Hypothermia Among Friends

The water at Nauset Beach today was 58 degrees. I don't know enough about average water temperatures to know if that is particularly cold, but it was a good 10 degrees colder than a few days ago. However, my skin did not go numb while I was swimming this afternoon, as it sometimes does, so I know that it was not an extraordinarily cold water day.

I have to admit that I enjoy standing at the edge of the ocean, along with all of the other adults, as their children play in the chilly water. They shake their heads and look baffled at the kids' bravery/hardiness/insanity. I blend in with them, until suddenly I walk quickly into the water, all the way up to my neck. They are surprised, but going in all at once is the only way to get into such cold water. Also, if you don't move quickly beyond the braking point of the waves, they will knock you over.

Today I walked in near an older man wearing a wetsuit. He saw me and said, in a thick Boston accent, "Yah really tuff!"

Thankfull to be on Cape Cod

I am on vacation this week, on Cape Cod - my favorite place on Earth. Aside from the joy of swimming in the ocean (no chemical-laden pools for me!), something about the Cape speaks to me. The salty, sandy, chilliness of it - even on a hot day, there is always the hint of the cold ocean in the air - reminds me to be thankful. Life can be hard, keeping warm can be hard, growing food in the sandy ground can be hard. The ocean and the weather can both be cruel.

But warm days are gifts, and the vegetables and greens that do make it in the garden remind us that, as Barbara Kingsolver says, food is a process, not a product. The ocean is as healing as it is dangerous.

Yesterday I took a walk around the Cove Burying Ground in Eastham. There are many seventeenth-century gravestones in the cemetery, and one in particular that I always remember. I first saw Thankfull Hedge's gravestone many years ago while visiting this cemetery. I have wanted to go back and take a picture of it ever since, because of her great name. She was 13 when she died. Thankfull's two siblings are buried nearby, as is her father, who outlived all three children (the last one by only two days). It is unknown where Thankfull's mother is buried, or when she died.

Bees and Stings

I have discovered that I do not know enough about bees.

The phone call came yesterday, from Ivan's father, to say that Ivan had stepped on and been stung by a bee while on vacation at the shore. Ivan's father was talking hospital, Benadryl, infection. I told him that the good news was that we would shortly know whether or not Ivan is allergic to bee stings - a useful thing to know, I believe. Ivan, similarly practical, had screamed bloody murder upon being stung, but all he had to say about it when I spoke to him on the phone was, "Now I feel better."

And the good news is that he is not, in fact, allergic to bee stings. Good news, since one day I would like to keep some bees.

I was asked if the sting could really have been perpetrated by a simple honeybee - rather than a wasp, or a hornet. How did I know it was a bee? Well, I didn't. I hadn't been there. But I have stepped on plenty of bees - plain, unsuspecting honeybees - in my lifetime, and been stung. People do not like to believe that kindly, useful creatures like honeybees can inflict such sharp pain. But we all have our defenses, and the most docile among us will sting if provoked.

Ivan and I took a walk around our town just a few days ago, and discovered hundreds of honeybees working a large lavender bush. We were transfixed. Ivan said, "I've never seen so many bees before!" And, "Mommy, they're not stinging me!" Of course not. They are far too busy gathering nectar and pollen, and in any case honeybees don't sting unless they are very scared, or we do something to hurt them, I told him. He understood, and understood days later why the bee at the shore had stung him. Even for a three-year-old - maybe especially for a three-year-old - the logic of nature is simple and fully comprehensible.

But what about these bees? In southern New Jersey, where I live and where Ivan is on vacation with his father, who are these bees? What species? Are they different from honeybees elsewhere?

Stay tuned.