It’s summer, so stop buzzing around and bee in the moment

THE gentle breeze blows and you close your eyes. The sun is warm and the days are long. The world is still except for the sound of nature’s symphony.

You have so much to do, so much that needs tending. There is the morning mess – don’t we all have to deal with that? Yes, but this is summer so the mess can wait.

School’s out and the children are squeezing joy from of every second. Can’t you hear them giggling as they perfect their mischief making? Is this a sound of summer too?

No doubt they will add to the mess, but time will take care of that. Time: a summer luxury that allows you to excel at doing nothing. But how can you do nothing?

Aren’t we always doing something, even if it is only sitting here savouring the silence? Perhaps it means opting out of the fast lane for a while. Perhaps it simply means slowing down to catch a breath.

Nature neither speeds up nor slows down. You hear a buzz by your ear, a bee at work in the shrubs. No deadlines, targets or goals, just a gentle rhythm that gets the job done.

Bees don’t take vacations. Pollination can’t be put on hold. Then again, the bee can’t elect not to pollinate, but we are free to choose.

The beauty of a bee’s life is that there is no burnout. No stress for creatures who live entirely according to nature’s laws. It is, however, the price we pay for being human.

Hence the need for holidays, for doing ‘nothing’, for pursuing peace. The mess can wait. Everything can wait.

You think of the emails stacking up. There was a time when, before a break, you would shut your computer and leave them behind. But now they follow you around, calling to you from your phone, tempting you to take a peek.

Let them wait. Stay rooted to the spot and savour the sun, the sounds of life beyond the screen. Take a trip in the slow lane and learn to be still.

You have so much to do, but not today. Now is the time for sitting, sipping and pondering those sights to which you are so often blind. The summer flower blooms but only for you.

For the bee, the flower is not an object of curiosity or of love. It attracts only because it is useful. For us, it is a thing of beauty, a thing of magic and majesty.

Inhale and absorb its beauty. Imagine that? We can fill our bodies with beauty, fill them with the fruits of natural art.

In doing nothing, we begin to see, taste and smell the world. What happens to the senses when living in the fast lane? We gulp and swig and run, but we rarely take time to taste.

Summer is for tasting, for savouring the flavour of things. And yes, you can taste everything: the fresh white roll, the creamy coffee, the sea air, the crisp claret, the early morning sunrise.

Remember the old psalm: ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Yes, we can taste with our eyes, taste the goodness, the beauty, the wonder of things. To gaze upon the summer sky is to absorb it through the eyes, to taste the heavens with the senses.

I should really tend the garden, but not now. The house needs to be cleaned, but what’s another day? And what about the shopping, the laundry, the bills, the dirty windows?

THEY will all be there after you, as my grandmother never tired of saying. But summer doesn’t last, and neither do the flowers or the bees or those lazy days in the sun.

The tastes and sounds of the season come and go, and, before you know it, you are back on the fast track.

So much to do, but not now, not today. Summer is offering up its secrets and, at last, we have time to taste them. The clink of the coffee cup, a wood pigeon cooing, the sweet nectar of your favourite rose, the rolling waves – all invite you to sit, listen, smile and love.

The gentle breeze blows and you open your eyes. You have been snoozing in the sun. Time has not stood still but you have.

Once again, you hear that familiar buzz by your ear. You say: ‘Why can’t we live like them?’

She raises her glass, smiles and responds: ‘To bee or not to bee!’