Columns | Backyard Politics

When My Marriage Ended, I Learned to Relish the Space I Was Given

Being left behind is not a disadvantage. It is an opportunity to grow and an opportunity to live life on my own terms.

The first time I saw a bee swarm, I was at a writing residency in Puget Sound. The residents—all of whom were women—were having weekend brunch at the farmhouse and cautioned to stay inside. A swarm of bees was visiting the main property.

It had been a challenging stay for me until that point. There were only five other residents and most had already bonded before my arrival. And I was struggling with writer’s block; I was being, in hindsight, a tyrant to myself and to my writing, setting down unreasonable and non-negotiable demands. My prime directive was to write. I had it in my head that I would finish the entire draft of my novel within three weeks.

I did not.

In my cottage, I seethed and cried. The words would not come. I would eventually sell that novel, but I did not know that then. Present Me is laughing at Past Me. But also hugging her.

Meanwhile, meal conversations often revolved around men and the ways in which we missed them. I missed my then-husband with a deep hunger. One of the writers shared how her husband bought her a vibrator to take with her so she would miss him a little less. When a man bicycled or walked by on the road, visible from the farmhouse windows, some of the women, especially the ones who had been at Hedgebrook for a few weeks, would whoop and gawk.

It was through these same windows that we watched the bees circling through the air.

I wasn’t a beekeeper yet, not in those days, and did not know that swarms are gentle. I did not know that what we saw was, like us, an all-female group. Their main directive is to find a new home. Even in swarms, bees are unlikely to sting—to fight, to hurt—without a home to defend.

So I watched behind the safety of windows, waiting for a beekeeper to arrive and capture the swarm. It was large, one I would thirst to catch now. In that farmhouse, I was mesmerized and intimidated; the swarm looked like a dust storm, or the biggest cloud of gnats I’d ever seen.

*

Swarms are the main way in which colonies reproduce. Bees will leave a hive if there isn’t enough space to grow. It is an amicable parting. A fact of life.

When a hive detects it is running out of room, the worker bees will make what is called a queen cup at the bottom of the honey frames. The queen cup is a larger cell, in anticipation of the space a queen larvae will need to grow. The workers will often prepare more than one, for insurance purposes.

Nurse worker bees will nurture a queen larvae in that cell. A queen bee is essentially a fully nourished worker bee with fully developed ovaries. Worker and drone larvae are only fed royal jelly for a few days. But a queen will eat royal jelly all the days of its life, from larvae to death.

It’s a misconception that the queen rules the hive. In reality, the relationship between workers and queen is much more cooperative. She lays the eggs, yes. The worker bees follow her, yes. But she is dependent on the workers for food and grooming. Oftentimes, when I open my hives, I find the queen surrounded by workers, heads bent toward her in attendance. In all likelihood, they are feeding her. Grooming her.

At that residency, we were fed and housed and cared for by an all-female staff. I had expected this to become a very welcome respite, but I writhed under the newness of being pampered. We were given packed lunches. We were served dinner with fresh ingredients from the on-site garden. We had access to unlimited cookies. Someone washed the dishes.

I had become unbusy. I was forced to sit in the quiet with myself in the space of my cottage, reserved exclusively for my own desire. I was removed from the needs of others, from serving others, centering myself. I had become a queen bee. And I had no idea what to do with myself.

At the residency, the bees eventually calmed down and settled in a large football-sized clump high up in a tree. We walked back to our cottages after brunch as a beekeeper climbed a ladder and collected the swarm. They shook the clump of bees into a box. That clump of bees would become another colony.

*

One of the things the writing residency granted was space. Space to write. Space to rest. Space to nurture. Sometimes, this space comes to us when we are not yet ready. And we have to grow into it.

I had no idea then that, when we are granted space—as I was in the form of a free room in which to pursue my dreams—it does not mean that we immediately take advantage of such privilege. In hindsight, I did not feel entitled to my own dreams and a space in which to pursue them. I had worked in a mostly male career field of enterprise software, adapting my own behavior and speech to mimic patriarchal values. I did not allow myself to feel sad at work. I was at most cheerful. I delivered reports with even-tempered aplomb. Executed strategy with even-handed competence. My writing was done in secret during my off-hours. Before my husband came home from work.

As an Asian American woman too, I was used to feeling invisible—save for my sexuality, which I subjugated by gaining weight. I prioritized the needs of others. Cooked dinner. Brought cookies to the office. Washed the dishes in the office kitchen. And so I did not take the space to rest. I did not take the space to nurture myself. I did not know what the fuck self-care was. No one had shown me. It was something, I assumed, that was not allowed.

At the writing residency, I woke up with a severe headache every morning, and the headache would not fade until afternoon. Write, I told myself, and my mind went rigid. Do as you are told, I lectured my characters, and my creativity waned. All I did was miss my then-husband. I pondered going home. I wept for days.

I was mimicking what the world was telling me to do. I was replicating behavior towards my own writing that the world had modeled towards me. It was, to put it bluntly, toxic.

*

Unbeknownst to me, I had run out of room in my life. In six months, I would have a stroke. And then six years after that, I would become a mother and then immediately thereafter, my husband would leave our marriage. Maybe some marriages, too, end in a swarm.

After mine ended, my mother told me to sell the house and get a new one. With what money, I asked her. With what remaining energy in my bones, I asked her. To where, I asked again. And so I stayed.

Aside from removing my wedding pictures off of every wall within days of being asked for a divorce, I didn’t actively rid my house of things from the past. My estranged husband did come by eventually to pick up his clothing. His shoes. But mostly, he left everything as is—a museum to our marriage. A mausoleum.

Sometimes, this space comes to us when we are not yet ready. And we have to grow into it.

In those first weeks after he left, it felt very much like my time at the residency; I wondered how I would live on my own, given that I hadn’t been single since the age of twenty-one.

I remember being curled up on my side of the bed with my infant daughter at my side. We took up our half of the bed, leaving an empty expanse beside us.

*

As half the hive prepares for a new queen, the other half will get ready to leave with the old queen. In anticipation of a swarm, the workers will reduce the old queen’s feedings, so that she can become light enough to fly.

On swarm day, the old queen leaves with half the worker bees. The remainder of the bees stay within the hive to raise their own queen. Scout bees will fly out from the gathered swarm cluster in search of a suitable home, which might be a hollow trunk, the eaves of a house, a utility box, or even an empty hive box. The best sites are ones with a small entrance with enough space, protection, and warmth. The cherry-on-top is a site with abandoned comb, which is akin to a furnished apartment.

Here is the thing: the old queen leaves because she needs more space. But the bees she leaves behind? They, in equal terms, needed her to leave, too.

They, too, can grow. And in fact, they have the advantage, for they can nurture a new and younger queen, with a fresher start.

When a swarm leaves a hive, several hundred scout bees fly out from the cluster in search of a new home. This is the one time a colony will make a decentralized decision—a decision based on an individual bee’s “opinion.”

Every time a scout bee thinks she has found a suitable new site, she flies back to the swarm and dances its location. Other scouts decode the dances, visit, and if they too agree with that initial scout bee’s opinion, they return dancing, too. What follows is a competition between scout bees dancing for the different potential sites, until one location dominates with both visits and dancing. It is a literal dance-off.

The decision has to be unanimous, because there is one queen and the colony must not be broken up. But when a beekeeper collects the swarm, they disrupt this cycle when they deposit the bees into a hive.

But either way, eventually, the bees find a new home. As soon as the queen walks in, the worker bees all follow her in an act of loyalty and devotion.

*

In one of our parting discussions, my then-husband told me, “You never cheated on me.”

“No,” I said.

“You were never tempted.”

“No,” I said. “I was tempted. But I chose you, every single time.”

In the silence that lapsed, I remembered S, who showed up to work when my husband and I were engaged for the second time. He’d asked the receptionist to see me and when told I no longer worked there, asked her to relay a message telling me not to go through with the marriage. To call him instead.

I remembered C, who, as if informed by the cosmos, would email or text me whenever I felt an ounce of doubt; C, who said they were my “soulmate from another life,” as corny as that sounds now.

My then-husband searched for a response to these resisted temptations. And then told me he didn’t know why he did what he did. He grasped for a reason. And then said it was because I didn’t let him watch Scooby Doo. And because I hated Bonanza.

“Seriously?” I remember asking. “I don’t watch Bonanza because I wince every time Hop Sing and the racist interpretation of Asians is on screen.”

He was seeking space, albeit destructively. He was leaving. My marriage was fucking swarming. He was taking everything and everyone disloyal to me.

I was gifted with unsolicited, unexpected space.

I took the space on my kitchen floor and slept upon it.

I took the space in my bed and cried.

In hindsight, I’d never even taken space to cry for nearly twenty years. Now there was infinite space for what seemed like infinite emotions.

In hindsight, it was a blessing. Everyone who stayed, loved me.

*

The end of a marriage is sad. Often devastating. When I go to weddings now, I mourn my innocence as I simultaneously uphold hope. This, from a person who loved weddings so much, she considered wedding planning as a career.

Suddenly, I was the new leader of the household. I remember going out to buy a new car seat and weeping on my drive home, because it was the first purchase I made in the wake of my husband’s departure. That I was now a single parent. I knew I’d have to install it by myself. I knew it was the first of many tasks I’d have to do on my own. And for all of that, I cried.

And then I saw it wasn’t too hard. It wasn’t too hard at all. I could do it. I did it.

*

In the original hive, after the swarm leaves, a queen bee will hatch. If there are other queen bees in development, she will kill them while they’re in their cells so that she can be the sole queen. If two queens hatch simultaneously, one will kill the other. It is, in effect, a game of thrones.

As the new queen bee of my own life, one of the first things I did was to begin envisioning the second half of my life. What did I want my life to look and feel like?

In hindsight, it was a blessing. Everyone who stayed, loved me.

I wanted my life to feel happy. To feel like I was pursuing my dreams in earnest. I wanted to be surrounded by loyalty. I wanted to never make myself second to another adult ever again. I wanted to sprawl on my bed and take up its entire expanse. I wanted to cook every meal for my own palate and cravings. I wanted to choose my career based on my own passions and requirements. I wanted to choose furniture that I liked.

I have learned this privilege. That being left behind is not a disadvantage. It is an opportunity to grow and an opportunity to live life on my own terms.

*

At the writing residency, I met a woman halfway through my stay. One of the first things she said to me was, “I am homeless right now.” She had moved out of her home in Texas and would begin her MFA in a new city that fall.

We snuck off the premises, took a bus into town, and bought five bags of Doritos. We watched Galaxy Quest on my portable DVD as we ate those Doritos in the forest of the residency, our bare toes digging into the grass.

She told me she was a single mother. I was in awe. She was Palestinian, and I wondered what my Israeli husband would think. And then I fell in love with her and thought about the grass between my toes and breathed in the smell of cedars above us. I looked up and thought the needles had turned into stained glass, like Tiffany glass.

She was a scout. And she was dancing her location. And years later, I joined her in single motherhood, in rebelling, in creating my own home.