honey and sting

this is the summer of the bumble bee. i've been buzzing incessantly, and my little bumble-wings are pooped. i've been spending a lot of time building up my relationships with old (nuclear family, highschool and college friends) and new (organizers and romantic bumble bees) important people in my life; organizing around old (police brutality, accountable development) and new (street harassment and gender violence, food justice) issues; and it's been thoroughly fulfilling, but exhausting. more, i've seemingly lost my ability to pump my bumble-brakes--the honey i've been feasting on has been so delicious! almost to the detriment of my personal health. after something like my tenth consecutive night without sufficient sleep, two things occurred to me:

1. i love sleep. and balance. but i've not been tending to either of those. and my heart and body know it. this hyper-busy lifestyle has got me always playing catch-up, a little on edge, stinger all poised and ready.

2. i haven't taken enough time over the past month to really reflect on my (mostly beautiful, but often trying) experiences, meditate, write consistently, or spend any time with myself. i've just been zooming through, sweet and tired.

so here is where i declare: enough. a friday pledge to more balanced living, to celebrating my own-ness, to more honey, and less sting.

i came across this poem from the devastatingly old-man-beautiful and time-tested derek walcott that made my bumble-brain gleam in anticipation of getting some alone time with myself. enjoy.

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome

And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.