This morning I was outside pulling weeds, long overdue, coffee nearby, fully absorbed in the work.

Then came the buzz.

Not the background hum of a garden doing what gardens do. This one was close. Persistent. Intentional enough to finally pull my attention away from the soil.

A bald-faced hornet.

That black-and-white little stormtrooper flew close enough to my face to blow me a kiss.

And I stepped back.

Not because it attacked me.

Because it didn’t.

It easily could have.

I had just been turning soil with a pitchfork and pulling apart the canopy of weeds where it was now hovering near the ground. Yet instead of stinging me, it buzzed around until I noticed it.

So I moved away and watched.

That was when curiosity replaced alarm.

Seeing bald-faced hornets on the bee balm makes sense to me. I’ve watched dozens of them there without incident. They’re busy. I’m busy. We understand the arrangement.

Most of my closer encounters over the years have involved something else: a nest, food, a drink, or accidentally putting myself where a wasp decided I did not belong.

This was different.

It seemed interested in the place I had been working.

So rather than deciding I knew what it was doing, I stayed curious about what I didn’t know.

Maybe disturbing the weeds exposed insects it wanted.

Maybe I interrupted something.

Maybe it was investigating me.

Maybe the only thing it was communicating was, You are very large and you are currently in my way.

I don’t know.

And that became the field note.

There are environments most people are taught to immediately retreat from because something inside them has been labeled dangerous, aggressive, difficult, or threatening.

Sometimes retreat is exactly the right answer.

And sometimes the safer move is simply to step back far enough to observe.

Not everything capable of hurting us is presently trying to.

Over the years, I’ve gotten fairly wise about sharing a garden with stinging things. I generally avoid floral prints, their favored colors, and scented products when I’m working outside. Whether that contributed to this morning’s peaceful encounter, I can’t say.

But I’m perfectly happy to keep learning the fun way rather than the hard way.

So I retrieved the coffee I had ground the beans and brewed myself this morning, moved to a respectful distance, and watched my little stormtrooper continue about its business.

No swatting.

No heroics.

No need to conquer the garden.

Just enough distance to remain safe.

And enough curiosity to stay.

Field note: Sometimes the next thing to learn is waiting exactly where instinct tells us to stop looking.