A Be Keeper’s Tale

Dear friend,

One winter’s Friday, I was in London meeting with my friend Dr. Nick. We’d meet every week over coffee and cakes to compare notes on our projects.

This particular night, it was cold—the kind that gets into your bones.

The café at the Barbican cinema was our preferred meeting place, until Benugo took over the catering, and things started to slip.

The once seemingly home-baked cakes disappeared, replaced by a dwindling selection of mass-produced, cellophane-wrapped offerings. At least the coffee was still okay, and the ambience stayed the same. We’d started meeting fifteen years earlier and kept the habit up, more or less, until the time Benugo took over. I’m not sure how much influence the withering cake offering had on the frequency of our meetings, but over time they fizzled out. Nick got a new job in another city.

I went through the changes that started for me in 2016.

We still meet now, in the same place, but randomly, when one of us thinks of it.

This particular Friday, we stayed talking up until kicking-out time. One of Nick’s Ph.D. students had come up with a great piece of research on the role of dark humor and banter amongst firefighters and first responders as a way of dealing with the emotional strain of their jobs.

The book’s title would be Banter, and the book would explore when banter facilitates close, supportive social ties and when it becomes toxic.

Layering up to face the cold, we walked through an icy wind that buffeted us along the pavement and across the zebra crossing by the pub with dead, stuffed animals hanging in its windows. We headed towards the Barbican theatre’s main entrance, where my bike was locked to one of those metal hoops that come out of the concrete.

I was regretting wearing my thin-soled boots. The cold was transferring itself from the freezing pavement through my socks into my feet.

We said our goodbyes.

Nick was walking to Liverpool Street station to catch a tube. Normally, I’d walk part of the way with him, but it was so cold I’d decided to hop on the bike and head home.

Except, as I unlocked the bike, it wouldn’t budge.

In the dark and the cold, my brain fumbled around for a moment or two, adjusting to the new information coming through.

“Bike unlocked” – Check.

“Get on bike and go home” – Nope. The bike has been mysteriously magnetized and is immovably attached. Will not budge.

It took a bit of time to notice that someone had come along and locked their bike to the metal hoop after me. Only they hadn’t just locked their bike to the hoop—they’d also locked mine.

I’m practicing forgiveness and non-judgment.

This is the kind of stuff that happens when you do that. You get opportunities to practice.

We looked around, hopping from foot to foot, both of us rubbing our hands as the cold bit.

Nick waited around while the Barbican emptied of people. Maybe the bike locker was in there?

No.

Plenty of people walked by, but none stopped to unlock the errant bike.

My false self was grumbling.

It started plotting revenge against the ignorant individual who couldn’t be bothered to pay enough attention to lock a bike properly.

Selfish sod. I’m seeing hipster.

The story-making machine in my head had started churning out scenarios.

Nick was freezing and wasting his time standing around. We checked in with the guys at a truck depot opposite, but it was a vain hope. I was thinking bolt cutters, but they weren’t to be had. Nick headed off, and I was left with a choice: leave the bike overnight and pick it up in the morning or wait it out.

I waited.

I focused on the inflow and outflow of my breath.

A mental movie spun up.

I sidestepped it.

I was about to give up when two figures approached. One of them bent to unlock the offending bike. He was wondering why I was standing there staring at him. He was wearing a mustard scarf and a woolly hat and gloves and a thick brown coat. He had a mustache.

It took him a moment to work it out.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. How long have you been waiting? In the cold! Oh my God, how could I be so stupid! I’m so sorry!”

“I just want to get my bike and go home,” I said. It was at least true. Not very English. My programming would have me apologizing and playing down the inconvenience and then cursing them all the way home.

“We’re beekeepers,” he said. “We were watching a film about it.”

My false self wanted to play the victim, but it’s a nice thing to be detained by an apologetic beekeeper, even if all I still wanted was to go home.

“I’m so sorry. Let me make it up to you. I can bring you some honey.”

I gave him my address, thinking that was the last of it, and said something about not worrying about it. I got on the bike, and my arms and legs were stiff with the cold. Ears burning. On the way home, it was Friday night traffic. More opportunities to practice non-judgment, forgiveness, moving on energetically.

On Sunday, the beekeeper rang our doorbell.

True to his word, he was carrying a generous jar of honey from his bees.

He apologised again, we’re good at that in the UK, turned on his heals and biked off down our road.

I’m standing in the doorway humbled and glad to be on this path.

Kindness is principle and practice.

Endless opportunities here for that.

Till tomorrow,

Love,

Mikey