JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

In the first Matrix movie, the two major female roles are Trinity and The Oracle. Now I’m sure there are thousands of possible dissertation topics within this area of gender and Neo. But I’ll ignore those serious discussions of significance for a little playtime here…

Who wouldn’t want to be Trinity? She can hack. She can do kung fu. She can wear tight black leather suits and look good.

Yet life as Trinity isn’t my destiny. I can’t hack. I can’t even hack through the html book I started a few months ago. Last time I checked, my kung fu skills were lame. Not lame as in Carrie Anne Moss’ broken leg. Lame as in non-existent. And last time I looked in my closet, the number of outfits that were black leather, tight-fitting and flattering on me totalled zero.
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After watching the Nick Berg video, Lenn Pryor felt:

What an angry angry world. What a deeply disturbing world. No one is right or wrong any more, we are all wrong.

Humans suck.

Jason Hasner replied in the comments

[…] But man, you need to get out and do something real. Go play with your kids, if you have them, or your friend’s kids if you don’t. Go to the park. […] If you go out looking for ugliness, you’re sure to find it. Try looking for something beautiful. If you can’t find anything, then go make something.

Sometimes I wonder why we brought children into this world. This place is so messed up. Why did Ted and I decide to add more people to this planet? A time like this one challenges any parent’s sanity. I agree with Lenn that humans suck. History says humans do awful things to each other. And now we don’t have to look in history books to know it’s true. All we have to do is turn on the TV, tune in the radio or make a couple clicks with the mouse. It is a deeply disturbing world.

Our oldest daughter is beginning to become aware of all this awfulness.
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Messy and melting….all too fast…

Ted and I entered into parenthood with deliberation and intention. We read books, discussed philosophies, observed others, asked questions. Ever since birth, we’ve considered how we were teaching our child, what she was learning from us, how we were shaping her. At night sometimes we evaluate how our parenting going and change directions if necessary. I like to think that we are conscious of our tasks and fulfilling our duties.

Yet in recent days I’ve seen even more the importance of teaching the children well, especially the oldest child.
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Honey tongue sounds familiar. It reminds me of bands – a song my brother’s band wrote and performs, and the Seattle band of that name..oh, and of course, I think of Song of Solomon….

But honey stomach is different anatomy. Bee anatomy. New anatomy for me. I learned yesterday morning that bees have a honey stomach, a special extra stomach where nectar mixes with enzymes and makes honey. I also didn’t know that it takes 1000 flower visits to fill this organ, the size of a rice grain.

I learned these facts from the book A Taste of Honey by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace that we read. That morning Ted had a phone call and instead of providing soundtrack to authenticate his workplace, I took the girls outside with their shoes and a couple books. Immediately Abigail wanted to imitate library story time but with an outdoor twist. Perhaps she has a future career as a librarian?!

Afterwards, Abigail and Michaela rode their bikes to the neighborhood park. I think it was the first time I’ve had two girls on bikes! They both did well. I tried to take a picture of a bee to go with our lesson on honey, but after a while I decided to enjoy the sunshine instead. The girls played in the sandbox, making castles. Robins hopped across the grass. Bees snuggled inside purple flowers. The sun was warm. It was wonderful.

Except for a few moments of manic when I lost the garage door opener and then found it again on top of the sand…

It was a luxurious morning, so thick, sweet and golden, you can taste it. The kind of moment when you feel rich inside, satisfied and full with the goodness of life. It was honey.

Post script – I did a little research myself to learn more…: How bees make honey fascinates me…When full, the honey stomach can make up more than a third of a forager bee’s unladen weight, making its abdomen visibly longer….honey is approximately 83 per cent sugar….Unspoilt honey has been found in the burial chambers of the pharaohs in the pyramids of Egypt.

this post updated to include a link I forgot and change in date