Of Lizards and Hummingbirds

Ray Bradbury had it right or write! What we can learn from the lizards and hummingbirds! I did not expect to find a quotation that included both those magical creatures but there, I would find it in the Zen in the Art of Writing. I had put off posting to this blog because nothing was coming to me...and then I sat on my deck soaking the sun up like a woman of twenty, rather than the crows footed forty-something I am. Two lizards caught my eye. One was in the midst of a color change, half brown, half green, as it went from geranium plant to terracotta pot. The other had already blended into our deck, grayish-brown. Both went from stock-still to zipping along in seconds depending on the potential meal of insects before them or imagined predators (me or the old orange tabby cat that thinks it has visiting rites on our deck). The hummingbird couple flitted in to check out the wave petunias, paused, and, finding them not as easy to raid as a sugar water feeder, dashed off to the neighbors. I said this morning to some friends, I have two chameleons in my head and need to get them out. Little did I know they were simply prompts to get me to the keyboard.

How many thoughts do we let drop by because we think they are unimportant? How many ideas do we lose due to distractions? How many moments of meditation slip by because we are not willing to freeze for a few minutes and observe? It is as important to move quickly as to move slowly. In our American society, we are often accused of one or the other. This I know, it is a balance of both whether we are writers, teachers, homebodies, or engineers.

Basking in Attentiveness

Visiting restaurants is usually a mixed bag experience for me. With allergies to wheat and corn and a limited budget, finding menu items I can eat and enjoy is a challenge. Money aside, I would rather spend top dollar for a gourmet meal than get by with a cheap one and suffer the consequences. However, it is more than fine and creatively prepared "safe" food that makes a dining experience memorable for me.

Three experiences, two recently and one within the last year, drove home to me the importance of developing the art of attentiveness, that ability to listen to another's needs and respond accordingly. The first was at St. Jacques in Raleigh where my husband and I enjoyed a wonderful meal to mark our anniversary. We enjoyed stellar preparations that reminded us of our time in Paris but what made it special was the waiter noticing I was left handed and changing my place setting (flatware, glasses, and all) to accommodate my south paw. As a leftie in a right-handed world, I was stunned. Since when do restaurants or their staff really take the time to look at who they are serving and their needs?

But attentiveness wasn't simply a by-product of visting a high-end establishment, as I discovered when I visited Chilis in Apex. The waiter had listened to my questions about the menu and my husband mentioned I had an allergy to corn. When my entree arrived without the requested side dish of rice and beans, I looked at the french fries before me and then at the waiter. He quickly explained he remembered my allergy, the dish was garnished with corn, and so he got me a substitute. Now I might have expected the previously mentioned professional to remember, but a harried college-aged kid in a franchise? Again, I was stunned.

My most recent experience at Piazza Italia in Durham was icing on the cake...or the gelato in this case. After downing the first italian entree I have been able to eat since discovering my limitations, I asked my waiter about the presence of corn sugars in the gelato flavors since they hide everywhere in bases, syrups, and other ingredients. I was then treated to a visit by the chef (the CHEF) who told me he looked into as many of their thirty flavors as he could to find which ones did not have any corn-based ingredients. Ah, pistachio was at the top of the list! But again, I was heard and time was taken to see to my needs.

Thinking about these three experiences has left me pretty humbled. In a world where we tend to rush on through and ignore the concerns of others, I have been reminded what a precious gift is attentiveness. We may not run establishments that depend on good service to make a go of it but we do run lives that are richer for being attuned to those around us. I am thankful to those three individuals for their lesson in listening and caring. Now to follow through on my end....

In the Cards

I design and make cards. I have done so for years but it wasn't until 2002 that I went beyond the "print off a card from the computer, sign and send". Up until then I would handwrite a meaningful message suitable for the occasion and the picture on the card would take secondary import. Heck, it wouldn't really have any import. Who am I kidding? Half the time, I just invested an hour and some cash in Hallmark anyway.

Until February 2o02, that is. I was slammed with a wicked case of the flu which left me and my immune system battered and bruised, to the point the doctors guessed I might have leukemia. They ultimately decided that it was an auto-immune reaction causing my overwhelming fatigue, bruising, and lack of brain functioning. I couldn't walk. Could hardly talk. Working was out of the question. Most frightening, I couldn't put coherent thoughts together nor could I tell colors anymore.

For a while, I didn't care but then my lack of finances interfered with congratulating friends on their birthday, sympathizing with family on losses, letting folks know I appreciated their care and concern. For some reason I was surfing and discovered three things that would sow the seeds of creation in my soul. I discovered Creative Papers on line which had scrap packs of paper of all colors and textures. It hit me that if I sorted the papers by color, with a little help from my husband, I could relearn the color spectrum.

I didn't get the paper for cards. I just had the paper for skill recovery. But what could I do with all that paper now that I had it? Cards. What else did I have? Time. I had never had extended time to sit and really dream and design before. Time to put prayer into the cards' creation, thought into the right words for the occasion. I had pastoral experience to know what NOT to say. Personal experience to know life throws stuff at you and the importance of hearing that others care. I realized as I surfed that quote sites like bartleby.com and quotegarden.com gave me the right words when I could not think of them on my own.

The right words, the right medium, and time....tools for creation I would have never discovered if it hadn't been for an illness stopping me in my tracks. "Manure for the flower garden". Beauty and caring out of suffering and ugliness. It was in the cards....

Found Time

Found Time "Don't drink the phosphosoda!" said the voice in the phone. That's how I found out my surgeon had broken her hand, thereby cancelling surgery (and required prep) I had anticipated for months, and making a mockery of the four weeks of totally blank Outlook Express calendar on my computer set aside for recovery. No projects. No appointments. No anything.

Even in my most laidback periods of life when I was not working a full-time position, there was always something to be done, to do, to explore. Hair appointments. Lunch with friends. Seminars and book readings. Hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks, now loomed. Hey, I had thought I was going to have my husband at my beck and call while I slept off anesthesia and healed cut muscles. Everyone had told me to make sure I took it easy. And I took their advice. Now look where their advice had gotten me. The Land of Panic, that is where I was and feared I would stay.

After two days in shock from disappointment and fear of what this all meant, I was desperately praying for divine guidance. Sitting on my back deck, staring at red geraniums and purple wave petunias, begging even them to give me a clue, it hit me. What if I didn't look at this time as some heaven sent intervention into my surgery schedule (even I don't believe God would break my doc's hand to keep me from going under the knife)? What if what this time was, was what it was - FOUND TIME. Time to let things bubble to the surface. Time to see what I would have missed if I had been lying flat on my back with a bell for calling my servant-spouse in one hand and a book in the other.

The trick would be not to manufacture things to do but let them just appear out of the universe. A warm visit with in-laws. My newlywed son and his wife's move into their first home or celebrating family friends who rejoiced in their 50th anniversary. Writing an unexpected magazine article asked for and due the week after my surgery date. Lunch with new friends and a day with an old one who came in from California unexpectedly. Silence on the deck watching the birds and bunnies. Strength to be the parent and spouse I needed to be right now. Playing with paper as I create my custom cards. Playing with words as I create this blog.

It has come to mind more than once that I should have been living my life this way from the start. Anticipating each day. Not working so hard to fill it. Enjoying the blank hours on my calendar and appreciating the Found Time.

Now I am off to see what bubbles up today....

Where is this leading?

You need a blog. You need to write. I have three and you don't even have one...what is up with that? Ah, the pressure. As one who used to write sermons and lessons on a regular basis weekly, and articles for magazines monthly, it might seem strange that I haven't picked up on the blog craze yet. Maybe it is because it just seems too presumptuous that folks would be interested in what I have to say. Maybe it is or maybe it is just an advanced way of sharing with others who are questioning the world around them, creating art, leaping into new adventures, trying to recover from difficult religious experiences, figuring out life after the kids move out and on with their lives and mostly wanting a reason to write on a regular basis.

What are my expectations of this blog? My sister Mary took the life experience option and turned it into a how-to for folks moving to New York City...find her at http://newbienyc.blogspot.com. Personal but more informational, a grand list of all things you need to know about NYC whether visiting or settling there. Here in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, I don't see myself having the grand adventures of my sister. We have food, art and "drama" but not to the celebrity scale that entertains folks on her site.

I am, as my blog states, a backyard hermit...someone who has struggled with the tension of being in communion with God in a solitary manner and still be a part of the world. I tend to see God in all things, ordinary and grand. I have a quirky, humorous eye for life (or so I have been told). Nature is my grand cathedral but the Christian radio station fills my car (when country or classical don't win out).

So we will just see where this is all leading...any subject suggestions for me to ponder, observations, encouragement is welcome.