The Story Behind Those Fine Lips

So what the hell happened here? Really?

It’s New Year’s Eve. Circa 2009. Year two of making Vanishing of the Bees. I open the door to retrieve my mail and find one lone bee dead on my doormat. I happened to look down. 

Welcome indeed.

Every time I come into contact with a lone bee — and there have been many bee visitations - I interpret it as the universe telling me I am on the right path. Bees are messengers. And what bee has to say is big. Global. Universal. 

If you slow down to listen, you will see that you speak her language. 

So when i did see her, the sentiment was always the same. 

How could I be so lucky as to be a voice for you? 

One time I was washing the dishes. Looking out past the potted plants on my window sill and onto the gray parking lot, row two to be exact. I could see Penguin — my now deceased cat— out of the corner of my eyes lounging on a sun-dappled piece of concrete. 

How the hell are you going to pay your rent and keep affording life at this pace?

That’s literally what I was thinking when one bee touched the glass at eye level and bounced off and up. Here. Gone. 

It was a punctuated response. It was a ‘hey-wake up’ and it sounded like this: 

You know damn well that this is what you are meant to do in this second-crack at life (I’ve had a near-death experience) and that the universe is taking care of you. You know in your gut that people need to hear this whether they realize it or not. So why are you still holding on to this victim-way of thinking pattern that is ridden with fear. What does it give you? And seriously, why?  

It had been two years of steady bee visitations. There were no bee-friendly plants in my courtyard. There was no reason for bees to be around period thanks to my soon-to-be-former-landlord-I-hope, who insisted that I don’t pluck the lawn.

So the fact that I just happened to gaze down at the welcome mat and catch one dead bee was just an ordinary improbability. 

I was excited. I picked her up so I could place her on my altar with the others who had shown up in my house to die. And somewhere in there I kissed her.  I told you I was excited. I don’t know, it happened fast. But obviously not   

fast enough. 

Did that little bee-atch just sting me?  I thought as i was lifting my chin and simultaneously feeling the pinching venomous pain.

I could imagine her POV. I’d scared her to death. She’d reacted. 

I was going to be late to see Dr. Glickman. I only had 50 minutes with him and every second counted. A lot.

I jumped in the car and within ten minutes — the time it took me to get to the 7/11 on Wilshire and Highland — I looked like this. I had to stop to get some ice.

I had a tantric workshop to go to that evening. I had a tantric workshop to go to that evening!! I couldn’t very well bloody show up like this, I thought to myself. The lips were totally going to cramp my style. What the eff was i going to do?

Luckily, this time 7/11 gave me some customer service. Last time, they refused me their toilet, even though I’d lied and told them i had a UTI. Because I could have had one. Who didn’t allow a woman to pee? As retaliation I peed in the front of the convenient store; in their bushes to be exact. I was pissed and I really had to go.  

In any case, I got the cubes and held them on what was now a fleshy fold about to burst in two. All the way from Hollywood to Santa Monica until I needed more.

Dr. Glickman was aghast. He kept on asking whether I wanted to go to the hospital.

I kept on telling him there was nothing a doctor could do. I could barely form words.  

I’d been stung a few times near the eyes by now. I knew the drill. For a few days I’d look like an Icelandic Chipmunk or botox job gone really really bad. 

How was I going to face a room full of strange men and women at this tantric workshop?  I would have to explain to all of them. Maybe they wouldn’t believe me. 

One look and sauf for the sick ones, they’d all be turned off. Or think I was vain person with a botched botox job.

After the session, I was determined to flip it around and use the sting in a positive manner. That bee was a good omen. Bee Medicine was a healing gift. Ultimately and no matter what. I was going to try to heal myself. Will the venom away. 

I visualized the swelling going down. i saw myself in a cross-legged position in a dimly lit room with my mouth intact. I thanked the universe that they were fine and full. 

This was my karma. I remembered when i was 14 at St. Laurent High School, two boys Chris and his sidekick Mouse always called me “Helia,” which meant lips in Greek. I decided there and then that when i got older I would have a doctor cut my lower lip horizontally in half. 

I had money. Thanks to the black lab across the street that had bit me on the left cheek when I was 11. My dad said he’d sued so i could have the ‘plastic surgery’ I was going to want later on. I didn’t want plastic surgery for my scar, i wanted to permanently smallen my lips.

Today I am grateful. Especially when I see that girl in my spin class at Crunch whose lips look like they are going to flap away and float up at any given moment. It makes me sad how much we want to fit in. Be noticed. 

With gratitude, I also swallowed three advils, kicked back two non-drowsy benadril, sucked on the homeopathic remedy Cantharis 30c, and kept icing my kisser.

By nightfall, the poufiness had subsided. It was a miracle. It had never done that before. 

I sat cross-legged in the dimly-lit room and I looked fine, in fact it was just a tad swollen that I looked sexy. I had flipped the incident around.  

No matter the variation, the bees were always bringing me a lesson of trust.