I sat in the garden a while ago, resting after a bit of strenuous maintenance. The first hint of my companion as I glanced down at the newspaper was a sharp ‘click, click” I looked up at a tiny hummingbird above me in the Pomelo tree, and watched with a sweet sense of bliss as she rested on a twig a couple of yards above me. Suddenly she descended and hovered within a couple of feet of my face checking me out. I gazed back. She darted away, and then back again to see if she has missed anything in her examination of the old codger. I was reminded of the words of an old hymn, peace be still, peace be still and was aware that such moments are too rare for me. Those words have a much stronger religious context than I mean, but for that moment they are so very pointed. I am not still or at peace enough as a greed for life consumes me. I sometimes joke that I am trying to live five lives in one body, but is not funny for others who are appropriated by me, albeit unconsciously, to attempt those extra lives! To those people, I am sorry. Art can be a possessive monster.
Things like the hummingbird happen to me quite often. I am sure that is true for others. Small though these incidents are, they help me hold to a sort of center. I am way too sensitive a person, (some would say a big baby) but I found myself weeping at the plight of tens of thousands of Burmese coming to realization of the catastrophe that has hit them with the recent cyclone. Were it not for interludes like the hummingbird, I fear my work, often seen as melancholy in the eyes of others, would reflect only despair. But the moments are plentiful that dictate living in the moment while extending our hearts and means to the millions who live in such misery.
Trevor
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