Category Archives: Gratitude

May You Come Back Safe and Happy (52)

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There’s some kind of enchantment going on in the courtyard. The white crowned sparrows are hopping all about. Yesterday I cleaned out the rest of the dandelion and mustard bushes. (I’ve been harvesting the dandelion for my split pea soup for months now, but it became huge and sprawling, and I let it go to seed.) The sparrows flit back and forth across the freshly revealed patch of dirt and nyger seed casings, crossing it again and again, all surprised delight, this new present unwrapped just for them. Their white crowns seem whiter today. Is it my imagination, or does that happen before they migrate? I’ve been treasuring them more than ever, knowing they’ll be leaving soon. (I remember how quiet it seemed last year after they left—I’d sit outside and count the few of us remaining. Seven mourning doves, three house finch, eleven with me.) Without deciding to, I find myself saying metta for them. May you have a fun, safe journey north. May you always have plenty of food and good water and good company. May you enjoy your summer home and find your way back here again before winter. I say these blessing wishes for a long time, until I am loving them so much I cry. “I’ll miss you,” I whisper. May you come back safe and happy.

Spirit Balm (40)

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I put my big weird orange tube scarf over my head and fluff it up around my neck, tie Joe’s old sweater around my waist. It is not yet dusk when I walk out my wooden gate, the big clouds in the sky lit up by the last of the setting sun that went behind our mountains almost two hours ago. It’s my first walk for sheer pleasure in a long time. I go along the golf course path. I watch a hawk glide-land in the dead branches of the tree beside the tennis courts. When I reach the tree I stop to talk to him. “Are you a Cooper’s hawk?” I ask. And then, “Are you my Cooper’s hawk?” He doesn’t answer in a way I know how to recognize, but he doesn’t leave, either. Beyond the tree I see bunnies nibbling on the grass. It’s dusk now, and I can feel the magic of it descend on us. A Costa’s hummingbird lands three feet away, his violet mantle glistening in the remaining light. The cottontails don’t scatter today when I walk by. I am careful not to stop and not to stare. I grab quick greedy glimpses of them while I walk, drinking in their exquisite furry forms, the depth in their dark eyes, the busy concentration of their chewing. When I walk back again the rabbits are still eating, but the hawk is gone. I scan the golf course for coyotes in the late dusk. I can hear the traffic about a block away, loud on a Friday evening. I think of people going home from work, buying groceries, heading out to dinner. I soak up the respite of this path, this quiet other world settling into night, the presence of the San Jacintos. I remember why I want to return to this–balm for my spirit.

Bird Recovery (39)

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I dream I am in a small covered patio at the back of a house I don’t recognize. There is stuff piled everywhere, stacks of cardboard boxes, a rickety folding table, bicycle parts, old tires. In a small clear space at the edge of the table near a rusted waffle iron and several stacks of old hardcover books a bird is ruffling his feathers. He’s about the size of a phoebe only rounder and fluffier, mostly gray with a pale, pale yellow chest and belly. He’s been traumatized by the presence of a coyote. I treated him in some way (an herbal mist?), and now he is settling again. I stand nearby, watch him as he preens. He seems happy. I feel a kind of quiet awe and deep gratitude knowing I was able to help.

Beside Me (34)

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In November I am gone for three days. When I’m home again, I’m afraid my male hummingbird might not visit me after my absence. But he’s still here! I greet him, and I cry. Twice this morning he comes to my face. I close my eyes but don’t flinch, though the second time he startles me, and my heart does a funny flutter in my chest. Still, having him sit and visit on the back of the chair nearby fills me with a welling joy. I love him. I love these visits. I tell him he makes me feel like my cats made me feel, like I’m the luckiest woman in the world. Bar none. I sit beside him in my courtyard and feel the joy, the tenderness, well up and seep out of me, feel that ache and that fine seesaw line between our 10,000 joys and our 10,000 sorrows. For a moment, I wonder if there is something wrong with me, that I’m wired wrong, that maybe joy should be undiluted. Maybe that humbling awe, that sense of the hugeness of the gifts beyond deserving comes from some faulty circuitry in me. Then I think it is native to our human condition, to being embodied on this planet, to the fleeting nature of things. And then I wonder, how can we not feel unequal to the gifts bestowed, to the marvels of our world? How can we not feel humbled and grateful when we stand beside a mountain, watch a bird stretch her wings, take in the bougainvillea in full bloom? Or by the gift of morning companionship in the tiny form of a hummingbird? Thank you, little one. I’m so glad you’re still here, still making these visits. I’m glad I’m still here, too.

Unexpected Joy, or January 9th (31)

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When I catch myself in the mirror this morning, I like the look of me in my favorite green cotton top and Mami’s old purple sweater. I have a bag of bird seed in each hand on my way out the door to feed them, and I smile at my reflection, unexpected joy rising. I went to sleep early last night, slept long hours with loud rain sounds coming through the open windows. For me, my heart’s ability to lift, maybe even her agility, seems linked to being rested, even to eating well. I am convinced much of being happy is tied to simple body chemistry. When I’m worn out from being too busy, from navigating grief or anger, from the stress of a new job, this kind of unlooked for joy doesn’t spring up in me in the same way, and I tend to miss it, that lightening, that natural lifting of the heart. I have two friends who are in the midst of weathering two huge losses, and I know they’re exhausted, would read it on their faces if they hadn’t told me. I want to be able to bundle them in blankets, sit them by a fire on this wonderful day of our much-needed rain, place warm mugs of my split pea soup in their cradled hands. I wish I could take over the demands of their day to day lives, let them move between the fire and their bed and back again, let them do nothing but sleep and dream for a week, for two, for three. I know they haven’t stopped being grateful, feeling lucky even now, treasuring the richness of life. But I suspect their hearts aren’t agile right now, may be too bruised, too tired to lift very far. I want to tuck their blankets in around them, pour them hot tea, remind them it will take time. “That surprising joy will be back,” I whisper. They smile at me, silent, love in their eyes.

Christmas 2017 (30)

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As soon as I string the Christmas lights across a section of the bougainvillea, the little Costa’s hummingbird alights, claiming one loop for his new perch, a good spot to spy on his feeder. For two weeks in November he came to sit on the back of the chair beside me each morning. When I spoke to him, he swiveled his head, studied me, considering my words, the sound of my voice. He darted off to chase someone away, then perched near me again. It surprised me how moved I was to have him there beside me. I’d talk to him, go back to reading the paper, look up again to tell him how glad I was to have him there. Sometimes I’d forget to greet him, need to apologize. Now I have to love him from a distance, unless I’m near the feeder when he drinks, and then I have to stop myself from reaching out to run my index finger along his back. I don’t know where he sleeps, but maybe near that strand of lights in the bougainvillea. They keep me company when I wake up in the night. The lights have always been my favorite part of this season. When I hang the two strands outside the gate, I walk out three times to see them. I stand in the middle of the road and let myself feed on them. They’re like magic to me, fed by the sun, coming alive when the light leaves the day. They awaken a longing in me, too, a kind of nostalgia, decades of Christmas lights in all my homes, in all my places. But I think what calls to me, what feeds me, is a kind of hope. Might we all know brightness and beauty. Might we always have light in the darkness like this, quiet, steady, full of peace.

Weaver Be Praised (25)

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He was getting cold, but he wasn’t ready to leave. The winter sun abandoned his usual spot in the mid-afternoon, and he’d left his blanket outside the walls, folded with care and tucked up in the fork of his favorite tree. He wasn’t yet used to the sun being so far south in the sky, and these narrow streets blocked so much of the light in all seasons. He sighed and got to all fours, managed to stand up without groaning out loud. No one wanted to hear him groan, he knew. No one wanted to think he might be truly suffering, and he didn’t want people to think he was faking it to play on their sympathy, a ploy for more coins in his copper cup. The truth was he was getting old and creaky. Getting up off the cobblestones wasn’t as easy as it used to be, and the dampness in the stones, the cold that never left them for long this time of year, made it harder. But he didn’t want people to feel sorry for him. He liked his life for the most part. He wouldn’t have chosen to go blind like this, slow and steady, but if something had to give, he thanked the Weaver every day that she hadn’t taken his hearing. Then he would have had to struggle not to feel sorry for himself. He might have become the pitiful sight some people already thought he was. But the Weaver had left him his hearing and his voice, so every day he got to lift himself up to the sky, carry himself across the tops of the eastern forest, sail across the southern sea. Weaver be praised.

[Editor’s note: written from a prompt from Creative Writing Prompts. Plus, I have borrowed the Weaver from my favorite writer, Guy Gavriel Kay, and his wonderful Fionavar Tapestry.]