A Bee flies from flower to flower, carefully navigating the turbulence of the winds. Using them to take her to more bountiful and beautiful places. The Bee has to be willing to let go of desires and emotions to be able to withstand the might of the wind. Similarly, in life you can attempts to fight back what fate has destined for you, but it is to no avail. You cannot fight something that is stronger than you, just let it take you. In Lessons in Taxidermy the book follows the life of one busy little Bee as she struggles to fight her wind. As we follow the life of the Queen Bee in Lessons in Taxidermy, Bee Lavender, she struggles to find a suitable place where she can call home and build her hive because of her emotional detachment, her extraneous amounts of surgeries that damager her personality and because she never knew what a home was in her childhood.
We all know that in order to be Queen you have to be a faire and emotionally detached ruler. However, Bee Lavender takes it to the extreme. When she tries to reestablish a nest for her future hive, she struggles to find a suitable place because she cannot emotionally connect with her surroundings. However, because of her emotional detachment Bee cannot allow herself to establish the initial roots for her hive and emotionally connect with her surroundings.
Another reason it was a struggle for Bee Lavender to find a suitable location for her nest was because of her surgeries. Like the Bee, humans can take multiple swats and and multiple near death experiences. But, when you come closer and closer to death, you lose a piece of yourself. With Bee’s extreme amounts of surgeries, she slowly lost a piece of herself. From a literal piece of herself to an emotional piece. Thus, repressing her ability to form connections with others because of her damaged personality.

But, the most important thing that influences the Queen Bee in where she settles, is her comfort. Does she feel safe? Is it comfortable? Does she feel secure? Those all influence the outcome of whether or not she is willing to settle there. In Bee’s life, she never felt secure. Safe. Or comfortable. She was in the hospital for a majority of her childhood. From testing, to surgery or to recovery. She was never able to establish a common knowledge for home because she never had one. She couldn’t associate safety and security to a hospital. And obviously she could not associate comfort to hospitals. Thus, her challenge. To know what home is. It’s easy for most, they grew up there. But for Bee Lavender she had no clue.
But, she will ride the winds. She will be carried off to whatever is destined for her. And she will end up somewhere. Somewhere where she will see the sunrise, and she will feel life. She will watch as the flowers bloom in the deepest and darkest crevices of her soul. She will watch as her roots take life. She will see her nest grow. She will see the simplicity in the beauty that is life. She will live. That is what matters. She will live, because of the wind. “Not to hide from danger, not to deny the truth of my body, but because i want to live as much as possible while I have the time.” (Lavender, 160)










Works Cited
Lavender, Bee. Lessons in Taxidermy. Chicago, IL: Punk Planet, 2005. Print.