There are several hummingbirds in the backyard that come to me when I call them. That is weird, and more than a bit unsettling. I’m not used to this level of attention. Perhaps they see the neoprene sleeves that wrap many of my joints – solely there to prevent my arms from falling off my body, or my hands from falling off my arms. That would be a mess.
The glorious aspect of having a veritable nature reserve in our backyard is that it can dull the pain far more effectively than the chemicals I pump into my body on a regular basis. It is just about 30 years since my body started complaining – shouting vehemently that I was pushing myself too hard.
It all began up in Silicon Valley in the mid 90’s when I was routinely putting in 100-hour work weeks to keep the business afloat that paid me a lot of money to juggle their software development needs around the world. Aside from a substantial paycheck, the company paid for my plane ride home to the desert every Friday evening.
But it wasn’t the money that kept me pushing my mind / body harmony that hard. It was the Chinese food. I’ve severed relationships with long time friends who tried to coax me into the insipid boredom of a Mandarin restaurant. It was like going out for eggplant parmesan and having a cold can of Chef Boyardee stuck in my face by some slobbering idiot with a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth (been there, done that, got the tee shirt…)
In its heyday, Mountainview, Ca. possessed some of the best Hunan Cuisine I’ve had the good fortune of shoveling down my gullet. I became acquainted with these delights back in the 80’s when I was hired to fly up to photograph the president of Hewlett Packard. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon his favorite digs prior to our portrait session -- so we had a common interest to chat about as I set up the lights, camera, action!
Hunan is spicy and hot, but a world apart from the more common Szechuan food that is more frequently available. Mind you, I’m not dissing Szechuan, but once you’ve had some decent Hunan, you’ll never go back. Or at least you shouldn’t – especially if you want to stay on my good side. Hunan doesn’t burn your throat like Szechuan does, it makes you sweat. I mean a torrential downpour of rivulets of salty water simultaneously forming on your forehead and neck, and then cascading down your body in a manner that will generate your first food orgasm. That’s how good it is.
I used to make yearly trips back east to visit friends and family. In the late 70’s, early 80’s, every street in New York City had a restaurant with almost the exact same sign overhead. It simply said HUNAN. Simple elegance in getting the point across. Cold sesame noodles, hot and spicy broccoli, chicken with black bean sauce, lamb in a dark river of indescribably delicious velvet sauce, swimming in green onions.
This is how I tolerated the pain in my hands back then. Oxycodone hadn’t hit the market yet, so I chugged cold sesame noodles instead. It worked, what can I say?
Over the past 3 years, since we began creating the bird sanctuary in our backyard, it has been the hummingbirds that have been the hub of the wheel, constantly spinning with a fervent joy unmatched and unequaled by anything created by human hands. While the original group of four have since moved on, the impish quartet that are with us now permit an anthropomorphic domain -- a fantasy land of smiles.
I like to say that the hummingbirds arrange portrait sittings for me with other birds, who, for one reason or another, have been either too busy, too shy, or too nervous to be photographed. The hummingbirds erase that anxiety in the other birdies, so we can spend some time together.
Around 7:00 am each morning the birds arrive for breakfast (which I have put out for them the night before). Phyllis likes to do a head count to see how many tweeters we usually have. Right now, we average 40 doves each morning. In addition to these hearty eaters, we have about two dozen finches and sparrows, two mockingbirds, and two Towhees.
Occasionally a woodpecker and his family will drop by for a quick bite to eat.
I dare anyone to observe this morning fiesta and try to tell me that these magnificent creatures were not designed by God. There are no coincidences in life, only the observation of truth as it repeats itself over and over and over again (most of the time very quietly) until we get it banged into our thick skulls and begin to understand the grand design that He provides for us.
Watching these different species playing, actually playing, doing cartwheels, somersaults and other gyrations that underscore their own joy for these precious moments of largess and safety is a front row seat to the nature of life itself.
They dance, dive bomb one another, twist and shout until exhausted -- and must fly back to the wall or the wire for a breather and a break.
The greatest gift we receive is the humility that gets infused into our souls as we are permitted to watch these festivities, knowing full well that the day will probably come when all we will see are our memories repeating over and over again the great happiness we experienced during the 7 or 8 minutes as this circus of delights played out each morning.
It is during this monumental gift from God that the insufferable pain that dogs us constantly diminishes for the briefest of moments. Even now I sit here massaging my fingers trying to get them to work, trying to get them to type as fast as I can think, trying to outlast what I know waits for me five minutes from now down the road.
It is a very delicate balancing act we perform. Though we are frequently overwhelmed by the mutinous efforts of our own bodies to wreak havoc with what is left of our minds, somehow we survive, somehow we manage to move forward, somehow we succeed in defeating the enemy again.
Comentários