A Hummingbird In Winter

The wee Hummingbird who has lived off our nectar producing plants is still with us and I see him from sunrise into sunset trying to find new blossoms to get him through another chilly day.  He is so tiny and I have taken to supplementing him with some sugar water that he no longer has to share with the bees and yellow jackets, now gone. 

He is living off of the salvia and abutilon blooms that persevere through winter.





He seems undaunted, eating to survive and surviving to eat.  I don't see him sitting on some bird couch, looking out the window and wondering where he is headed in life.  He knows somehow. As for me, I apply for jobs, working hard on the cover letter to set myself apart and listen to the silence of my resume hitting the black hole at lightening speed.  Me and everyone else.  Well, not everyone else but there are still so many of us. 

Recently, I applied for a job at the City of Santa Rosa and was invited to sit for the exam.  When I entered the lobby of the auditorium, there were many people there, checking their devices or looking nonchalant or trying to appear relaxed.  I dressed the part thinking it might boost my spirits.  I must say, it was a weird exam and I did alright.  However, as I did not score in the top five %, I did not get the interview.  I have been working on finding meaningful work for two years.  Whew, I almost had to buy a new suit.

Even more recently, I have applied for whatever seemed remotely interesting with the same deafening silence.  As there are two of us in our house looking for jobs, it is good to just vent about it with someone.  It does feel as if nothing is going to change but, like the Hummingbird, we must persist and try our best, sometimes hungry and a bit broken, and sometimes more neutral.

Just the same, to be a Hummingbird in winter means that each blossom holds the promise of a meal and each sunrise holds the hope of a job that can sustain us through the new year.

Christmas Is In The Air

Greyhound style...

The Cardinal At The Window

We are home now from our Thanksgiving trip to be with family in Austin, Texas.  Apparently the flight was smooth though I was comatose upright in seat 14C with my mouth hanging open.  Ah, my traveling companion Xanax.  Without a tranquilizer for air travel, I am a quaking, terrified mess.  With it, I am outta there yet capable of flying the unfriendly skies thanks to my understanding physician.  I am very grateful to her.

Home this morning in our northern California abode, I went outside with one of the Greyhounds to a cold backyard, clear blue skies and the wee hummingbird who sat on the bare branch of our patio tree. He was within three feet of us and I marveled at his squat self with a iridescent ruby throat.  Tiny, like me, here in my tiny, simple life, hanging onto a bare branch in winter, hoping for my next meal.

I was comparing that feeling of the miracle of this beautiful morning in the life I left seven days ago which needs a radical overhaul with the persistent pecking of the glorious, though mad, Cardinal who woke us every morning in Austin.  We would wake to the constant peck at the window of a red Cardinal at the window who is sure that his reflection is another bird there to do harm.  Such is the story line in my mind.  The Cardinal at the window. 

Though I am in great need of a job, a direction, decisions for my life, friends and change, I also can see that the pecking and fearful thoughts of my monkey mind are a reflection of my fears that I try to avoid.  Peace does not come at a hidden cost.  Peace is seeing the reflection of one's adversary and knowing that we are one in the same. Breathe, stay, breathe. 

No flying at the window is going to change what is.  The Cardinal at the window, this morning, is a great reminder that I can stay and breathe and still not know all the answers today.

Gearing Up For Pushback

We are getting ready to fly the unfriendly skies on Monday to Austin, TX to spend the holiday with family.We feel very fortunate to be invited and to be loved.  For the past several years, we both have felt that our local "spiritual community" has been so in name only.  We failed to be included in many gatherings where our peers gathered for food and frivolity with one another.  Somehow we did not make the A list, nor the B list.  Not cool enough or simply not spiritual in the right way enough.

In the past, we have trucked off to the coast to avoid naming our grief and to pretend we were not alone on the first of the holidays in winter.  We have, quite literally, been left alone here at the corner with the dogs and our version of a vegetarian dinner.  Yes, we could have invited the homeless over and pretended that our grief was another chance to do for others what was not done for us.  Underneath, there is always that loneliness however.  The adult children go off and find other families and our friends were not really friends it seems. 

This year, we threw caution to the wind and drained our savings of some moolah for very overpriced airline tickets to be near the people we love and who love us without reservation.  Wanted and loved, it is that simple.  To me, it is important to stop knocking on the doors that open to nothingness as much as doing something scary instead.  Flying is definitely scary for me.  Terrifying actually.

The dogs will have an excellent caretaker and they will be doing much of what they have been doing this week-sleeping.  They are wanted and loved and we are glad to do it for them as Greyhounds still need our help desperately. 

We shall get through the flight to Austin, find my wee sister waiting for us at the bottom of the escalator and join our family whom we want and love and share a holiday that hopes to be the first of a long line of traditions that stretch us and beckon us from our self imposed wasteland. 

Austin, here we come!

The Talisman Cometh

On Saturday, I drove the half hour or so to Penngrove where Valkyrie Tattoo lives and thrives in a wee pass through of a town between Hwy 101 and the rolling, (now) green hills of southern Sonoma County. http://valkyrietattoo.com/home.html An unusually organized and bright shop filled with the usual tattoo flash including skulls and dark images, there is a sophisticated interior replete with designer colors and framed art.  Their website is simple and yet clear.  The woman I travelled to see seemed the same.  Jen Untalan.

For me, an idea emerged as the anniversary of a very hard two years of life came upon the horizon.  A talisman of sorts in the guise of a small tattoo.  Something that would remind me of the strength of my struggles since leaving my professional career, not the disappointments, confusion and darkness.  Something that would mirror my values and my belief in a journey that continues to be pitted and very challenging.  I came up with this jewel of an idea as a heart-my heart-getting ready to pull up into the unknown with large wings. 

Although we see it in many places...Mini USA, Southwest Airlines and on, it spoke to me of a relentless tenacity that seems to be me, while acknowledging the difficulty of being present with pain.  Strength of character.  This is what I want to remember. Jen helped me do just that and it did not hurt that much and she exceeded my expectations which is not easy with me. 

So, thank you Jennifer Untalan of Valkyrie Tattoo in Penngrove, CA for translating my desire to create art from the depth of struggle.

Nine Months And An Early Morning Baby

After nine months of enduring heavy equipment grinding our streets to a pulp, rattling our houses, kicking up enormous clouds of dirt and grime, parking those behemoths in front or along our streets for entire weekends, yelling, spitting, portolet toilets as neighborhood fixtures, pipes, trucks and general lethargic work standards, the boys of summer showed up this morning at 6:15 AM on a Saturday in November, to begin paving our streets.  Nine months almost to the day. 

For me, just about any event is exciting because I do not have a job and well, I am very bored.  So, I hauled out of bed, started the tea and coffee and hurriedly moved our cars to the church parking lot.  I took a few photos, predawn as the circus began to assemble...

 

This is the piece of machinery that grinds the old road to bits and sends the crunched up asphalt into

the waiting dump trucks.

 

 

These are the dump trucks, lined up down Claremont out to Yulupa.  A steady stream, it was, as if, the circus had arrived overnight.

 

I must say that it has been a long haul and only half done, they will be back on Monday and Tuesday to grind the other half of Claremont and Colorado, lay new asphalt and hopefully end this relationship somewhere in the vicinity of the end of next week. 

 

They work hard and I am envious that they are employed.  It is a boy's world as there are no women heavy equipment operators nor nary a female truck driver.  They do as they please though it does appear to be coming to an end three months shy of a year of coupling.  They will  not repair our landscaping nor hose down our sidewalks.  An army of dirt, grime, testosterone and gusto will move onto someone's neighborhood for the next phase and another street's takeover.

Happy Halloween

Thinking of all of those spirits who have left this year with our first rainy Halloween in a few years.  May the veil between our two worlds create an easy trail for them to make a quick entry on this hallowed eve.  Peace be with us all.