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| Not so peaceful as it seems... |
There’s a conflict situation at our hummingbird feeder. I
suppose I am to blame since I hung up the “food” (four parts water to one part
sugar. Hummingbirds are mainly
constituted of low-rent kool aid). I
think the birds themselves, however, must also bear some of the
responsibility. Probably actual flowers,
which deliver less of hit, are more nutritious and maybe include IQ-boosting nutrients.
It’s funny/peculiar that this hummingbird conflict is between
the red and the white – throated, that is.
Like the Lancastrians v. Yorkists, various Russians v. one another, Red
Baron v. Snoopy, what have you.
The red-throated hummingbird flies at the white-throated one
as soon as white throat makes a move to the perch. They wheel and circle one another at a
fabulous speed, seeming to be made of liquid.
(Which, as noted, they are). They
don’t make contact with one another, at least not that I can tell. Perhaps there is some evolutionary line in
the sand that stops them at intimidation only.
I have read that a hummingbird weighs as much as a cork, as
much as a penny. They are in that
category of real animals that ought to be fictional – like narwhals, luna
moths, possibly giraffes, possibly people.
Nature makes me think about religion. I have been thinking about nature and religion
particularly this week, not only because of the hummingbirds but because I had surgery
on Tuesday – an actual one, like in the movies where they wheel you down a
hallway on a gurney into a room with a lot of people waiting for you with gowns
and shower caps. (“Ovary-free in 2014”
is a slogan that keeps running through my mind, though where I would print it
and what it might do for me.)
As luck would have it I have inherited from my father’s side
of the family the now notorious BRCA2 gene.
This gene is probably why three of his seven sisters have had breast
cancer… so far.
I learned years ago in my first serious job after college,
in the fundraising unit of an engineering college in upstate New York, that
most people (at least those people worth pursuing for fundraising purposes)
spend the first half of life piling up money and possessions and the rest of
their lives getting rid of them. The key
for the fundraiser is to strike at the right moment on the downhill side. Assembly.
Disassembly.
It occurred to me that the same can be said about every
other essential thing in life. Half,
maybe two thirds building up (kids, ourselves etc.) then the rest in launching
or losing those things. My kids are
teenagers. My daughter can drive. I am often not sure if she’s even in the
house these days. I sent her a text
yesterday asking her to get me some Altoids at the drug store (I’ve had a bad
taste in my mouth since surgery) and she wrote back that she was still up in
her room. My hearing is more than half
gone. My eyes fading. I can’t read
anything with small type without removing my glasses. “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans ovaries,
sans everything.” Well, not quite sans
everything, yet, but any fundraisers out there might want to start their engines.
The thing is that we people, hummingbirds, giraffes etc. get
only one spin of the wheel. Once
around. At least that’s the only part we
can perceive. One up, one down, and
out. The wheel itself, however, keeps
going. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote,
“there lives the dearest freshness, deep down things.” All that used up leaf litter is not really at
the end of the line, just the end of the line as a leaf.
Is this any help? I
don’t know. I have to take my son to a
guitar lesson now. There are, at least, (mercifully) distractions.
