Primroses

I was sitting on the back porch in shorts and a t-shirt this morning. It cooled down overnight from yesterday's muggy high 90s. A cup of coffee was close at hand, and my nerves were twitching for the ritual of the cigarette (which I have once again pushed away from).

I fidgeted, irritated by the fact that I was irritated by my attempt to break an expensive and anti-social habit. I brought the dog's attention to a squirrel on the fence and urged her into action, then immediately got surly when she would not stop barking at the place it had been.

The time that I miss smoking the most is when I write. Right now, for example. Smoking provides a ritual pause a time for thinking and gathering oneself together. To be literary about it, the cigarette ritual is like a comma, a brief pause, mental punctuation.

It is not the health risks that have inspired me to give up this comfort, it is the mess. I've emptied one ashtray too many. I can't have a fan going or the ashes get spread around my study, and the type of cigarettes I smoke are too expensive for me to be able to justify.

But that's not what I'm supposed to be writing about. It's just an extended explanation of why I was irritable and out of sorts, and how something small changed my mood.

I have a pleasantly large back porch. It was screened once, but now it is merely a wooden platform covered by an extension of the house roof. It needs painting and the wood is so old that the heads of the nails protrude above the surface. It's about two feet higher than the backyard which gives Penny the ability to leap joyfully as she launches her pursuit of anything smaller than herself.

I am sitting on this porch hair and teeth unbrushed, toes starting to roast in the puddle of sunlight that has sieved through the branches of the large white pine. Two inches from my toes is a small stand of evening primroses. I decide that they are open during the day by design ... just to irritate me further.

The primrose flowers consist of four overlapping bright yellow petals with a notched outer edge. I wonder if I could use the term 'bi-lobal' but I haven't the desire to do the research. Dark creases radiate from the center of the flower up each petal but disappear before they get to the edge. In the center eight stamen stand surrounding an X-shaped stigma. A pleasant enough looking blossom and at the very least admirable for its having volunteered its way into my yard.

And, as I said, a small stand of them were moving and bumping in the morning breeze a few inches from my bare toes. I idly stared at them trying to avoid thinking of my self-imposed fast. Suddenly a dark object plopped into one of the larger blossoms, increasing the sway and setting off a chain reaction in the blossom siblings, caroming brightly in the sunlight. It was a small bee which seemed to have landed awkwardly.

As I watched, the small insect righted itself and walked out to the edge of a petal. The petal promptly folded inward depositing the intruder on its back at the base of the stamen. The bee righted itself again and once more tried to walk to the edge with the same results.

The bee apparently stood for Buster Keaton, as the hapless insect repeated its actions with tenacity. Finally it seemed to have given up (what was it that was so attractive about the edge of the petal anyway?) and instead started climbing the stamen ... up one, down the other, up the next, fall off, choose another randomly. Up ... down ... up ... fall ... up ... fall ... up ... down ... up ... fall ... The bee's manic but inept concentration seemed to be similar to a drunk person trying to climb a flight of stairs or get a key into a keyhole.

I suddenly realized that the little thing had never seemed to stop long enough to get any nectar. It seemed to be fascinated by the swings and roundabouts and uninterested in gathering nectar and flying home.

Eventually it lay, either exhausted or in a stupor at the base of one of the petals. A few moments later, a gust tipped the flower and Buster rolled out of the blossom and hit the ground. I leaned over the edge of the porch to watch.

He righted himself, preened a bit, and took off heading for parts unknown.

I reached for my coffee and suddenly realized that, at least for the moment, my craving for a cigarette was gone.