Soft Days

We finally saw our first hummingbird last evening and were so happy to see him. We were relaxing on the back porch and the whirr of his wings made us both look up in delight. He didn’t stay long, but here was there, so we were content. Bluebelle did her part….I had her on hummingbird sentry duty all day and had ordered her to sing a song to coax them in.

Mrs. Orr got our taxes done, and I am reminded again of how gifted she is in so many ways, and how she takes so many burdens from my shoulders. A latent benefit of her doing the taxes instead of me doing them is that we have avoided incarceration, something increasingly difficult to do in this land in which we breathe.

The weather is supposed to be in the high seventies for the weekend, with rain on Sunday. If this holds, we will be living the porch life and relaxing to the sound of rain on metal while we read and daydream and talk our quiet talks.

I’m looking outside as I write this, and the green carpet of the front yard is scattered with robins, wood thrushes, bluejays, titmice, chickadees, mockingbirds, finches, and Carolina wrens. There is no one on earth who can convince me that these little creatures aren’t experiencing and displaying pure joy. I don’t for a second believe that they are creatures of mere instinct, responding to external stimuli and seeking only to eat and reproduce. I see joy in their movements, and I hear it in their songs, and I sense it in the very vibrations of the air. I am heedless of scorn from others who believe I sentimentalize the birds and the beasts. If I want to see unthinking creatures of pure instinct, I need look no further than a sports arena or a Walmart. The ones I see hopping on my grass in the warm sunshine beneath that electric blue sky are deliberate and joyful and aware. Thanks be to God for ’em all.

A friend and I were discussing this morning all the young people who are dying in our respective areas. He noted that on a recent stroll through his local graveyard, he was struck by the number of fresh graves, a situation unlike anything he’s seen before. I told him of my daily habit of reading the local obituaries, and how I’ve seen so many young folks — in their 50s, 40s, and even 30s, who are dying in this area. One wonders about how this situation will be publicly addressed, if ever. Surely the people who notice how many “likes” they get on social media are noticing that their cohort is being reaped at an alarming pace by the angel of Death.

I am grateful for these soft days, for all the things and people who make this earthly life bearable, and for sun-warmed books and cold beer and snoozing dogs and pickled jalapeno peppers and blossoms on trees and clean-smelling sheets — the flannel ones are now retired for the season — and for pencils and small notebooks. I love a lot of things.

~ S.K. Orr