something I haven’t seen since last summer: a bee.  More specifically, a dying bee.

(yes, this photo is crap. My iPhone is my “carry-around” camera, not my Canon. Just trust me, that speck in the center is a writhing bee.)

At first the bee was running all over the window frames, and had me on the edge – I frickin hate bees. But after a few minutes, it changed to rolling movements, stretching and contracting, curling up, slowly kicking its legs in what seemed like a desire to go out fighting, to never give up. Now, though, it is near motionless, a victim of its own inevitable mortality.

I think it’s weird how we rarely see most living things die. Whenever I’m around wildlife, there usually are plenty of living creatures around me, but I don’t notice a bunch of carcasses. I guess a lot of it can be chalked up to the food chain, but I have to admit that nature is very good at cleaning up after itself. But what about this bee? It died on a coffeeshop windowsill, in the unnatural urban habitat controlled by the humans. Will a scavenging spider claim it? Will it be swept up by a barista at closing time?

Likewise, it reminds me of how insignificant my own life is from a universal perspective. All the time I spend freaking out over relatively little stuff could really be spent doing better things…