Tag: hummingbird

This pic is from the same series of watercolor rain shots I posted before. This photo isn’t framed as well, but I love it for the hummingbird zooming in on the middle right, like a guided missile. (um, left to you folks)

We have about four hummingbirds in residence right now and they are practically part of our household. Every morning I wake to the sound of them whizzing past the open windows, squeaking at each other. They dive around the feeders under the front portal (pronounced pohr-TAL, for you non-New Mexico types), bulleting through at impossible speeds. Their game is intricate – one perches near a feeder and waits for another to come in, then dive bombs the interloper. They scream off over the desert, quickly becoming pinpoints against the sky, while another leisurely bobs in to have a drink. The other day I saw one, perched on the saucer of this feeder, wait while another screamed in at him, at a zillion miles an hour, then popped up, letting the other bird pass right underneath him. Hummingbird Tai Chi.

It’s funny to me to observe their busyness and compare it to my own. The emails screaming in, one after another. The phone calls and conference calls, an intricate dance of back and forth. And while you’re busy dealing, someone else slips in and takes a long drink of your nectar.

So it goes, eh?

I told David this morning that today looked pretty hairy for me and we talked about why. Then he said, “why do jobs have to be that way?”

It’s a good question. I suppose we should seek the Tao and be One with the universe. Then the politics, the pressures and deadlines wouldn’t matter.

I don’t know anyone who can do that.

What I do see is that the hummingbirds seem to glory in their games. They are beautifully vital, vibrantly alive. They make me laugh, to see them whizzing past.

I love that.