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.