we prep and we wait. two of our friends wait as well – all of us ready to text as soon as we see one. it’s a vigil for the tiny hummingbird.
this year we were the first. the hummingbird surprised us as we adirondack-chair-sat outside. it was morning and the sun was brilliant. we were quiet as the day began to warm up. and then, suddenly, it was there.
there is something infinitely touching about that first tiny hummer. something that gives you pause.
we love our birds – all of them. we consider our birdbath one of our finest outdoor purchases. watching a black-capped chickadee or a house sparrow perch on its side and dip its head to drink, or a robin fully immersed, splashing around…it is joyous to know you have contributed in a tiny way to their precarious lives. it’s much the same with our feeders – it’s all just a reminder that we are in this same big world together.
and then the hummingbird shows up. and, after once, it remembers, just like the news spreads through other birds about the clean water birdbath or the feeders in the backyard.
and then, though invisible, there is a connection.
it was always there.
we transcend that which binds us to the pragmatic, the stuff of our lives. and we sit – watchfully – as we wait for the hummingbird’s return to the feeder. or the chickadee’s entry and exit into the birdhouse. or the cardinals – walter and irma – at the flat-based house feeder. or the sparrows dustbathing where dogga had dug. we just wait.
these are the moments. and the ones before slip away as the ones to come linger in the air. we just sit – untethered to either – our wings resting.
we have been tracking them. like really good private investigators – ok, not so brilliant but quietly watching – we watch the map that shows when they might get here. the map plots everywhere a hummingbird has been sighted and so we are anticipating seeing one anydaynow. we are waiting. with no promise at all.
“waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the…” (dr. seuss – oh, the places you’ll go)
it seems that waiting is a thing. “i can’t wait till….” we find ourselves saying. impatient for time to slip by and for the anticipated moment to arrive.
yet, exquisite it is to sometimes simply linger, to stretch out minutes, to wade in the shallows of right now. waiting need not be passive. instead, it is filled with arrows-forward-arrows-back present-time. it is the only thing we can really feel, the only air we can breathe, the only. it is all that we have at the moment.
i’m sitting against the headboard, my pillows falling into the abyss between the iron bars. i can feel wrought iron against my back as i think about readjusting my stack of fluffy polyester and down alternative. i can hear the taptaptap of david typing next to me. i can hear the gentle easy breathing of dogdog at my feet, dozing and dreaming. if i stop typing i can hear birds outside, the pond gurgling, wind in the trees, every now and then chimes. if i close my eyes i can taste the last sip of coffee and see the maypole i thought about on monday’s mayday.
there are many things i cannot wait for. to see my daughter, hug her, hear her voice in the same room. to watch my son perform at pride festival in chicago. to take a roadtrip. to finish a long chapter that has had challenges.
but i am reminded – every day – that to rush would be to miss it all along the way. i am reminded to stroll or, at most, skip.
our trail has signs that designate a trot as the terminal gait. were i on horseback i would be tempted to canter – for the thrill of it. but i would go back and do it all again – walking and, maybe but not likely, trotting. i would stroke the mane of my horse and talk quietly about all we were seeing. i wouldn’t worry about the end nor would i gallop cause i couldn’t wait to get there.
i’d go slow. and try to relish the now, pushing back impatience so as to wait to feel the restlessness of waiting.
the old radiator in my studio was its home for years. i picked it up at a wholesale show…an old fencepost with equestrian leather…i couldn’t resist. it was perfect next to my piano. shh. quiet. ponder. dream.
it’s outside on the back deck now, really for the same reasons. shh. quiet. ponder. dream. it reminds us to take those moments and just be.
in the middle of the night last night we talked for a few hours. it was a big discussion…about life, about existence. we agreed that life is merely about those rare and outstandingly idyllic moments – a collection you might store in a little special box or place in photographs-in-the-round for a viewmaster – ready, at any time, for you to look at, review, be reminded of, hold close. not usually the gigantic stuff, but the slides of tiny, even silent, markers, instants you recognize as mica.
we had another water episode a few days ago. it seems the theme this summer. once again, drains in the basement yielded water instead of no water. a really lovely young man from the sewer-drain company came; it was their second time in just over a month. the tree roots they had cleared likely had left behind another piece. it doesn’t matter. he cleared it out and we moved on. it wasn’t without a ton of unexpected work…clearing all of david’s paintings out of the space to protect them, moving any and every thing out of the way of the water and allowing room for the technician to work without feeling nervous about anything around him. after he left and we cleaned everything up it was back to quiet.
we exercised down there again yesterday. it’s a peaceful place, even though it is a basement. being surrounded by the muse of david’s time at his easel brings a certain life to it. i imagine he wishes this little sign was in his studio, but there is a hush nonetheless, even without the sign.
our studios – places where time fills in the gaps between noise.
in the middle of existential questions about my wrist and hand, a screeching halt to occupational therapy imposed by the insurance company (don’t get me started), questions and the after-effects of betrayal, a silencing of my professional work, i have not sat there much. i enter to allow in light and fresh air, gaze at my piano and walk out. another silent day.
each morning, for at least a week, as i have sat with pillows propped sipping coffee, the window beside me wide open, i have been visited by a chipmunk. it sits atop the fence post across the driveway right opposite the window and looks in, chirping. i named him ‘sunny’ as it is often that the sun is just reaching that fencepost as he sits and the first time he was bathed in rays of light as he held his spot and said whatever he was saying to me in chipmunk i could not understand.
today, in the quiet of the morning, sun not even yet beginning to stream in the window, sunny was out there, chirping to wake us. i called out the window to him a good morning greeting. we chirped back and forth a bit before he left, satisfied he had awakened me. i watch for him now each day as the sun starts to rise.
three times in a twenty-four hour period over the last weekend i heard or saw the words “everything will be ok”: once written, once spoken and the third time bob marley sang it in the woods as we hiked the river trail.
sunday as we sat at the table on the deck in waning light a not-oft-seen hummingbird came directly over and hovered right in front of me. a couple days later as i stood on the deck, david watching, a monarch butterfly flew over to me and circled less than a foot above my head. and sunny, a chipmunk on a fence post, greeting me each day.
i guess that sometimes the universe is quietly whispering, “it’ll be ok. everything will be ok. shh.”
reverse threading 